Tech Industry
Yesterday
409
Best LCOL or MCOL city?
Tech Industry
2d
3804
Videos about H1B and landing a $300K job are just cringe man
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1209
Enraged that kids prefer KPop to Bollywood. Installed cams in their rooms.
2024 Presidential Election
Yesterday
1323
Biden to hand out green cards to 4000 illegals per year
A recruiter from Microsoft reached out for a position in Azure team. Wanted to setup a technical phone screen right away. Got an interview setup for next day. Intervirewer logged in. No Hi, no tell me about your experience or not even an introduction to himself. Jumped right into the coding question. Just one liner. Find duplicates in a list. That's it. I asked clarification questions like what's in the list, when u say list, is it an array or linked list etc. He was like "Anything" with an annoyed voice. That was it. That was his answer to my questions. I was like "OK" . Then I asked him whether I can solve it for an array with ints and talked about how the solution will change if it's strings and how it would be for a linked list etc. He asked me to write the code. I did it fairly quickly. Once I have the working code and all my tests pass, I waited for his response. Nothing. Total silence. I thought he probably fell asleep and felt bad about not keeping him entertained. Then I said "Hello, you still there?" He then "oh, do you have any questions for Microsoft?" I asked usual questions just for the sake of it. But. I knew what the feedback would be. And sure enough, next morning, got the standard do not reply rejection letter. It was a total waste of my time. And total disappointment. Why would you waste people's time like that?
yeah I know that feeling. I was once flown for an onsite to a 25 min interview with no technical questions
Why would you want to work for Microsoft?
I thought it's a good company. And the recruiter was really excited about my exp and told me that that's exactly they are looking for etc etc.
Are you a minority candidate by any chance?
Yes I am. But the interviewer himself was one. He was Asian.
Sorry meant to ask are you a tech minority. Black, Hispanic, native American, or woman? The reason I ask is because at Microsoft, a hiring manager often can't give an offer for a request unless a tech minority is also interviewed for that same role. Hiring managers often already have someone in mind that they want and just go through the motions in order to meet that criteria
Sorry about your experience. The recruiters are often vendors, not FTEs, which makes them less invested. The entire recruiting process is pretty messed up, but I hear they’re working to improve things.
But surely the interviewer should be an FTE
I think it is possible that they already found a candidate and since OP interview was already scheduled, just going on with formalities? Or may be interviewer had a bad day, fight with spouse? So forget and move on.
Please DM me, if you dont mind. I will make sure this gets some visibility- this is not acceptable and we strive very hard to ensure a great experience for the candidates who interview with us.
You sounded like a manager. Do you have authority in MS?
Thanks for posting this. I can tell you HR and PG leadership definitely monitor blind for this kind of feedback.
They did you a favor. This summarizes Microsoft. Microsoft may look good in the news and for investors. Except for some teams (single digit number) it is miserable to be a talented engineer, and this screeners' attitude may just be the result. If you love politics more than engineering I suggest you to try again because Microsoft is waiting for your talents at signaling work
This is bullshit, flat out. If you work in a team like that, get out and go somewhere (Microsoft or otherwise) that you are treated with respect. There are bad apples, but don't confuse that with being the norm.
Glad that your experience has been different. And I politely disagree with the proportion, I have been in 3 different orgs spanning Balmers ' and Nadella's eras. I'll tell you the latest that fortunately did not happen to me but it sucks for the person. Just before reviews last year SLT member (let's call it person A) comes up with a great project idea, just in time for review and gets praise for the idea and the impact that is going to make. Person B (pawn, ~lvl 63) gets tasked with actually coding the product. Aces it during a year. Just before this year's review, person A decides to axe the project, arguing it's a waste of time and money and it's not going to work, just in time fore reviews. Person A gets praised for a brave executive decision and impact of saving tons of money. Person B has to drop everything and his/her code never gets delivered. Now, reviews are based on IMPACT not output right? Person B did a lot of work, but actually delivered no impact because the project never saw the light of production, , and had no time to do anything else before the close of review. A: great review and bonus, B: poor review, poor bonus. Sounds familiar?
That position might be reserved for D candidate and recruiter just scheduled your interview to show data for interviewing non-D candidate so no one can prove bias in hiring.
Please share this feedback with the recruiter. It should definitely be informed.
How long did that interview last?
Probably like 40 mins including him answering the questions I asked about team and his thoughts on Microsoft in general.
I think you can just copy paste what you wrote above, and send it to the recruiter to say that they gave you an interviewer who is an unprofessional idiot