My engagement with the internal recruiter was very positive; she was organized and efficient in her communication with me - not always the case in Redmond. My engagement with the hiring manager was also very positive, and he appeared informed of my latest status each time we spoke. The interview loop went as expected except for one major twist - more on that later. I interviewed on phone with the recruiter, and then had a 1:1 interview with the hiring manager, followed by 4 interviews with other stakeholders in a loop 3 days later. The interviews were the standard mix one expects from Microsoft - probing on my business acumen in general and specific to the organization of Microsoft, some behavioral assessment, process mapping skills (I had to get up to the whiteboard and diagram a process flow in front of the interviewer as he questioned me), exploring my experience at Microsoft as a consultant, and brain-teaser questions to see how I handled difficult/ambiguous situations. It was all as expected, with a certain degree of aggressiveness, which is just the culture there. No surprises. However, one exception: one of the interviewers asked me to work offline over the weekend (my interview was late on a Friday) on a 'brochure' that would describe his team's funciton and potential value to its internal stakeholders. I thought I was misunderstanding him, so I asked some clarifying questions. Nope - I had heard him correctly: work over the weekend, and submit to him by 10am Monday a brochure. This totally sounded like an internal project he was behind on for which he saw the opportunity to use a candidate for some free labor. I thought perhaps he was assessing my ability to push back in the rough and tumble environment of Microsoft, so I pretty bluntly responded to him that I wasn't sure what his motive was. I stated that if he was trying to test my ability to push back, then an interview is a lousy test environment for that because I have no leverage as a candidate - which surely he could understand, and that it was very different from an environment between two employees. Further, that while I was willing to do whatever it took to help with my assessment as a candidate that this request seemed very disconnected to the role for which I was interviewing, and gently asked again if he could clarify how the end result would relate to my evaluation. He responded curtly that he was allowed to ask anything he felt was relevant, that he would withhold his evaluation until my deliverable was complete, and that the quality of my final work product would inform his assessment. I decided to play along, so asked him several clarifying questions for 10 minutes about the request and about the criteria for success against which the final product would be assesed - again, somewhat hoping that he'd see that as a strength and stop the madness. Nope - he left the room when I was done with questions and said he'd look forward to my e-mail with the draft brochure. Wow, I was stunned. After I left the interview with him, I called the hiring manager first (which he had asked me to do) and he asked how I felt the interview loop went. I shared with him the request made of me by the final interviewer. I stated that I was more than willing to complete that task if it was indeed part of the evaluation process, but that I was unsure if it truly was so. He apologized profusely, told me to ignore the request, and that it would not factor into the decision. I asked him to follow up with the interviewer directly himself to inform him that I would not be completing the additional 'task'. I was not offered the position - they were up-front in telling me that they were seeking someone with more experience in Six Sigma and asked if I would be willing to 'stay in consideration' while they assessed other candidates. I did that for a time, but eventually took another role with my own company, and withdrew myself from future consideration for this role. I still don't know if the whole 'brochure' task was truly part of the interview or not, but I can rest assured that I feel I did the right thing for me in the situation. While I believe that everything a candidate says or does during the assessment phase reflects on their fit for the role, I also believe there is a limit to what kind of requests an interviewer can make of a candidate. I feel like I responded in a way that was true to myself, and if that wasn't what they were seeking, then we're both better off having parted ways. But, it was truly one of the weirdest interviews I've ever had.