interview

August 1, 2014 interview

Future Proof Your Technical Interviewing Process: Hiring or Not

This is the last in a 4-part series on how to interview well. Parts 1-3 covered the phone screen, the technical interview and the fit interviews. In...

July 29, 2014 interview

Future Proof Your Technical Interviewing Process: The Fit Interviews

If you just found yourself here, you’ve stumbled onto a multi-part series on the technical interviewing process. Part 1 covered the phone screen and...

July 24, 2014 interview

Future Proof Your Technical Interviewing Process: The Technical Interview

It’s incredibly important to interview well as you’re building your technical team. Further, interviewing well is hard to do and, like anything, you...

July 21, 2014 spout interview

Future Proof Your Technical Interviewing Process: The Phone Screen

In 30 years, I’ve done a lot of interviewing from both sides of the table. Because of my chosen profession, my interviewing has been for technical...

July 18, 2014 interview

Head of Google interviewing says “results matter, riddles don’t”

Google, like Microsoft, is famous for asking brain-teaser style questions during their interviews. However, in a June, 2013 interview with the New...

June 18, 2010 interview

David Ramel Asks About Interviewing at Microsoft

David Ramel from 1105media.com is writing an article that includes the Microsoft interviewing process and he send me some questions: [David] How...

July 25, 2006 interview

Ed Helms on Microsoft Recruiting

This spoof on Microsoft’s college recruiting practices was recorded long ago (back with the XBox was new), but it has recently surfaced again, so...

November 23, 2005 interview

Wasting the Prince of Darkness

From “Pete” (not his real name): I walked into my first technical interview at Microsoft, and before I could say anything, the woman says, Youre...

September 6, 2005 interview

Stumped

Tue, 9/6/05, 2:29 pm...

February 22, 2005 interview

Scott Hanselman’s Great .NET Developer Questions

Scott Hanselman has posted a set of questions that he thinks “great” .NET developers should be able to answer in an interview. He even splits it...

January 21, 2005 interview

Jason Olson’s Microsoft Interview Advice

Jason Olson recently interviewed for an SDE/T position (Software Development Engineer in Test) at Microsoft and although he didn’t get it, he...

August 22, 2004 interview

Standing Out When Submitting Your Resume

After seeing all of those pictures in Wired of the wacky letters that people send, I love the idea of Michael Swanson opening the floodgates by...

August 20, 2004 interview

Some of the MS Interview Process Filmed (Finally!)

Channel9 did what I was unable to ever get done: filmed some of the interview process (part 1, part 2 and part 3). It’s not an actual...

July 20, 2004 interview

Questions for Testers

A friend of mine sent along some questions he was asked for a SDE/T position at Microsoft (Software Design Engineer in Test): “How would you...

July 6, 2004 interview

What do job interviews really tell us?

For the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell discusses various indicators of how well interviews actually work for screening job candidates (in a phrase:...

July 6, 2004 interview

“Interviews are practically worthless for screening candidates.”

Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, discusses his thoughts on interviewing, include: “In an interview you can tell if a person is a...

March 19, 2004 interview

HR Bloggers

I’ve heard for years that MS HR uses my site as part of their internal HR training, although I’ve never heard it from the HR folks themselves....

February 6, 2004 interview

Interviewing for MS Interns

Shawn Morrissey (my boss) posted some questions he asked at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business: Explain a database to a young child. Explain the...

January 10, 2004 interview

Interviewing at Lego

Sat 1/10/2004 10:12 am Jamie, a contender for a Master Builder spot at Lego, describes a very different interview process than you’re likely to get...

August 13, 2003 interview

Robert Scoble on Interviewing at Microsoft

Robert Scoble (the Scobleizer) sent along his answer to a common question: What is it like to interview at Microsoft? About dress code while...

July 28, 2003 interview

Microsoft Plays Hiring Hardball

Here“XML“...

May 29, 2003 interview

How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

Thu, May 29, 2003 If you’re interested in a book about the high-tech interview process, including lots of info about MS specifically (and some...

April 22, 2003 interview

My Dad’s All Set to Work At Microsoft

Tue, Apr 22, 2003 My Dad, a long-time draftsman in a civil engineering firm in Fargo, ND, had this to say about manhole covers: “It’s like this....

April 21, 2003 interview

The Human Side of Microsoft

For more than a year, I’ve had a request to video tape an interview at Microsoft up on this page. The goal was to show the human side of Microsoft...

April 20, 2003 interview

If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft

Interviewer: Now comes the part of the interview where we ask a question to test your creative thinking ability. Don’t think too hard about it, just...

April 20, 2003 interview

Interview Synopsis

From Fred (not his real name): So the interview was rough, as to be expected. Here is a synopsis:10:15-10:45 - Met with my recruiter. Discussed...

April 19, 2003 interview

My Interview At Microsoft

an interesting two days interviewing at Microsoft...

April 18, 2003 interview

My Interview

Fri, Apr 18, 2003 After never thinking that I would, I had two days of interviews at Microsoft in the middle of March, 2003. The first day was with...

February 24, 2003 interview

How to Interview a Programmer

Here...

April 4, 2002 interview

Feeding the Engine

Adam Barr, 4/4/2002 On October 26, 1999, it was announced that Microsoft would be one of the four new components in the 30 stocks that make up the...

February 19, 2002 interview

Tough Interview

Chris Sells, 2/19/2002 I woke up this morning with a splitting headache. Just before I woke, I was dreaming that I was interviewing at Microsoft....

February 18, 2002 interview

More Reaction from Microsoft

2/18/2002I’ve heard from several of my friends at Microsoft (and yes, I do have some…), that Microsoft is not such a terrible place to work, but...

February 18, 2002 interview

Smart is Not Enough

2/18/2002Here’s a recent Fortune magazine article about the MS interview process and the culture. Scary…...

February 18, 2002 interview

Reaction from Microsoft

2/18/2002 Here’s a quote from an anonymous source: “I was given your page address from a friend who happens to work at Microsoft and does...

February 17, 2002 interview

Contacting Microsoft

2/17/2002If you’d like to beg Bill directly for a job, his email is billg@microsoft.com. If you’d actually like an answer some day, send your...

February 16, 2002 interview

Microsoft Interview Questions

2/16/2002 The questions tend to follow some basic themes: Riddles Algorithms...

February 15, 2002 interview

I Don’t Provide The Answers

I’ve have several people ask for the right answers the these questions but I just can’t bring myself to publish them. It seems just too...