招聘成功的人才
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KEY MESSAGE: introduction
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Self introduction
how long has been in Microsoft
what’s current job function/expertise
other background info (such as graduated school in China)
Slide Transition
Why?
为什麽讲这个题目？
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KEY MESSAGE: why do we want to talk about this topic?
Introduce the topic:
People always ask this question: why is Microsoft so successful? Why is it the best/biggest software company in the world in a short 25 years business? Without doubt, Microsoft has attracted and kept the most talented people in the world in developing software. Everyone knows that in High Tech specifically software industry, people is the most valuable asset, which is the key element to make a successful software company.
Then people ask again, why is Microsoft able to find the most talented people? The answer will be revealed in today’s the presentation – it’s due to the redefined Microsoft hiring process and policy.
I have been in manager position for several years and been involved personally in the process end to end. In today’s presentation, I will like to share some highlights of Microsoft hiring process with my personal experience.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
So what’s special about Microsoft hiring process?
微软聘用的独到之处
面试更看重必备的竞争条件（多于工作经验长短）
非常严谨而规范的面试过程。不存在例外，包括内部人员流动。
筛选及面试的淘汰百分比很高 - 宁缺勿滥.
注重培养实习生。实习经验及表现在正式聘用中起一定作用。
内部人员流动更注重目前工作表现，级别及评语
聘用部门而不是人事部门作最后决定。
并不保证所有的合格候选人被聘用（取决于名额）
高科技企业中较难也是最长的面试过程。
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KEY MESSAGE: special about MS hiring
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Focus on competency more than experience (such as number of years working experience). I will explain the competencies later on.
Very formalized and strict hiring process. No exceptions including internal transfer.
Very few candidates pass resume scanning/informal interview/interview process. We would rather leave the position open than hiring someone that is not fully qualified.
Invest in interns to make them good candidates for full time when they graduate (why? Because trainable interns are “white papers” and you can draw your own pictures from scratch.). Performance and feedback on the interns play a big role in hiring.
Besides regular interview process, performance review, job level, and feedback from previous managers also play a role in making hiring decision for internal transfers. This is to avoid candidates that can do good in interviews but cannot make commitments in real job.
Hiring decision is made by hiring manager, not by human resource
Not all qualified candidates can be hired, subject to headcount.
Very difficult and relative long interview process.
Talk about my own interview process (difficulty, length)
SLIDE TRANSITION:
In the rest of this session, we will drill down into details of Microsoft hiring process to show what do I mean here. Let’s talk about today’s agenda first.
日程
招聘目标 （Goals)
招聘过程 （Process)
竞争条件及必备条件 (Competency)
面试与决策 (Interview)
如何招揽并留住人才(Keep talented people)
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover.
SLIDE SCRIPT:
In this session, you will see some of the key hiring procedures. In specific, we’ll be looking at goals, process, Microsoft competency, interview process and a couple of interview examples. We’ll also look at how you can make good hire/no decision and how to attract/keep good people.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
So what is our goals?
招聘目标
聪明 (BillG)
能够迅速创造性地理解和着手解决复杂问题
要锋利, 并能够及时吸收和消化新事务
在任何情况下, 当有人向你解释当时状况时，能立刻建议说：这样做怎么样？
能够问有深度的，透彻的问题。
能够实时地吸收和消化信息
记忆力强
能够把似乎不相关的领域的事物联系起来
富有创造性，使工作有高效率
勤奋，合作，适应性和灵活性强
特殊技能
技术热情
着眼大局（有利于全公司）
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KEY MESSAGE:
The vision: Microsoft wants to hire smart, hardworking people with passion for new technology/products and good communication skills.
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Setting up a goal is very important for a successful hiring process. This is the key to make sure that everyone involved in the hiring process have a common goal to make consistent decisions and use consistent standards. This applies to all divisions including product team, support team, or other job families. The summarized goals are:
Smart (Intellectual horsepower) – people who learn fast, sharp, good memory, and creative
Diligent and Teamwork – people who work hard and communicates/negotiates (mediates) sound solution in business; people who are flexible.
Job function skills – people who are experienced/specialized in job functions (coding, designing, etc)
Passion for Technology and Product – people who loves is proud of what he does and seeks out challenges of creating great products.
Hiring for company, rather than for a particular job.
SLIDE TRANSITION:
With the goals in mind, we will look at some details in Microsoft Interview process and how are these goals enforced in the interview process.
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
实例：
Authorization Manager 项目
中型长期项目，受限于 日期
1 项目经理, 2 设计人员 (高级, 初级), 1 测试
Hotfix Manager 项目
小型短期项目，Web发布，要求快
.5 项目经理, 1 设计人员, 1 测试
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
1. Identify resource need:
Any project or job function must have a responsible party who will manage/execute plans to success. For example, for product team, a project must have one or more PM owner, dev owner, and test owner. So when a product/component is funded, the first thing to look at is the number of resources needed (based on experience and timeline). Based on the situation, appropriate resources or budgets need to be allocated.
Examples:
Authorization Manager Project:
medium size (type and number of objects to manage and bigger areas of functionalities to implement)
part of product so it’s long term project and must be shipped with milestones.
therefore, we decide to allocate 1 PM, 2 SDEs and 1 STE for the project.
Please note that resource allocation will be justified from time to time if initial estimate is not accurate or things change over time.
Hotfix Manager project:
a tool that is shipped via Web download that works for and Windows 2000
must be shipped timely (., 6 months), feature set is small
therefore .5 PM, 1 SDE, and 1 STE are allocated. We also decided to use a contract to help out UI initially
As you can see, resource allocation really depends on each individual project plan and justification.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Hiring process
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
描述工作性质和必需条件
实例：
The Software Design Engineer will be a team member on the Authorization Manager project, leading design/implementation of the Authorization Manager engine. Authorization Manager implements a role based access control model, which allows applications to control user access based on role information defined via policy. The person holding this position will own the dual interfaces to the engine, XML policy store management, business rule evaluation , access check functionality of the engine, and be involved in design of the next generation Authorization Manager. Candidates should have solid background in C/C++, COM, XML, WIN32, and good design and leadership experience for medium-sized projects. The candidate should have 5 years related working experience and ideally also have knowledge on Windows security in general. The Hiring Manager for this job requests that candidates be at least level 62 to be considered for this job.
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
2. Describe job description:
Once resources are determined, project managers will define clear job descriptions/profile. This step helps you describe the target position in terms of the competencies (discuss later), knowledge and skills most important to successful performance, and the proficiency level required for each.
For the senior SDE example used in the previous slide, the following job description is defined for the senior SDE of Authorization Manager project, and the SDE for hotfix manager project. We will break it down into details in the next few slides
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process – example job description
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
描述工作性质和必需条件
实例：
The Software Design Engineer will be a team member on the Authorization Manager project, leading design/implementation of the Authorization Manager engine. Authorization Manager implements a role based access control model, which allows applications to control user access based on role information defined via policy. The person holding this position will own the dual interfaces to the engine, XML policy store management, business rule evaluation , access check functionality of the engine, and be involved in design of the next generation Authorization Manager. Candidates should have solid background in C/C++, COM, XML, WIN32, and good design and leadership experience for medium-sized projects. The candidate should have 5 years related working experience and ideally also have knowledge on Windows security in general. The Hiring Manager for this job requests that candidates be at least level 62 to be considered for this job.
