Interview in microsoft questions

The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and help you land a PM job at Microsoft. We have put together the ultimate guide below to help you maximize your chances of success. Note that at Microsoft PMs are referred to as Program Managers and usually have more responsibilities in execution and delivery than Product Managers at other companies such as Google or Facebook.

What's the Microsoft PM interview process and timeline? On average it takes four to eight weeks to get an offer, but it can sometimes take longer. First, it's important that you understand the different stages of your interview process with Microsoft. Here is what you can expect:. In most cases, the Microsoft interview process starts with an HR recruiter call.

The objective of this conversation is to understand more about your background and to confirm that you've got a chance of getting the job at all. You can expect behavioral questions such as, "Tell me about yourself," " Why Microsoft? If you get past this HR screen the recruiter will then organize on-site interviews. Each interview will last about 45 to 60mins and be a one-on-one with a mix of other folks from the PM team.

In most cases you will be interviewed by your future PM peers, a senior PM, and a senior executive who is likely the hiring manager leading your recruitment. You can expect a lot of behavioral questions more on that below , but there will be plenty of technical, design, strategy, estimation, analysis, and puzzle questions as well.

Your recruiter is leading the process and taking you from one stage to the next. Here's what happens at each of the stages described above:. It's also important to note that recruiters and people who refer you have little influence on the overall process. They can help you get an interview at the beginning but that's about it.

At this point you might be wondering what your chances are. The good news is that Microsoft hires an increasing number of engineers and PMs every year. At the time of writing this article, Microsoft hires about to new PMs per year. Note: the total number of employees at Microsoft decreased in , , and , which explains the dip you can see in the number of PMs at the company for these years.

Microsoft needs more and more PMs every year which might lead you to believe that getting hired isn't that hard. But this actually isn't the case. Microsoft received 2m applications in across all its departments but only ended up hiring 7k employees in the same year. The success rate is therefore 0.

The good news is that cracking PM interviews is actually really manageable once you know how to prepare. So, let's take a look at the different types of questions Microsoft will ask you. For extra help, take a look at our list of 15 top PM interview tips. The main difficulty with PM interviews at Microsoft is that you will be asked a wide range of questions. We've grouped them in five buckets and analyzed how frequently they were asked by Microsoft interviewers using questions reported by former candidates on Glassdoor.

Let's step through each type of question, discuss why Microsoft asks these questions, and take a look at a few examples in each category. As in most interview processes you'll need to answer behavioral interview questions. Microsoft places a heavy emphasis in this area, and the questions asked tend to fall into three categories:.

These questions aren't particularly hard compared to some of the others listed in this article and are sometimes overlooked by candidates. It's worth spending time to prepare answers for them to build a small edge against other applicants. For more information, check out our article on how to answer behavioral interview questions , which focuses primarily on Facebook behavioral questions but can be applied to any company. Exercise: Pick one of the questions above and answer it in the comments section below, without looking at other people's answers.

This is a great opportunity to gain some practice for your Microsoft PM interviews. A core task for PMs is to help design new product features and improve existing ones. It's therefore not surprising that design questions are a part of Microsoft PM interviews. These questions assess your customer empathy, creativity, and ability to use a structured approach to design products.

Here are a few questions Microsoft has asked in the past. Phones featuring technical screens: This is known as the 'phone screen', but it can also occur via video using Skype.

The duration of each interview will be 45 to 60 minutes. You'll be interviewed by a colleague or a future manager, who will ask you a mix of technical and behavioural questions. You should expect standard data structure and algorithm questions in the technical portion of the interview, which you'll have to answer in an online collaborative text editor. You'll need to get used to not having syntax highlighting or autocomplete in the text editor during your interview preparation.

It's also worth noting that you're unlikely to be asked to design a system. You can expect questions like this in the behavioural section 'Tell me about yourself', 'Why Microsoft? As a result, it's important to make sure you're prepared for common behavioural queries more on that later. Interview on-campus: If you're a student, you'll almost always be interviewed in person rather than over the phone.

You'll be offered a mixture of behavioural and technical questions to answer on a whiteboard. You may have many interviews on campus in some circumstances.

Online coding assessment: Before advancing a candidate to the onsite interviews, Microsoft may also use online coding assessments. The company uses a number of tests, but the most popular is a three-question examination offered by Codility that you must complete in 60 to 90 minutes. You must submit a solution to the problems, which are typical data structure and algorithm questions.

Onsite Interview: If you qualify the first stage, you'll spend a full day at one of Microsoft's offices, taking part in four on-site interviews.

These one-on-one interviews will last approximately 60 minutes and will include a mix of people from the team you're applying to join, including colleagues, the hiring manager, and occasionally a senior executive. Types of questions: Three or four of your interviews will involve code problems data structure and algorithm questions that you must answer on a whiteboard.

The last one or two interviews will focus on system design issues. All of your interviews will include behavioural questions. Coding and behavioural questions are likely to be exceedingly difficult for all candidates. And if you do, the bar will be lower than for senior or mid-level engineers e. Senior SDE or above. Because you will only be requested to perform this interview if your first three interviews go well, it is commonly referred to as the 'as appropriate' AA, or ASAPP interview.

