By Eric Stutzman 

Even as an industry recruiter we do take the "show on the road" from time to time; I personally have been involved with 3 different events and across the Microsoft Business Division recruiting team I know there have been several more.  We visit different locations like Ottawa, Canada, Austin, Texas, and the Silicon Valley and I know one of the groups in MBD is looking at New England and the South East for upcoming events.

There are different variations of an event, but the type I am talking about are typically an "invitation only" event to interview with Microsoft in your local area.  It can be quite fun and always challenging to get these events set up and the interview schedule filled.  As you have come to know through JobsBlog and other avenues, Microsoft has a high standard and a thorough screening process for interviews and the event setting is no different.  I typically identify candidates that have the skill set that I am looking for and send out an escreen for them to complete which I follow up with a 30 minute phone conversation to review the screen and ask follow up technical questions.  After this the candidates are scheduled with a hiring manager for another follow up call and if they make it through that, are invited to the event and take one of the interview spots.

The Unified Communications Group is the latest group within Microsoft Business Division to host such an event.  Microsoft's vision for unified communications enables a people-centric solution of rich, intuitive, and seamless communications across e-mail, IM, voice, data, video, and conferencing. Microsoft offers companies a complete software platform that unifies all communications with their business applications and processes, streamlining how people reach each other and communicate.  The product groups include; Exchange Server, Live Meeting, Live Communication Server and Communicator.

We are hosting an invitation only interview event at our Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, CA in November and while the slots are filling up there are still a few available.  This event we are focusing on Program Managers for our UCG teams.  If you feel that you have the skills that make you an excellent Program Manager candidate, currently live in the Silicon Valley and are open to relocating to Redmond, WA please contact me through jobsblog@microsoft.com and put SVC Event attn: Eric in the title!

Who knows you may be the new hire Program Manager to take part in a JobCast!! 

~Eric

By Eric Stutzman 

Looking for a new career opportunity can be time consuming; especially if you are doing your search as a fulltime employee at your present company.

The first stop for many people is a job board.  There are many choices in job boards that you can use; Monster, CareerBuilder, Workopolis, Hot Jobs, Dice, and Computer Jobs are among the prevalent ones.  There is also a movement out there to take the job boards to the next level or in a different direction with companies like Market10 leading the way.  Think eHarmony meets Monster.  There are some differences between them but in many ways they are more similar than not.  Now let me say for the record that these sites have large communities, are used daily by many recruiters/jobseekers and have 100s of 1000s of views per month, but are they going to yield you the best results if you are only using the boards and the boards alone?  Probably not. 

You also need to spend time researching your target.  In my introduction post I shared a bit about how I became a Microsoft employee.  As I mentioned in the article you should research the companies that you are interested in becoming an employee.  Ok now that you have decided on Microsoft let’s set a strategy in place. ;-)

What are your interests?  Gaming?  Business Applications?  Servers?  Communications?  Search?  The beautiful thing about Microsoft is it offers a vast array of career channels.  Research, research, research.  Pop open Live Search and find related articles about Microsoft and the group / industry segment you are interested in.  You will find quotes from people within the community; this is useful to note as if you search on the individuals you find you might run across their blog and they may be open to communication with you!

Once you have done your research head on over to our career site and apply for select positions.  But don’t stop there!  Applying to a position is only ONE of the things that you can do to try and land that dream job.  Besides just browsing job boards and researching your target you also should spend time networking with your friends, family, and peers and/or expanding your networking to include new people.  There are a variety of networking sites and tools to get you started and way too many to list here, but Wikipedia has a nice compilation. 

I have been a long time user of LinkedIn and find it in my opinion to be a top notch business related networking site.  You can search by company, by keyword, titles and a variety of other ways.  Spend sometime on the appropriate sites looking for people in similar positions to yourself and/or managers looking for people with your skill sets that match your interests and reach out to them.  Often times you will need to get introduced to them and please pay close attention to the types of contacts that the user you want to reach is accepting. 

So remember in today’s recruiting world while the big job boards are certainly one set of tools in your job hunting tool box, it isn’t and shouldn’t be the only set.  Use your search engines, V2 job communities, networking sites and always remember to apply directly to the companies that you want to work and leverage relationships with people you know there!

Give networking a try!  You may be surprised who you run into on your way to your new office!

~Eric

By Eric Stutzman 

So you made it through your final round of interviews and received positive signs throughout the entire day, but when it is all said and done, you don’t receive the offer. 

I’ve seen this situation happen a lot.  It’s tough, but don’t get discouraged.  It’s not always the end.  

Remember, your recruiter is there to help you.  We’re looking out for positions across the company, and in some cases, the first position you interview for just isn't the right match.  When I encounter this situation, I know that I for one (as will other staffing consultants) will work with you to find a home at Microsoft.  I will gladly try and find you a position within my other product groups or with other groups across the company! 

There are a couple things to remember when moving forward. 

1: Keep a positive attitude:  Do not continue looking at this as a failure.  I have had candidates who make it through the entire day and receive positive recommendations from the interviewers, yet another candidate also receives favorable feedback.  In the end and for whatever reason, the group decides to extend an offer to the other candidate.  This does not discredit your candidacy.  We'll work to find you another spot. 