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
First, briefly describe the projects for the position
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process – example job description
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
描述工作性质和必需条件
实例：
The Software Design Engineer will be a team member on the Authorization Manager project, leading design/implementation of the Authorization Manager engine. Authorization Manager implements a role based access control model, which allows applications to control user access based on role information defined via policy. The person holding this position will own the dual interfaces to the engine, XML policy store management, business rule evaluation , access check functionality of the engine, and be involved in design of the next generation Authorization Manager. Candidates should have solid background in C/C++, COM, XML, WIN32, and good design and leadership experience for medium-sized projects. The candidate should have 5 years related working experience and ideally also have knowledge on Windows security in general. The Hiring Manager for this job requests that candidates be at least level 62 to be considered for this job.
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Second, clarify position responsibilities. Here you are describing the major responsibilities in this position. These should be broad statements of accountability that describe the business reason, or need for the position. They are based on the business purpose and function, not on the employee in this position.
a. Write 5 to 7 responsibility statements which are outcome-oriented, indicate the breadth and scope of the responsibility, whether it is management or oversight, and the level of autonomy.
b. Determine the key interdependencies and partnerships of the position
Select the most important general competencies – this can be described in the job description or side noted for interviewers. Then identify the proficiency levels required for the general competencies (level 1 -4 )
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
描述工作性质和必需条件
实例：
The Software Design Engineer will be a team member on the Authorization Manager project, leading design/implementation of the Authorization Manager engine. Authorization Manager implements a role based access control model, which allows applications to control user access based on role information defined via policy. The person holding this position will own the dual interfaces to the engine, XML policy store management, business rule evaluation , access check functionality of the engine, and be involved in design of the next generation Authorization Manager. Candidates should have solid background in C/C++, COM, XML, WIN32, and good design and leadership experience for medium-sized projects. The candidate should have 5 years related working experience and ideally also have knowledge on Windows security in general. The Hiring Manager for this job requests that candidates be at least level 62 to be considered for this job.
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Last select the most important functional/technical knowledge/skills and expertise needed for the position. Also identify the proficiency levels required for the functional/technical knowledge/skills and expertise.
For Microsoft internal posting, we also add minimum internal job level to the requirement, to make internal transfer easier.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process
招聘过程
确定人才资源需求
描述工作性质和必需条件
发布工作位置空缺信息
收集筛选简历集区
员工推荐，公司网站，内部空缺信息，合同公司
建立面试循环小组 – 确定协调人
面试准备
面试
提供面试决策
跟踪
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
3. Post job opening - Once a job description is defined and resources are approved (req #), job openings will be posted or advertised internally and externally. The most common place for the posting is Microsoft career web site.
4. Collecting resume pool - Resumes/referrals are collected for a given period time. resumes are scanned by hiring managers directly or by recruiting team. Resumes usually come from several sources: employee referral, web site, internal posting, agency
After initial scan, if there is anyone looking fit or almost fit, hiring manager or recruiter will contact the candidate (via phone or informational chat) to get more information about the candidate to decide if a formal interview is necessary.
5. Interview loop - Hiring manager/recruiter will find appropriate interviewers to form an interview loop
involving in interview process is every employee’s responsibility so no one would reject an interview request unless there is a conflict.
Depends on the job level required, there are usually 3-7 interviewers in the loop with one person as the coordinator.
The interview loop should have at least one person covering each core competency and several people covering job function skills. Usually interviewers must be in higher level than the position.
For example, the interview loop I will make for my SDE senior position is 2 senior PMs, 4 senior devs, 1 hiring manager,
6. Prepare for interview - Each interviewer will prepare a set of interview questions to test the competencies and/or job function skills (such as coding skill, spec skill, communication). Most interviewers in Microsoft have their own classic questions that are used to test all candidates at the same level so that a good comparison between candidates can also be judged in addition to comparison with core competencies.
7. Formal interview - Test the candidates and make hire/no hire feedback/decision (at the same day). Will break down into detail later.
8. Extend offer - If all or most of interviewers make “hire” decision and hiring manager makes final decision to hire, recruiter will work with hiring manager to make an offer and present the offer to the candidate.
9. Hiring followup - After the candidate accepts the offer and agrees on a start date, hiring manager will contact the candidate and keep in touch.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
agenda
日程
招聘目标 （Goals)
招聘过程 （Process)
竞争条件及必备条件 (Competency)
面试与决策 (Interview)
如何招揽并留住人才(Keep talented people)
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Now we have gone through hiring process in high level, you can see that a lot of steps in the process requiring decision making, such as creating job description, creating interview loop, define interview strategy. What do we base on when making decisions? The answer is: Microsoft Competency!
We will talk briefly about the competencies in the next slides.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Core Competency
招聘标准：必备条件
解决问题能力
创造力
模糊问题决策能力
沟通能力
驱动能力
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KEY MESSAGE: Core Competency
SLIDE SCRIPT:
There are five Core Competencies shared by successful Microsoft employees. These Core Competencies are fundamental skills, attributes and behaviors which will help you achieve results in our fast paced business climate, adapt to a changing environment and enjoy the challenges you will face every day.
Problem solving - Gathers and analyzes information and uses it to develop effective solutions to difficult problems or situations
Creativity - Develops original ideas, approaches, and solutions to typical, unusual, or difficult situations or problems
Dealing with Ambiguity - Work effectively in situations involving uncertainty or lack of information, and responds flexibly to change
Communication Skills - Writes, speaks, and presents information effectively and persuasively across communication settings
Driving for Results - Continually focuses on achieving positive, concrete results contributing to Microsoft’s business success.
SLIDE TRANSITION:
competencies
招聘标准：部门合作
团队精神
沟通
冲突协商
听取意见
人际关系
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Other competencies are also count, with different priorities/importance depending on different jobs.
TeamWork:
Building team sprits – develops and maintains productive, effective, hight morale teams
core competency: communication skills
Negotiation and Conflict management – negotiates or mediates sound agreements in business or organizational situations where there is disagreement or differences in interests.
