Shawn’s Thoughts

I was on a campus recruiting trip last week, and met with undergrads, grad students, and PhD candidates - almost all in the CS program.  In this day and age, it amazed me how the most expected questions seemed to cause the most anguish.  OK folks - here it is.  My list of questions for an initial interview with Microsoft….

1.  Tell me about yourself.  I know you’re nervous.  If you’re not nervous, you’re not taking this seriously, and that may be okay.

I’m trying to get you talking for two reasons.  First, you need to breathe - it helps you relax.  Second, I want to see how much prep time you put in for this interview.  How much did you think about how you can sell yourself?  How much time did you invest in the thousands of interviewing help books out there?

2.  Tell me about your favorite/most challenging project.  A friend from the old, old days at Microsoft used to ask candidates about a favorite hobby, and then tell them to convince her to take up that hobby.  I’m looking for a lot of things here, and this may be the only other question I ask during the interview.

• - what are you passionate about?  what lights you up?
• - how methodical are you?
• - how do you manage priorities?
• - how well do you work on a team?

I had one candidate jumping out of their chair as they were explaining why high-powered rockets are so unbelievably cool.  That’s what I’m looking for…  I don’t care if your favorite project had nothing to do with programming - we’ll get to that later if we need to.

3.  If you’re applying for a developer or tester role, or even a program manager role, and you list a language as an “expertise”, expect me to ask you about that language.  If you list C++, you better understand objects, and structures, and classes. and plan on having some fun with pointers.  This is one of those “show your work” areas - if you give me a short answer, be prepared to go deeper.  Convince me you really understand what you’re doing with these tools.

One of my favorite areas is memory management and leaks.  What causes leaks? How do you test for them?  How do you proactively prevent them?  Why use the heap?

I’m not going to ask about linked lists (I may change my mind).  My favorite answer to how you reverse a list was to call a List.Reverse method a friend wrote…B-).

I personally think logic questions are a waste of time.  The only thing I’ll learn from asking a logic question is how much time you spend searching for “developer interview questions” the night before.  They don’t tell me how much you know about the language you’ll be using to communicate.  When I was asked why manhole covers are round, my answer was because the mold was round.

4.  If you’re applying for a product mgr role, or you have an MBA, I’m going to ask your about Microsoft’s businesses.  You better read, and understand, our annual reports. 

5. Why do you want to work at Microsoft?  I know we hire great people.  I’ve hired some of the best.  I know you want to work with smart people - we all do.  I’m trying to find out how much work you’ve done analyzing Microsoft.  How do we stack up against the competition.  What concerns you about working here?

6.  Why should we hire you?  Guess what.  Every candidate I meet is a hard worker.  Please don’t use this line.  If you were a slacker, you’d be long gone from school by now. 

Think about it this way - what unique talents do you bring to the table?  When you’re buying a car, you’re looking for those one or two things about that car that speak to you.  Your job during this interview is to sell yourself.  Convince me to buy you.  Turn the question around in your head if you’re struggling - rather than think about what you can offer, think about what you think Microsoft needs to be successful going forward.

7.  What questions do you have for me? How motivated and interested are you in working for Microsoft.  You have the opportunity to see Microsoft from the inside out - please take advantage of it.  Don’t ask me how much I make.  Don’t ask how much you’ll make.  Do ask what I do.  Do ask what I like about my job.  Do ask about my experience during my first year.

The best advice I can give you - practice answering these and other questions *out loud*.  I found a great site that will help you with this - InterviewTrue.  I’ll write more about interviewing soon…