Microsoft interview

The Microsoft interview is a job interview technique used by Microsoft to assess possible future Microsoft employees. It is significant because Microsoft's model was pioneering, and later picked up and developed by other companies including Amazon, Facebook, and Google.[1]

Innovation

The Microsoft Interview was a pioneer in that it was about technical knowledge, problem solving and creativity as opposed to the goal and weaknesses interviews most companies used at the time. Initially based on Bill Gates' obsession with puzzles, many of the puzzles presented during interviews started off being Fermi problems, or sometimes logic problems, and have eventually transitioned over the years into questions relevant to programming:[2]

Puzzles test competitive edge as well as intelligence. Like business or football, a logic puzzle divides the world into winners and losers. You either get the answer, or you don't... Winning has to matter.[3]

Joel Spolsky phrased the problem as identifying people who are smart and get things done while separating them from people who are smart but don't get things done and people who get things done but are not smart.[4][5]

Further information

Interview questions previously used by Microsoft

The questions asked during the Microsoft Interview are crafted to determine a candidate's problem solving, coding and design abilities. Eccentric questions (such as Which of the fifty states would you remove?) test a candidate's ability to come to a decision and articulate it.[6] Candidates answering questions should consider the use of technology in the present and future, and user scenarios. Some questions involve projects that the candidate has worked on in the past.

The Microsoft Interview is intended to seek out creative thinkers and those who can adapt their solutions to rapidly changing and dynamic scenarios.

Below is a small sample of questions that a candidate might be asked to answer during the second-round interview:

Manhole cover question

The question of why manhole covers are typically round (in some countries) was made famous by Microsoft when they began asking it as a job-interview question.[7][8] Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one correct answer, the problem has produced a number of alternative explanations, from the tautological ("Manhole covers are round because manholes are round.")[7] to the philosophical.

Reasons for the shape include:

Interview resources

Microsoft provides a list of suggested reading to prepare for the interview. A sample is given below:

References

  1. ↑ Applicants blog after Google interview.
  2. ↑ Poundstone, William (2003). How Would You Move Mount Fuji. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. pp. 50–90. ISBN 0-316-91916-0.
  3. ↑ Poundstone, page 62.
  4. ↑ Poundstone, page 68–69.
  5. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (October 25, 2006). "The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)". Retrieved September 20, 2009.
  6. ↑ Poundstone, page 67.
  7. 1 2 Poundstone, William (2003). How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle – How the World's Smartest Company Selects the Most Creative Thinkers. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-91916-0.
  8. ↑ Davis, Jim (February 10, 2009). "Why Are Manhole Covers Round?". Joblossguide.com. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
  • Microsoft College Careers. The Interview — First Round. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on January 16, 2006.
  • Job Interviews Get Creative, NPR 2003. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on January 16, 2006.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/1/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.