Open Communications – engages others in active, open, and productive dialogue
Interpersonal skills – develops and maintains good working relationships with others
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
招聘标准：个人素质
自我开发
自信
真实可信
镇静
模糊决策
创造力
勇气
身体力行
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Individual Excellence:
self development – actively seeks to understand his/her own strengths and weaknesses, and works continuously to improve
self confidence – feels successful in past undertakings and expects to succeed in future activities.
intellectual horsepower – is bright, intellectually sharp, and learns quickly
integrity and trustworthiness – behaves according to hight ethical business principles and values
composure – maintains a constructive and composed focus in facing and overcoming tough situations
core competency: dealing with ambiguity
core competency: creativity
conviction and courage – shows a strong sense of certainty and stands firm when appropriate, take difficult tasks
action oriented – pursues work with energy, drive, and a strong accomplishment orientation
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
招聘标准：工作能力
决策力
驱动力
工作表现
计划组织及协调力
解决问题能力
管理能力
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
decision making – makes timely, practical, and cost=effective decisions, and facilitates others in doing so
core competency: driving for results
performance management – sets clear goals for self or others; assigns responsibility; measures performance; and seeks and delivers feedback to achieve quality, timely results
planning, organizing, and coordinating – efficiently develops and implements plans to accomplish goals
core competency: problem solving skills
managing systems and processes – effectively uses systems and processes to measure, monitor, manage, or impact performance
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
招聘标准：技术知识
技术热情
对技术的热情及执著
创新力
知识和技能
取决于个别工作性质和要求
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KEY MESSAGE: competencies
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Passion for Products and Technology:
technical passion and drive – seeks out and becomes immersed in the challenge of creating great software products
innovation management – thrives on leading groups to advance technology and products
Functional/Technical knowledge/skills:
depends on individual job – explain in more detail later
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
competency
招聘标准：其他
长期发展
领导力
公司决策力
培养他人能力
客户至上
客户意见
代表公司整体
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KEY MESSAGE: competencies
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Longterm approach:
strategic leadership – creates a shared purpose, vision, or direction for his/her group or organization, and inspires others to work toward it.
strategic thinking – understands the business, and anticipates and develops business priorities for future action.
developing people – provides job-relevant learning, developmental experiences, and feedback to enhance individual performance.
Customer Feedback:
customer focus - investigates and takes action to meet customers’ current and future needs.
representing microsoft - projects a positive and professional image of Microsoft in all products.
These are all the competencies that count, some of them are more important for some job functions. The hiring manager determines which ones are more important for his/her job. These competencies will be applied later in my real experience interview examples.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
agenda
日程
招聘目标 （Goals)
招聘过程 （Process)
竞争条件及必备条件 (Competency)
面试与决策 (Interview)
如何招揽并留住人才(Keep talented people)
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next.
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Next we will get into the core of this session – interview and make decision.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Prepare for Interview
微软技术职务分类
项目经理 (PM)
非管理职务
软件设计工程师 (SDE)
软件设计工程师/测试 （操作系统部门）(SDE/T)
软件测试工程师 (STE)
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Before we moving on to detail in this process, I need to explain technical job category in Microsoft because I will focus on technical job interviews today
Most Program Manager “owns” product features but not people working on the features. In other words, they are not management jobs. Some program managers lead other program managers in management role.
SDE - very clear, they are the engineers who design/write software. SDET is a special job category for operating systems who writes code to test code. So they are in the developer category with different job responsibilities.
STE –
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
I will get into a little detail of these jobs in job requirements
项目经理工作特性
管理产品中的某些功能。
具有组织领导才能，并对产品有很强的所有感。
对产品设计有强烈兴趣，对技术问题能透彻理解。
能对复杂的任务紧密跟踪，并设定轻重缓急。
利用各种渠道和方法来沟通解决问题。
有能力做出适当的取舍。
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KEY MESSAGE: PM
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Program Manager – manage project functions/features and general availability.
PMs should have the following characteristics: explain the slides
For example, my group PM, hard work (mid night), always thinking of problems and solutions, technically knowledgable, tradeoff and defind, almost everyone knows him
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
SDE
软件设计工程师工作特性
有扎实编程基础，能写坚实, 有逻辑和高质量的程序。
能设计并实现功能块和应用程序接口
思考模式: 有条理, 结构化, 或有创造性
高级设计工程师应具有PM的某些特性：
部门间沟通，组织领导决策力
系统设计能力，复杂问题解决能力
对复杂的项目紧密跟踪，能做出适当的取舍。
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KEY MESSAGE: SDE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Explain slides
For example, a senior developer in our group (Cliff) – very technically knowledgable, very good and clear mind in design, bug free code, thinking of problems, knows solutions, make project decisions.
If reorganize team, everyone wants him.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
STE
软件测试工程师工作特性
从不同角度看问题，永远持怀疑态度
以用户身份测试产品
俯视总体设计并制定测试方案
很快学会新任务所需要的知识
能找出边角问题及负面问题
在OS部门，需要编写程序来测试产品。 有很好的写/读原码的能力，能从中找到攻击弱点和错误
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KEY MESSAGE: STE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Software Test Engineer – test and measure product quality (by using the product or writing test code). The key characteristics:
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Prepare for interview
准备面试
面试人必须参加培训
清楚面试过程及一般要求
清楚基本劳工法
清楚不能问的问题
身份，年龄
身体状况
婚姻状况
宗教信仰
政治敏感问题
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Interviews must attend a training class in Microsoft to understand the basic legal concerns – mostly descrimination. As part of the process, all feedback are required to be in written format with clear reason for the decision.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Prepare for interview
准备面试
清楚面试策略及回馈要求
理解工作的必备条件
工作级别，性质，及最低要求
审阅简历
准备具体面试问题
技术和问题求解
具体情况分析
试探, 启发式问题
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
A good successful interview must be prepared, for both interviewers and candidates. So what should we, as interviewers, prepare before the interview?
The coordinator should clarify your interview strategy/competency requirement and what kind of feedback you expect from your interview team. This will help interviewers target their interview questions. In Microsoft, all interviewers must send feedback along with hire/no hire decision, recommended job level, and strength/weakness analysis to all people in the interview loop. Depends on the job description, different strategies may be applied.
should have the job description (with minimum requirement) and candidate’s resume before the interview, and understand the project vision/goal.
should read details in the resume and prepare questions for past experience or skill sets. The questions could include details for previous project design, technologies and poking on areas that are not clear. This will help to know if he/she really understands the technology and how much he/she has been involved in the previous projects.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
depends on individual jobs, questions may vary to different focuses. I will use product team jobs (PM/SDE/STE) and provide some interview sample questions in the next few slides.
PM面试问题实例：
讲述以前做过项目的系统结构，设计及技术要点。
具体怎麽做的，为什麽？为什麽不这样做？
指出设计漏洞，如何补救？
如果需要裁减，你要裁哪部分？为什麽？
设计一个项目模块
明确模块功能 – 输入输出
结合变化参量（平台，用户，模式，网络，等）
技术认定，为什麽
基本技术概念 – 影响决策
Tree, link list, COM, RPC, …
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KEY MESSAGE: PM Interview question samples
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s look at some of the sample interview questions for PM position:
Describe a project listed on his resume for infrastructure design, and key implementation
Make sure he understands the project details (he really designs it) and he can clearly efficiently communicate his ideas, and he has made clear trade offs on different approaches and defends himself.