If you don't do well in the first three, you'll be eliminated. There are two duties for AA interviewers. The first is to make sure you don't have any blind spots in your analysis. If your first three interviews have determined that you fulfil technical hiring standards but are unsure about cultural fit, your AA interview will primarily consist of behavioural questions.

If you fared well in earlier interviews, the second function of an AA interviewer is to 'offer' the company to you. The idea is that if Microsoft decides to make you an offer, they want to be sure you'll accept it.

It isn't that difficult. The complete interview process for a software engineer post at Microsoft takes about months on average. The business encourages looking for jobs on the Microsoft Careers page. This website allows you to create a profile, apply for open positions, set up job notifications, and track the progress of your application. If you see several desirable positions, feel free to apply to all of them. If you want to take part in the employee referral programme, contact your corporate contact and have them submit your information.

For three reasons, I want to work for Microsoft. The first reason is because this is where I see myself in the long run. I want to have a great career with an organisation that will allow me to learn, grow, and develop. Microsoft has an incredible history of invention and ongoing achievement, and I want to have a successful career with an organisation that will allow me to learn, grow, and develop. The second reason is that Microsoft is a place where I can be myself - I am an honest person with a wide range of talents and abilities, but I am also aware that I have much more to learn.

As the phrase goes, 'knowledge can be learned, but trust must be won', and I believe that by hard work and an honest approach to duties, I will be able to win trust from my coworkers and bosses. Finally, Microsoft produces some incredible things that change and improve people's lives.

Being creative is one of my favourite things to do at work, and what better place to use those creative skills than Microsoft! It is an unspoken rule at Microsoft India that our employees deserve nothing but the best from us because they are the brightest minds in the world! As a result, they are provided with the best possible perks to enhance their work experience and keep them rejuvenated every day!

The following are some of the benefits accessible to our employees: Employees maximise their experience by forming their own group. Provide flexible work schedules, extensive vacation time, and holidays so you may spend time with your family or pursue hobbies outside of work.

Microsoft is dedicated to providing support and time away from work so that employees may focus on the people who are most important to them. Employees can broaden their knowledge on a range of topics, stay current in their area, and gain new skills as their careers grow. With our world-class health care benefits and extensive wellbeing benefits, you and your family may attain and maintain your greatest physical and mental health.

Practice for your next interview for FREE. Sign up now. Fast Track Courses. Microsoft security patches are intended to solve certain security loopholes and problems, while at the same time upgrading any existing security features. This would provide better protection by reducing vulnerabilities in security. Each wife had 5 bag. Each bag had 5 cats. Each cat had 5 kittens. Kitten, cats, bags, wives.

How many were going to California? Only 1 was going to California, Me. It was not stated whether the man with his wives and pets were going in the same direction. Another answer could be Minimum 1. As it was not stated where the wives, kittens and cats were headed. With close observation, you will note that each number in the list is in the middle of two prime numbers.

Therefore, the next number would be the one that is in the middle of the next two prime numbers, which is 72 which is in the middle of 71 and The color of the bear must be White. Incidentally, only polar bears lived on these regions, and polar bears are white colored.

Standard modules contain variables, procedures and functions that are accessible anywhere within the project. A class module contains properties and events, and is made accessible only by objects that were created as an instance of that class. Only variable2 is actually declared as of integer type. Variable1 is declared as of variant type in this case. The main reason why the :: cannot be overloaded is that only operators that take in values as parameters can be overloaded.

The scope resolution operator does not take a value as parameter. Plug and Play is a technology wherein hardware components that are installed on PCs using Microsoft operating system are immediately recognized and made usable. This means that the drivers necessary to make it work are already available on the operating system package.

Visual Foxpro was part of Visual Studio 6. It was excluded in the. Net version and was released as an independent programming language. What actually happens is that whenever files are removed from the recycle bin, the space occupied by that file is marked as available. As long as no other files are written on that space, there is a chance of recovering that deleted file.

The main purpose of Microsoft Certification is to ensure that qualification of an applicant for particular skills. Skills not only cover the software aspects, but in design and engineering as well.

Microsoft Certification covers a wide list of technology and is recognize worldwide. Optimized codes are also less susceptible to errors and take lesser space in memory and in file size. Ribbon is the term used as a replacement to the menu bar and toolbars in the older Microsoft Office versions. Under the ribbon, file menu items and toolbar buttons were grouped according to their functionality.

It made these functions much accessible on the main interface, with the most commonly used buttons being shown instantly. Microsoft classifies such threats into 4 indicators, which are low, moderate, important, and critical. Such indicators are available as reference under the Microsoft bulletin. It is a programming model that centers on the creation of objects and classes. Unlike structural programming, OOP lets you write shorter codes by being able to reuse codes and create instances of objects.

As often as possible. Enabling the auto update feature of the Microsoft operating system would allow regular monitoring from the Microsoft site for available updates that can be downloaded and installed.

ADO, or Active X data objects, allows developers to create applications that can interoperate well with other data application services. This API is mainly used for power management, and is very useful especially to those using Windows on their laptops or netbooks.