Crowds packed Bellevue Square mall this morning as the seventh Microsoft Store (and the first on the company’s home turf) officially opened its doors.
The first 1,000 people into the store received VIP tickets to a Miley Cyrus concert at the store on Saturday. The next 1,000 got two general admission tickets to the show.
And in a surprise move later in the day, Dave Matthews took the stage for a special acoustic performance.
Transitioning from a military to private sector career can be a challenge. All too frequently, our military veterans and active reservists are unable to find positions that utilize their unique skills and experience.
Everyone respects the service of military veterans and reservists, but Microsoft honors their contributions with more than just words. We expressly desire their skills, work ethic and experience. Through Microsoft's We Still Serve community, the company assists veterans and reservists to transition into a cutting-edge career in technology.
The entire process is guided by veterans already at Microsoft who understand the specific challenges of this type of career transition. See the new We Still Serve video below:
One of the many great things about working for Microsoft is the global presence of the company. Although headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, Microsoft has offices all over the world.
If you want to take your career in an international direction, use your language skills, live and work abroad - we have just about every oppotunity that you can imagine... and then a few more.
I recently had the chance to visit Microsoft Norway's ultra-modern office in Oslo. The office was beautiful, was easy to access with public transportation and everyone I met was as friendly as could be.
Check out my quick video tour of the office, which includes a couple of interviews with Microsoft Norway employees:
All nine Junior Class women at Brown University's Department of Computer Science interned at Microsoft this summer.
Intern Nell Elliott interviewed with Google and Apple as well, but chose to intern at Microsoft because she was able to meet the people she'd be working with in advance. Even if she had met her future coworkers at Apple and Google, she says it would be difficult to think she could enjoy them more than the team she ended up with at Microsoft, the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU).
"I worked on real stuff," Elliott says. "My team treated me like an adult. They took me seriously. It's more like you just started working here than being an intern." She adds her team at Microsoft is relaxed, funny, and quirky, but also clearly dedicated to their work.
Intern Tess Avitabile felt the same way about her team. "I wasn't expecting people on my team to be such goofballs, and I'm so excited about it," she says. "They were able to get so much done while also having time to pull pranks, such as inserting David Hasselhoff songs into presentations. They are so competent and so silly. It was great."
Check out this footage from Microsoft Product Fair 2010: employees learn to make music using Windows 7 (64-bit) with DJ Darek Mazzone. Afterwards, they take home their new music on a jump drive.
Darek discusses how Windows 7 "is a revolutionary operating system in the creative space." This was one of dozens of amazing products that employees were able to sample at the Product Fair this week.