Find out design holes in his project and ask him to redesign that portion (in 15 minutes)
For prioritizing, does he really set the right priorities?
Design a small app
clarify functions (in & out)
where it can be used and who can use it?
which
Understand computer science concept – binary tree, link list, COM, RPC, storage, etc.
In a few slides after, I will give an example of a project for these questions.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Prepare interview for SDE
SDE/SDET面试问题实例：
设计并实现一个16位对齐的存储管理器
存储指针运算
连接链及树的各种运算
遍历，加减节点，排序，存储
数码操作
反转32位数，数设一的bit，x & (x-1)
智力题
在3x3格中找数
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview question samples for SDE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Key points:
Clarify questions before start
Basic understanding about pointers, bits, trees, lists
Consider variations
Need think through but also need work (stop designing, go coding)
Multiple solutions - optimize, no solutions
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
SDE/T, STE questions
SDET/STE面试问题实例：
SDE/T
实现连接链加节点的功能，并写程序测试（白盒子方法）
给你一个接口(function)来读文档，你如何测试（黑盒子方法）？
STE
如何测试Notepad
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview samples for SDET/STE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Now we have prepared questions for the interview, next step is to conduct the formal interview.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
break
执行面试
第一人和最后一人很重要
每人大约一小时面试
简介
80/20 原则 - 寻求具体确定答案
根据需要改变面试问题
测试尚未测试或者弱的方面
识别适合其他工作的强项
成长力，驱动和决策力，其他工作能力
招聘总经理最后面试
确认并作决定
推销 - 机会，新技术，工作伙伴
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
The first person will affect decision making in some way (impression) and the last person will be the general manager making decisions.
Each interviewer will have 1 hour to conduct the interview, plus 5 minutes to write up feedback. For each interview, the process typically goes as:
Spend 5 minutes to introduce division, project, and interviewer’s role
Follow the 80/20 rule – 80% time listen, 20% time ask questions, because you can only know more about the candidate by listening to his answers. Always poke for detail and concrete answers. Use the competency. Listen carefully to the candidate’s response to the situation-based questions and probes; interviewers should be able to get a fairly good idea of the candidate’s proficiency level on a competency and required skills.
All interviewers should modify their questions after carefully reading the feedback from previous interviewers. Each interviewer should look for the gaps in the feedback and adjust their questions accordingly by:
Maybe the candidate isn't ideal for the position being offered, but could be right for other openings. Give all candidates time to fully talk about their strengths. You may find that they have skills in other areas. For example, if a candidate interviews for a SDE but we find out that he fits better for a PM, we would recommend a PM interview.
Hiring Manager (AA) will conduct final interview, may not be technical interview, to confirm the hiring decisions and to sell your job/division.
Make sure that person knows about:
Growth opportunities on the team
The cool technology the team will be working on.
The benefits of having such a diverse range of products, tools, and people to work with.
Why you find Microsoft a great place to work.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
My interview experience
我个人的面试经历
8 位面试人 （总计9小时 早9点-晚6点），2 PMs，5 SDEs，1 招聘经理
PM主要讨论我做过的项目（网络安全管理），找漏洞，
SDE 测试设计及在黑板上直接写程序
Hashing, FIFO tree
Memory manager
Link list
Binary tree
OLE
*
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision
SLIDE SCRIPT:
After interview, the recruiter called me that night when I felt very depressed. She told me that I was hired and my level was low 11 (middle). At that time I didn’t quite understand what the level means and how I was put in the level. After staying in Microsoft for so many years and involved in the hiring process, I think I knew why I was put on the level. So how do we make hiring decision?
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Making decision
如何决策面试结果
满足必备条件, 具备重点竞争条件
据有和工作相关的技能
毕业生 – 聪明，基本功，可培养
有很强经验的 – 更侧重技能和经验
大多数决策相同，招聘经理最后决定
3-4人面试要全部通过
5-8人面试不能2人以上说不
多样化 (diversity)
少数
不同文化背景
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision
SLIDE SCRIPT:
The "Hire" or "No Hire" recommendation should be based on an evaluation of the candidate's proficiency in key Microsoft Competency as we discussed earlier.
It is also based on functional/technical Knowledge/Skills with different focus
Fostering Diversity – minority, different culture, different style, etc. More than 20% of the employees are foreigners. 15% are women.
All interviewers (or majority of them) must make hire decision before the hiring manager makes the final decision. If there are 40% or more interviewers with “no hire” or hesitate decision, the deal is off.
In the next a few slides, I will give some examples of questions and how do I make hire/no hire decisions.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
examples
面试决策实例 1 (SDE)
写一个C算法在一个单向连接链中找到从链尾数的第N个节点
问清楚要求（比如节点结构，返回类型）
快速（5-7 分钟）写出程序
改进算法
清楚解释思路，自己找出“bug”
测试以下知识：
基础（C,接口定义，连接链，指针）
目标明确，思路，性能，沟通能力
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KEY MESSAGE: Making decision #1
All SDEs must pass this bisic test
SLIDE SCRIPT:
#2
面试决策实例1－续
程序演示
一般算法
最优算法
*
*
KEY MESSAGE:
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s take a look at the real code for a simple solution and optimized solution
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #2
面试决策实例2 （SDE）
反转32位数 （N，例如10111001）
测试“位”的概念
测试是否有算法速度概念(Big O)
方法1 - O(n)
交换第32位与第1位…总计16步
方法2 – 常数 - 搜寻表方式
方法3 – O(logN)
交换相邻位，然后交换相邻两位，四位…直到16位
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KEY MESSAGE: make decision #2
SLIDE SCRIPT:
All SDEs must give the O(n)
The constant method is not recommended since it consumes big memory for the lookup table of all possible combinations
O(LogN) is preferred which shows bitmask knowledge
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #3
面试决策实例 3 (SDE)：
实现一个16位对齐的存储管理接口
问清楚要求（16位对齐?，接口要求?，可否用标准库?）
能定义并实现接口
（中高级）能设计虚拟存储管理包括ＧＣ
清楚解释思路
如何处理压力
测试以下知识：
指针，存储地址，位
思路，沟通能力
问题分析，适当决策
*
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision example #3
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Depends on the candidate level, this question can be made very difficult or easier. For senior, I can require design the virtual memory manager (heap) including garbage collection. For junior, he may use standard C library (such as alloc and free) to support this task.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #4
面试决策实例 3－续
程序演示
存储管理设计思路
占用和空的位置，大小
认证释放位置
集合零散释放位置
对齐以保证快速存储
*
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision #３
SLIDE SCRIPT:
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #４
面试问题实例４（TEST）：
如何测试一个给定的读文件接口
输入输出参数变化测试
文件格式（text,binary,unicode,DBCS)
不同运行环境用户测试
应力测试，稳定性，高性能测试
测试Notepad
菜单，输入，显示
多个用户，同时或分时
多种国家语言
本地/远程
*
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview samples for SDET/STE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s take a look of two testing questions, one for SDE/T, one for STE.
