My Redmond internship began in a one-to-one meeting with my Dublin manager when I was replying to the question, “What do you really want from this internship.” I had told him I wanted to improve a few specific skills and for the last box on a sheet I was filling I told him something I’d always wanted to do, never thinking it would happen, “I’d really like to see the Redmond (Headquarters) campus if there was an opportunity.” My manager smiled and informed me, a previous intern of his had been offered an internship in Redmond.
I hastily applied via www.microsoft.com/careers and my manager gave me a good recommendation to put on my C/V. I waited many months without reply and must admit, I thought as I had suspected all along that I wouldn’t be going to America for the summer. However in late January I was contacted for a phone interview by friendly HR staff. In preparation for the phone interview I did the usual, trawled the internet for tips. Usually when I prepare I try to think of a few standard answers about my life. I find that phone interviews are mostly about behavioural competencies. Thus I usually try to think of experiences in my past involving leadership, responsibility, teamwork, communication etc.
I would rarely expect someone on a phone interview to ask deeply technical questions as most phone interviewers are HR staff and won’t have a lot of technical knowledge. Although don’t be surprized if they ask basic technical questions as they possibly may have answers in front of them. Of course the last and most important thing I did an hour before the interview was relax, chill out and focus on trying to be myself. For example if they ask, “The biggest number of lines of code written in a project”, don’t go with the instinctive monster number. You should keep your cool and think; with modern coding architecture no project should be a huge number of lines of code. As Bill Gates once said, “Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”
Honestly I thought the phone interview had went terrible, they told me it would last around 30 minutes and mine clocked up a measly 19. However a month later I was informed I’d be flying to Redmond, Seattle for a final interview. This was fantastic news, as whether I got the job or not, I’d still get to experience America, albeit for only a little while. Microsoft paid for the flights and hotel and my recruiter tried to make me feel as comfortable as possible. I was asked a few questions about the role I’d like to have and the team I’d like to work with. I suggested I’d like to expand my knowledge of the Office product and learn how the core testers work on it. However I did not find out which team I’d be interviewing with until the interview day.
The interview day was great fun, I had four interviews, each getting progressively more difficult, the final question throwing me off entirely. My tips for an interview wouldn’t be to memorize questions and solutions. Instead I’d advise learning the style of questions and revising data structures and algorithms. The reason for this being that many experienced interviewers in Microsoft will make up questions themselves that no one has ever seen to see how you react. My final interviewer made up an entirely new type of linked list with special properties which threw me off a little. When I finished my interview I had time to look around the area and visit the Microsoft Store which was a good way to wind down.
I flew home and got the wonderful news a few days later that I’d been offered an internship. What I’ll remember the most about the experience was how friendly the interviewers were, I was really put at ease. One interviewer [who is actually now my manager coincidentally] was actually cracking jokes throughout the interview, and I felt comfortable enough to crack some back, although I do regret how bad my jokes were. It is not at all a pre-requisite to have done an internship in Ireland to get one in Redmond. The high majority of interns in Redmond won’t have interned anywhere else, and that’s why I’d strong recommend anyone to apply.
David Acheson
Be Your Future 