Hello, I’m Joe Stiff, I’m a Project Manager in the Sales Excellence team within Microsoft UK. In my role I take on all sorts of projects, whether it be helping out other people’s projects like writing content to go on Microsoft’s online Blogs, tackling piracy by conducting research and putting together strategies to fight it, or managing the creation and execution of a system to track and improve the way Microsoft encourage customers to renew their contracts. These are just a few examples of how I am contributing to Microsoft’s success and being part of something huge.
Within Microsoft you have an incredible amount of freedom to choose what work to take on, there is so much opportunity to try something new and so much opportunity to just help out and get yourself known. I personally joined a few of the teams this year solely because they interested me, however, others will help me with my dissertation when I go back to university and all of them will allow me to learn new skills, so it’s just a case of choosing which you will be able to contribute most towards and which suit you.
Of course, I have my primary projects too, which must be prioritised, so managing your time is essential to being successful at Microsoft. In my everyday job I must manage people and organise jobs for them to carry out, taking under consideration their current workload, their skill sets and their experience in the job already. A lot of the work has to be prepared and properly understood before I can pass it on, and I have found myself not only becoming more and more advanced with Excel but learning how databases work and how to edit and use SQL servers, which is something I had never even heard of two months ago.
The best thing about my role is being my own manager. I get to pick and choose what I do, when I do it, and how to do it, obviously taking aboard all advice and experience of my team members all the while. I have much freedom over my working hours, and I often come in earlier to leave earlier. I can go to lunch when I like and take a break if I need to, as long as the work I need to do gets done. This kind of freedom is really great to have, and something not many people get at work. It allows me to prioritise what I need to and really keep on track with everything.
Overall, I absolutely love my internship, the people at Microsoft are all extremely intelligent and interesting, the jobs are all challenging and exciting and the place and facilities are incredible.
Be Your Future 