SDET also writes code which can be tested with simple SDE questions.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Making decision #5
面试决策实例 ５（PM）：
也适用于高级SDE
应征人带头设计了一个网络管理项目。其中一个模块负责在网络上传送数据。这个模块直接用winsock实现。
为什麽自己实现Transport层？为什麽不用RPC?
你们的方法安全吗？有什麽办法改进？
数据格式怎麽确定(XML,text)？
如何解决不同版本之间的通讯？
*
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision #5
SLIDE SCRIPT:
First question, make sure there was research/investigation and trade off decision was made. Also make sure he understands related technology
Second question, test his knowledge and attitude on security
Third question, test his knowledge on data format which is related to compatibility, and persist layer
Forth question, compatibility test on different version (machines)
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
summary
面试决策总结
多人参与面试及决策
试题反应所需技能的侧重点
围绕必备条件
试题有不同层次对不同级别的人
试题有比较性
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KEY MESSAGE: summary
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s move on to the last step of interview process - followup
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Follow up
面试结果跟踪
通知招聘部门
跟踪录用通知状态
和录用者保持联络
祝贺
讨论预备材料
*
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KEY MESSAGE: candidate followup
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Don't assume the job offer is a done deal:
After the offer is presented, ask the recruiter if you should make another sales pitch.
Keep in contact with the recruiter on a weekly basis until the candidate accepts the offer.
After the offer is accepted, make sure you and the direct lead congratulate the successful candidate.
Start a discussion about what the candidate could learn before she starts work.
At least once a month before starting the job, send the successful candidate an e-mail message and find out how he is doing.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Now we are done with interview process. I could take one or two questions before moving on to the next topic. Any questions?
agenda
面试结果调整
决策不一定完全准确
能力未全发挥
面试结果与实际工作表现相差太大
如何调整：
调级
升级
调换工作
评比管理
*
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KEY MESSAGE: candidate followup
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Don't assume the job offer is a done deal:
After the offer is presented, ask the recruiter if you should make another sales pitch.
Keep in contact with the recruiter on a weekly basis until the candidate accepts the offer.
After the offer is accepted, make sure you and the direct lead congratulate the successful candidate.
Start a discussion about what the candidate could learn before she starts work.
At least once a month before starting the job, send the successful candidate an e-mail message and find out how he is doing.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Now we are done with interview process. I could take one or two questions before moving on to the next topic. Any questions?
agenda
日程
招聘目标 （Goals)
招聘过程 （Process)
竞争条件及必备条件 (Competency)
面试与决策 (Interview)
如何招揽并留住人才 (Keep talented people)
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next.
SLIDE SCRIPT:
We have a very formal and strict interview process, which guarantees us to find a good hire. But all of these depend on the sources of candidates. If we don’t get talented people interesting in Microsoft and the job, the whole interview process policies/standards we defined is a theory on paper. So next I will talk briefly about how Microsoft attracts people.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
How to attract talented people
如何招揽人才
实习生
校园招聘
鼓励员工推荐
搜寻专业人才
广告
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KEY MESSAGE: how to keep talented people
SLIDE SCRIPT:
War are lucky that Microsoft is a world famous company and a lot of people want to work for Microsoft. The company’s brand name and products is already an attraction. But this is not enough. Microsoft recruiting team and a lot of people from product team are constantly seeking for talents. Several common methods are used:
Interns:
Smart college students are the future sources of good employees. They are smart, have solid foundation, easily trainable, and the fastest to adopt company cultures and policies. Microsoft invest a lot of money in the intern program. For example, funding small projects, mentoring program (which takes a lot of time from the mentor), providing opportunities for interns to learn/expose to Microsoft technologies/products. Working performance and feedback for the internship contributes a lot in full time interview decision making later on.
Campus Recruiting:
During the campus hiring season every year (Oct-Feb), Microsoft send a lot of recruiting teams (include product team employees/managers) to various good universities/colleges (such as MIT, Standard, etc). This provides convenience to graduates as well as opportunities to Microsoft to pre-scan a large set of students/candidates. Good candidates will be highly recommended to all relevant teams in Microsoft. If they are really good, we sometimes create jobs or adjust existing job profiles to open up the opportunity for both sides.
Campus hire is a very good source for Microsoft employees.
Employee referral:
We strongly encourage employees to refer/recommend good candidates, ., roommate in college, someone in school, previous co-worker, friends, etc. Employees are rewarded if the candidate is hired by Microsoft and takes the offer. This is probably the biggest source for candidates.
Seeking specialties:
Microsoft recruiting team constantly seeks for specialties in certain areas. There are various ways, by referral, by well known names, etc.
Advertise
Although it’s not directly related, it is indeed another way to attract people. Ads of Microsoft products and what they can do, Ads of Microsoft people and how do they work, Ads of great benefits as Microsoft employee… all of these play a role in attracting people.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
How to keep talented people
如何留住人才
制定具体工作计划和目标
理解工作需求
提供职业开发机会
提供及鼓励培训
奖“罚”分明
建立部门合作及合作伙伴关系
公平有效管理
平衡工作和生活
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KEY MESSAGE: how to keep talented people
SLIDE SCRIPT:
After you spent a lot of time and resources attracting and hiring one person and company invests a lot of money training the person to the experience level, it’s a big loss if talented people leave your team. In current job market in US, the attrition rate in IT industry is about 19% and Microsoft tried to be at %. There must be something special/good that Microsoft does, right? In this slide, we will talk about tips to keep talented people, collected from a lot of experienced Microsoft managers.
I have to admit that no matter how good or much you do to keep people, some people will not stay. This is a fact in all industries. But if you do something good, it will make turn over rate lower. Some of the good things that help Microsoft to keep talented people are:
Training – boot comp, security training, mentor, MSTE, offiste.
Reward top performers and warn poor performers
monetary: bonus, stock, promotion
gift certificate, meeting with senior executive, group wide recognition, dinner for two
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Q & A
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KEY MESSAGE: introduction
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Self introduction
how long has been in Microsoft
what’s current job function/expertise
other background info (such as graduated school in China)
Slide Transition
Why?
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KEY MESSAGE: why do we want to talk about this topic?
Introduce the topic:
People always ask this question: why is Microsoft so successful? Why is it the best/biggest software company in the world in a short 25 years business? Without doubt, Microsoft has attracted and kept the most talented people in the world in developing software. Everyone knows that in High Tech specifically software industry, people is the most valuable asset, which is the key element to make a successful software company.
Then people ask again, why is Microsoft able to find the most talented people? The answer will be revealed in today’s the presentation – it’s due to the redefined Microsoft hiring process and policy.
I have been in manager position for several years and been involved personally in the process end to end. In today’s presentation, I will like to share some highlights of Microsoft hiring process with my personal experience.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
So what’s special about Microsoft hiring process?
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KEY MESSAGE: special about MS hiring
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Focus on competency more than experience (such as number of years working experience). I will explain the competencies later on.
