I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Oct 2010
Interview
First was a phone interview with HR, which went well. She sent me a technical questionnaire. No response for a week. Get an e-mail 1 week later that I’m scheduled for a technical phone interview. Instructed to use Microsoft office Live, except they had some technical difficulty with it, so we couldn't get it working. Halfway during the interview I realize this position is a Testing position, I am a Developer. The HR was great, responded to e-mails set everything up great. The hiring manager was ok, I would have helped to know what position I was interviewing for ahead of time though. Felt like I was set up to fail.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a function that returns the 5th element from the end in a singly linked list of integers, in one pass, and then provide a set of test cases against that function. Please do not use built-in linked list classes. Instead, define your own class or structure.
The interview was conducted with utmost professionalism. It was well-structured, with clear and relevant questions that reflected thorough preparation. The interviewer created a respectful and engaging environment, making the process efficient, insightful, and highly constructive.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain the concept of polymorphism in object-oriented programming.
It went ok. The interview went on and then they asked me questions and we did stuff. It was moderately difficult. If only they knew how to do better. That's it
Not very in depth. 1 question pass or fail. Not many details provided and no questions were allowed to be asked. Interviewer was hard to udnerstand and didnt talk at all after providing question.
Programmer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 66.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Programmer roles take an average of 15 days to get hired, when considering 9 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Microsoft overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Microsoft as a Programmer according to 9 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 28%
Phone interview: 22%
Skills test: 11%
IQ intelligence test: 11%
Group panel interview: 11%
Personality test: 6%
Drug test: 6%
Presentation: 6%
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