The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Dec 2008
Interview
Phone screen with the recruiter was primarily around scheduling. Interview was the standard day long affair with a good hour and a half spent waiting in the lobby due to scheduling problems. I find that to be fairly tacky, I'd never allow it for my candidates, but that is how Microsoft does things.
Interviews were fairly easy, some design questions which are typically won by having a good stream of ideas and the ability to defend some of the ideas (I don't think most interviewers consider it a bad thing if you reject one of your own ideas).
Interviewers would sometimes throw random analytical problems at me as a response to something I'd said. For example, we were talking about ordering of search results and he asked out of the blue how many possible orderings there were of a list of n search results (hint: n!).
Microsoft interview feedback is all sent immediately upon completion of the interview so the following interviews sometimes touched on information in the previous ones (also: it is important to do well on the first few because their hire/no-hire suggestions will influence following interview results).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
design an experiment to optimize the quality of search results on a google-like search engine.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
1st round one interview thru phone with a principal program manager. 2nd round 5 loop interviews with 3 principal program managers, 1 senior program manager, and my hiring manager (partner)
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Sept 2022
Interview
I have been contacted by a recruiter, which seemed to be from a 3rd party company, in regards to my availability for a PM II role, for which I applied to 2 months back. The lady was very agitated and grave, underlying de urgency to fill in this role as quickly as possible. She connected me with the hiring manager via email on Thursday, so that we can schedule a screening interview.
And that was that. He didn't reply to my emails, he just sent a blunt invitation to interview almost a week later, on a Wednesday to invite me for a discussion in less than 24 hours - Thursday. I politely declined and rescheduled for next week, agreeing to a convenient hour for both of us on the coming Monday.
During the weekend, I receive another invitation, with an updated timeslot. I have asked if this was intentional, or by mistake, but no response from the hiring manager.
In the end, we had our discussion on Monday, and by Thursday I receive an email from Microsoft Global Talent Acquisition that the qualification requirements for the role have drastically changed and I am invited to re-apply. What can I say...I was not expecting this level of unprofessionalism.
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Houston, TX) in Sept 2022
Interview
Easy Interview. Most of the questions were experience related. A case question to understand level of knowledge. In total 5 rounds of interview. It took long for them to get back - almost 2 months.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Walk us through your resume 2. What made you apply to this role? 3. Time when you were unable to meet customer needs? 4. Challenges and roadblocks