Very formalized and strict hiring process. No exceptions including internal transfer.
Very few candidates pass resume scanning/informal interview/interview process. We would rather leave the position open than hiring someone that is not fully qualified.
Invest in interns to make them good candidates for full time when they graduate (why? Because trainable interns are “white papers” and you can draw your own pictures from scratch.). Performance and feedback on the interns play a big role in hiring.
Besides regular interview process, performance review, job level, and feedback from previous managers also play a role in making hiring decision for internal transfers. This is to avoid candidates that can do good in interviews but cannot make commitments in real job.
Hiring decision is made by hiring manager, not by human resource
Not all qualified candidates can be hired, subject to headcount.
Very difficult and relative long interview process.
Talk about my own interview process (difficulty, length)
SLIDE TRANSITION:
In the rest of this session, we will drill down into details of Microsoft hiring process to show what do I mean here. Let’s talk about today’s agenda first.
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover.
SLIDE SCRIPT:
In this session, you will see some of the key hiring procedures. In specific, we’ll be looking at goals, process, Microsoft competency, interview process and a couple of interview examples. We’ll also look at how you can make good hire/no decision and how to attract/keep good people.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
So what is our goals?
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KEY MESSAGE:
The vision: Microsoft wants to hire smart, hardworking people with passion for new technology/products and good communication skills.
SLIDE SCRIPTS:
Setting up a goal is very important for a successful hiring process. This is the key to make sure that everyone involved in the hiring process have a common goal to make consistent decisions and use consistent standards. This applies to all divisions including product team, support team, or other job families. The summarized goals are:
Smart (Intellectual horsepower) – people who learn fast, sharp, good memory, and creative
Diligent and Teamwork – people who work hard and communicates/negotiates (mediates) sound solution in business; people who are flexible.
Job function skills – people who are experienced/specialized in job functions (coding, designing, etc)
Passion for Technology and Product – people who loves is proud of what he does and seeks out challenges of creating great products.
Hiring for company, rather than for a particular job.
SLIDE TRANSITION:
With the goals in mind, we will look at some details in Microsoft Interview process and how are these goals enforced in the interview process.
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
1. Identify resource need:
Any project or job function must have a responsible party who will manage/execute plans to success. For example, for product team, a project must have one or more PM owner, dev owner, and test owner. So when a product/component is funded, the first thing to look at is the number of resources needed (based on experience and timeline). Based on the situation, appropriate resources or budgets need to be allocated.
Examples:
Authorization Manager Project:
medium size (type and number of objects to manage and bigger areas of functionalities to implement)
part of product so it’s long term project and must be shipped with milestones.
therefore, we decide to allocate 1 PM, 2 SDEs and 1 STE for the project.
Please note that resource allocation will be justified from time to time if initial estimate is not accurate or things change over time.
Hotfix Manager project:
a tool that is shipped via Web download that works for and Windows 2000
must be shipped timely (., 6 months), feature set is small
therefore .5 PM, 1 SDE, and 1 STE are allocated. We also decided to use a contract to help out UI initially
As you can see, resource allocation really depends on each individual project plan and justification.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Hiring process
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
2. Describe job description:
Once resources are determined, project managers will define clear job descriptions/profile. This step helps you describe the target position in terms of the competencies (discuss later), knowledge and skills most important to successful performance, and the proficiency level required for each.
For the senior SDE example used in the previous slide, the following job description is defined for the senior SDE of Authorization Manager project, and the SDE for hotfix manager project. We will break it down into details in the next few slides
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process – example job description
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
First, briefly describe the projects for the position
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process – example job description
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Second, clarify position responsibilities. Here you are describing the major responsibilities in this position. These should be broad statements of accountability that describe the business reason, or need for the position. They are based on the business purpose and function, not on the employee in this position.
a. Write 5 to 7 responsibility statements which are outcome-oriented, indicate the breadth and scope of the responsibility, whether it is management or oversight, and the level of autonomy.
b. Determine the key interdependencies and partnerships of the position
Select the most important general competencies – this can be described in the job description or side noted for interviewers. Then identify the proficiency levels required for the general competencies (level 1 -4 )
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Last select the most important functional/technical knowledge/skills and expertise needed for the position. Also identify the proficiency levels required for the functional/technical knowledge/skills and expertise.
For Microsoft internal posting, we also add minimum internal job level to the requirement, to make internal transfer easier.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Interview process
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KEY MESSAGE: High level interview process
SLIDE SCRIPT:
3. Post job opening - Once a job description is defined and resources are approved (req #), job openings will be posted or advertised internally and externally. The most common place for the posting is Microsoft career web site.
4. Collecting resume pool - Resumes/referrals are collected for a given period time. resumes are scanned by hiring managers directly or by recruiting team. Resumes usually come from several sources: employee referral, web site, internal posting, agency
After initial scan, if there is anyone looking fit or almost fit, hiring manager or recruiter will contact the candidate (via phone or informational chat) to get more information about the candidate to decide if a formal interview is necessary.
5. Interview loop - Hiring manager/recruiter will find appropriate interviewers to form an interview loop
involving in interview process is every employee’s responsibility so no one would reject an interview request unless there is a conflict.
Depends on the job level required, there are usually 3-7 interviewers in the loop with one person as the coordinator.
The interview loop should have at least one person covering each core competency and several people covering job function skills. Usually interviewers must be in higher level than the position.
For example, the interview loop I will make for my SDE senior position is 2 senior PMs, 4 senior devs, 1 hiring manager,
6. Prepare for interview - Each interviewer will prepare a set of interview questions to test the competencies and/or job function skills (such as coding skill, spec skill, communication). Most interviewers in Microsoft have their own classic questions that are used to test all candidates at the same level so that a good comparison between candidates can also be judged in addition to comparison with core competencies.
7. Formal interview - Test the candidates and make hire/no hire feedback/decision (at the same day). Will break down into detail later.
8. Extend offer - If all or most of interviewers make “hire” decision and hiring manager makes final decision to hire, recruiter will work with hiring manager to make an offer and present the offer to the candidate.
9. Hiring followup - After the candidate accepts the offer and agrees on a start date, hiring manager will contact the candidate and keep in touch.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
agenda
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Now we have gone through hiring process in high level, you can see that a lot of steps in the process requiring decision making, such as creating job description, creating interview loop, define interview strategy. What do we base on when making decisions? The answer is: Microsoft Competency!
We will talk briefly about the competencies in the next slides.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Core Competency
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KEY MESSAGE: Core Competency
SLIDE SCRIPT:
There are five Core Competencies shared by successful Microsoft employees. These Core Competencies are fundamental skills, attributes and behaviors which will help you achieve results in our fast paced business climate, adapt to a changing environment and enjoy the challenges you will face every day.
Problem solving - Gathers and analyzes information and uses it to develop effective solutions to difficult problems or situations
Creativity - Develops original ideas, approaches, and solutions to typical, unusual, or difficult situations or problems
Dealing with Ambiguity - Work effectively in situations involving uncertainty or lack of information, and responds flexibly to change
Communication Skills - Writes, speaks, and presents information effectively and persuasively across communication settings
Driving for Results - Continually focuses on achieving positive, concrete results contributing to Microsoft’s business success.
SLIDE TRANSITION:
competencies
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Other competencies are also count, with different priorities/importance depending on different jobs.
TeamWork:
Building team sprits – develops and maintains productive, effective, hight morale teams
core competency: communication skills
Negotiation and Conflict management – negotiates or mediates sound agreements in business or organizational situations where there is disagreement or differences in interests.
Open Communications – engages others in active, open, and productive dialogue
Interpersonal skills – develops and maintains good working relationships with others
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
*
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Individual Excellence:
self development – actively seeks to understand his/her own strengths and weaknesses, and works continuously to improve
self confidence – feels successful in past undertakings and expects to succeed in future activities.
intellectual horsepower – is bright, intellectually sharp, and learns quickly
integrity and trustworthiness – behaves according to hight ethical business principles and values
composure – maintains a constructive and composed focus in facing and overcoming tough situations
core competency: dealing with ambiguity
core competency: creativity
conviction and courage – shows a strong sense of certainty and stands firm when appropriate, take difficult tasks
action oriented – pursues work with energy, drive, and a strong accomplishment orientation
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
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KEY MESSAGE: other competencies that vary from job to job
SLIDE SCRIPT:
decision making – makes timely, practical, and cost=effective decisions, and facilitates others in doing so
core competency: driving for results
performance management – sets clear goals for self or others; assigns responsibility; measures performance; and seeks and delivers feedback to achieve quality, timely results
planning, organizing, and coordinating – efficiently develops and implements plans to accomplish goals
core competency: problem solving skills
managing systems and processes – effectively uses systems and processes to measure, monitor, manage, or impact performance
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Competencies - continued
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KEY MESSAGE: competencies
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Passion for Products and Technology:
technical passion and drive – seeks out and becomes immersed in the challenge of creating great software products
innovation management – thrives on leading groups to advance technology and products
Functional/Technical knowledge/skills:
depends on individual job – explain in more detail later
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
competency
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KEY MESSAGE: competencies
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Longterm approach:
strategic leadership – creates a shared purpose, vision, or direction for his/her group or organization, and inspires others to work toward it.
strategic thinking – understands the business, and anticipates and develops business priorities for future action.
developing people – provides job-relevant learning, developmental experiences, and feedback to enhance individual performance.
Customer Feedback:
customer focus - investigates and takes action to meet customers’ current and future needs.
representing microsoft - projects a positive and professional image of Microsoft in all products.
These are all the competencies that count, some of them are more important for some job functions. The hiring manager determines which ones are more important for his/her job. These competencies will be applied later in my real experience interview examples.
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agenda
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next.
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Next we will get into the core of this session – interview and make decision.
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Prepare for Interview
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Before we moving on to detail in this process, I need to explain technical job category in Microsoft because I will focus on technical job interviews today
Most Program Manager “owns” product features but not people working on the features. In other words, they are not management jobs. Some program managers lead other program managers in management role.
SDE - very clear, they are the engineers who design/write software. SDET is a special job category for operating systems who writes code to test code. So they are in the developer category with different job responsibilities.
STE –
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I will get into a little detail of these jobs in job requirements
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KEY MESSAGE: PM
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Program Manager – manage project functions/features and general availability.
PMs should have the following characteristics: explain the slides
For example, my group PM, hard work (mid night), always thinking of problems and solutions, technically knowledgable, tradeoff and defind, almost everyone knows him
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SDE
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KEY MESSAGE: SDE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Explain slides
For example, a senior developer in our group (Cliff) – very technically knowledgable, very good and clear mind in design, bug free code, thinking of problems, knows solutions, make project decisions.
If reorganize team, everyone wants him.
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STE
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KEY MESSAGE: STE
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Software Test Engineer – test and measure product quality (by using the product or writing test code). The key characteristics:
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Prepare for interview
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
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Interviews must attend a training class in Microsoft to understand the basic legal concerns – mostly descrimination. As part of the process, all feedback are required to be in written format with clear reason for the decision.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Prepare for interview
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KEY MESSAGE: Prepare for Interview
SLIDE SCRIPT:
A good successful interview must be prepared, for both interviewers and candidates. So what should we, as interviewers, prepare before the interview?
The coordinator should clarify your interview strategy/competency requirement and what kind of feedback you expect from your interview team. This will help interviewers target their interview questions. In Microsoft, all interviewers must send feedback along with hire/no hire decision, recommended job level, and strength/weakness analysis to all people in the interview loop. Depends on the job description, different strategies may be applied.
should have the job description (with minimum requirement) and candidate’s resume before the interview, and understand the project vision/goal.
should read details in the resume and prepare questions for past experience or skill sets. The questions could include details for previous project design, technologies and poking on areas that are not clear. This will help to know if he/she really understands the technology and how much he/she has been involved in the previous projects.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
depends on individual jobs, questions may vary to different focuses. I will use product team jobs (PM/SDE/STE) and provide some interview sample questions in the next few slides.
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KEY MESSAGE: PM Interview question samples
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Let’s look at some of the sample interview questions for PM position:
Describe a project listed on his resume for infrastructure design, and key implementation
Make sure he understands the project details (he really designs it) and he can clearly efficiently communicate his ideas, and he has made clear trade offs on different approaches and defends himself.
Find out design holes in his project and ask him to redesign that portion (in 15 minutes)
For prioritizing, does he really set the right priorities?
Design a small app
clarify functions (in & out)
where it can be used and who can use it?
which
Understand computer science concept – binary tree, link list, COM, RPC, storage, etc.
In a few slides after, I will give an example of a project for these questions.
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Prepare interview for SDE
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview question samples for SDE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Key points:
Clarify questions before start
Basic understanding about pointers, bits, trees, lists
Consider variations
Need think through but also need work (stop designing, go coding)
Multiple solutions - optimize, no solutions
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SDE/T, STE questions
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview samples for SDET/STE
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Now we have prepared questions for the interview, next step is to conduct the formal interview.
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break
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview
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The first person will affect decision making in some way (impression) and the last person will be the general manager making decisions.
Each interviewer will have 1 hour to conduct the interview, plus 5 minutes to write up feedback. For each interview, the process typically goes as:
Spend 5 minutes to introduce division, project, and interviewer’s role
Follow the 80/20 rule – 80% time listen, 20% time ask questions, because you can only know more about the candidate by listening to his answers. Always poke for detail and concrete answers. Use the competency. Listen carefully to the candidate’s response to the situation-based questions and probes; interviewers should be able to get a fairly good idea of the candidate’s proficiency level on a competency and required skills.
All interviewers should modify their questions after carefully reading the feedback from previous interviewers. Each interviewer should look for the gaps in the feedback and adjust their questions accordingly by:
Maybe the candidate isn't ideal for the position being offered, but could be right for other openings. Give all candidates time to fully talk about their strengths. You may find that they have skills in other areas. For example, if a candidate interviews for a SDE but we find out that he fits better for a PM, we would recommend a PM interview.
Hiring Manager (AA) will conduct final interview, may not be technical interview, to confirm the hiring decisions and to sell your job/division.
Make sure that person knows about:
Growth opportunities on the team
The cool technology the team will be working on.
The benefits of having such a diverse range of products, tools, and people to work with.
Why you find Microsoft a great place to work.
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My interview experience
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision
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After interview, the recruiter called me that night when I felt very depressed. She told me that I was hired and my level was low 11 (middle). At that time I didn’t quite understand what the level means and how I was put in the level. After staying in Microsoft for so many years and involved in the hiring process, I think I knew why I was put on the level. So how do we make hiring decision?
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Making decision
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision
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The "Hire" or "No Hire" recommendation should be based on an evaluation of the candidate's proficiency in key Microsoft Competency as we discussed earlier.
It is also based on functional/technical Knowledge/Skills with different focus
Fostering Diversity – minority, different culture, different style, etc. More than 20% of the employees are foreigners. 15% are women.
All interviewers (or majority of them) must make hire decision before the hiring manager makes the final decision. If there are 40% or more interviewers with “no hire” or hesitate decision, the deal is off.
In the next a few slides, I will give some examples of questions and how do I make hire/no hire decisions.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
examples
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KEY MESSAGE: Making decision #1
All SDEs must pass this bisic test
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#2
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KEY MESSAGE:
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s take a look at the real code for a simple solution and optimized solution
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Make decision #2
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KEY MESSAGE: make decision #2
SLIDE SCRIPT:
All SDEs must give the O(n)
The constant method is not recommended since it consumes big memory for the lookup table of all possible combinations
O(LogN) is preferred which shows bitmask knowledge
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #3
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision example #3
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Depends on the candidate level, this question can be made very difficult or easier. For senior, I can require design the virtual memory manager (heap) including garbage collection. For junior, he may use standard C library (such as alloc and free) to support this task.
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Make decision #4
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision #３
SLIDE SCRIPT:
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Make decision #４
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KEY MESSAGE: Interview samples for SDET/STE
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s take a look of two testing questions, one for SDE/T, one for STE.
SDET also writes code which can be tested with simple SDE questions.
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Making decision #5
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KEY MESSAGE: Make decision #5
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First question, make sure there was research/investigation and trade off decision was made. Also make sure he understands related technology
Second question, test his knowledge and attitude on security
Third question, test his knowledge on data format which is related to compatibility, and persist layer
Forth question, compatibility test on different version (machines)
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summary
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KEY MESSAGE: summary
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Let’s move on to the last step of interview process - followup
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Follow up
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KEY MESSAGE: candidate followup
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Don't assume the job offer is a done deal:
After the offer is presented, ask the recruiter if you should make another sales pitch.
Keep in contact with the recruiter on a weekly basis until the candidate accepts the offer.
After the offer is accepted, make sure you and the direct lead congratulate the successful candidate.
Start a discussion about what the candidate could learn before she starts work.
At least once a month before starting the job, send the successful candidate an e-mail message and find out how he is doing.
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Now we are done with interview process. I could take one or two questions before moving on to the next topic. Any questions?
agenda
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KEY MESSAGE: candidate followup
SLIDE SCRIPT:
Don't assume the job offer is a done deal:
After the offer is presented, ask the recruiter if you should make another sales pitch.
Keep in contact with the recruiter on a weekly basis until the candidate accepts the offer.
After the offer is accepted, make sure you and the direct lead congratulate the successful candidate.
Start a discussion about what the candidate could learn before she starts work.
At least once a month before starting the job, send the successful candidate an e-mail message and find out how he is doing.
SLIDE TRANSISTION:
Now we are done with interview process. I could take one or two questions before moving on to the next topic. Any questions?
agenda
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KEY MESSAGE: What we will cover next.
SLIDE SCRIPT:
We have a very formal and strict interview process, which guarantees us to find a good hire. But all of these depend on the sources of candidates. If we don’t get talented people interesting in Microsoft and the job, the whole interview process policies/standards we defined is a theory on paper. So next I will talk briefly about how Microsoft attracts people.
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How to attract talented people
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KEY MESSAGE: how to keep talented people
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War are lucky that Microsoft is a world famous company and a lot of people want to work for Microsoft. The company’s brand name and products is already an attraction. But this is not enough. Microsoft recruiting team and a lot of people from product team are constantly seeking for talents. Several common methods are used:
Interns:
Smart college students are the future sources of good employees. They are smart, have solid foundation, easily trainable, and the fastest to adopt company cultures and policies. Microsoft invest a lot of money in the intern program. For example, funding small projects, mentoring program (which takes a lot of time from the mentor), providing opportunities for interns to learn/expose to Microsoft technologies/products. Working performance and feedback for the internship contributes a lot in full time interview decision making later on.
Campus Recruiting:
During the campus hiring season every year (Oct-Feb), Microsoft send a lot of recruiting teams (include product team employees/managers) to various good universities/colleges (such as MIT, Standard, etc). This provides convenience to graduates as well as opportunities to Microsoft to pre-scan a large set of students/candidates. Good candidates will be highly recommended to all relevant teams in Microsoft. If they are really good, we sometimes create jobs or adjust existing job profiles to open up the opportunity for both sides.
Campus hire is a very good source for Microsoft employees.
Employee referral:
We strongly encourage employees to refer/recommend good candidates, ., roommate in college, someone in school, previous co-worker, friends, etc. Employees are rewarded if the candidate is hired by Microsoft and takes the offer. This is probably the biggest source for candidates.
Seeking specialties:
Microsoft recruiting team constantly seeks for specialties in certain areas. There are various ways, by referral, by well known names, etc.
Advertise
Although it’s not directly related, it is indeed another way to attract people. Ads of Microsoft products and what they can do, Ads of Microsoft people and how do they work, Ads of great benefits as Microsoft employee… all of these play a role in attracting people.
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How to keep talented people
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KEY MESSAGE: how to keep talented people
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After you spent a lot of time and resources attracting and hiring one person and company invests a lot of money training the person to the experience level, it’s a big loss if talented people leave your team. In current job market in US, the attrition rate in IT industry is about 19% and Microsoft tried to be at %. There must be something special/good that Microsoft does, right? In this slide, we will talk about tips to keep talented people, collected from a lot of experienced Microsoft managers.
I have to admit that no matter how good or much you do to keep people, some people will not stay. This is a fact in all industries. But if you do something good, it will make turn over rate lower. Some of the good things that help Microsoft to keep talented people are:
Training – boot comp, security training, mentor, MSTE, offiste.
Reward top performers and warn poor performers
monetary: bonus, stock, promotion
gift certificate, meeting with senior executive, group wide recognition, dinner for two
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Q & A