2A.  Keep an open mind:  So you interviewed with the hiring team for an SDE role, but at the end of the day, they think you’d make a great Microsoft employee – yet they want you to meet with the SDET manager and consider an offer for an SDET role.  Realizing throughout an interview day that another position may be a more appropriate match can happen, and it means the interviewers are looking out for you.  Consider the new role, and in the case of SDE and SDET, remember that Development or Design is a large part of the SDET title position and only STRONG developers with a testing aptitude can make it in this role! 

2B: Keep an open mind:  Perhaps you have convinced yourself that the only cool position at Microsoft was the one you were interviewing for which had you building the next generation “Oscillation Overthruster,” when I assure you that you will be challenged and have as much fun working on the next gen “Flux Capacitor”  =)  In fact, this other group may even be a better match for your skills and interests!  **extra credit if you catch the commonality between these two “products” ** ;-p 

When all is said and done – believe you me – if you receive positive recommendations during your interviews but fate prevents you from receiving an offer, we work our butts off to find you a home that fits both you and the company!  So, Don't Get Discouraged!

 ~Eric

By Eric Stutzman

Recently Janelle talked about MySpace / Facebook and if the use of them will "hurt your dreams of landing a great job at Microsoft..." 

Within this Priya asked "I'm also interested in knowing will my blog posts relating to other companies products/services hurt my chances with Microsoft?  In other words, if I had written blog post in praise of Google's certain services will it hurt my MSFT potential?” 

Well this got me thinking a bit about my own online presence.  In short I would say that praising another company on a blog, customer comment page or anything else will not have any affect over your potentially becoming a Microsoft employee. 

I know many have heard the rumors that iPods are banned from campus and that certain technologies are blocked from use on campus and well.... the world needs its myths now doesn't it.  I can assure you that you will see MANY iPods in use on campus and that all search engines, desktop search apps and many other non-Microsoft technologies are used by our employees.  Let's face it in the developer world, especially here at Microsoft, innovation and creativity thrives from competition.  Not too mention that we love our geek toys/apps as much as the rest of the world!

While I am fairly new to JobsBlog (from a contributors point of view) I certainly am not new to online communities be it message boards, other blogs and the likes of Myspace; where the music community is one of my favorite haunts.  Now I have seen a fair share of personal sites that, while I wouldn't want them attached to candidates resumes and in front of Hiring Managers, they wouldn't be a show stopper (most of them anyways).

I have been an avid online gamer since 95/96 and I even spent a couple years around that time at a company whose browser product was once known as Mosaic. ;) The beauty of the online communities is the online persona and the anonymity that it brings us.  Now I am not saying this gives you carte blanche to say whatever, wherever; not at all!  I am simply saying that most of the folks that I engage with in these communities know me as a mandolin player or an online game competitor and not Eric the Recruiter from Microsoft.  I also post by some common sense guidelines; do not post when angry, do not gloat - too much ;) - about your victories and do not post anything that you wouldn't share with mom!   I think that by following a set of guidelines like this there isn't a lot of room for negative splash back from your online presence and its effect on your potential Microsoft Employee status is null. 

~Eric

By Eric Stutzman

Our mission at Microsoft is "To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential."  And let me tell you I am glad it is!  I am fortunate enough to work remotely for my Redmond based team from my home office in the Atlanta area so I rely heavily on remote access and communication tools and services to do so seamlessly.  With all of the great products Microsoft is putting out this is getting easier and easier to do.  However, that is something for another blog entry.  What I really wanted to talk to in this one is "realizing your full potential" and "work/life" balance.

It is in my opinion that if you do not have work/life balance you will always fall short from truly hitting your full potential.  I have worked for a few companies and they all talked about work/life balance, but in my opinion Microsoft is the first company that actually gets it!  I am not saying there aren't other companies out there that don't get it, I just haven't experienced it in my career. 

Working from a home office is a blessing and a curse; the blessing is obvious in that the commute is perfect while the curse is that every time I turn around I am AT the office! :)  Add in the fact that I am working on Eastern Standard time for Pacific Standard Time based groups and my work days could be VERY long if it were not for my commitments around balance.  I am not saying that I do not get into some long days as needed and honestly my typical work day is 10 or so hours (I love my work what can I say) however; work is not a 10 hour long grind as it might be if I worked for someone else.  Now my work is done around all the other things my life has me doing whether that be playing with my son for an extra hour in the morning before taking him to daycare, knocking off at 5PM to go prepare dinner for when my wife and son get home or the various staffing related associations or community activities I am involved in.  My desk is mine to run, I know what I have to do to exceed my goals and my manager has entrusted me to “do the right thing”.  This truly does allow me to strive towards realizing my full potential!

Much like Matt spoke of in his Professional Freedom entry, it is refreshing to finally be able to work around my life, rather than to live around my work that I found myself doing at my previous companies.

By Eric Stutzman

As Jenna mentioned we are “rated” by the number of hires produced and at the end of the day it is all about tracking the numbers.  For example to reach my overall goal in a quarter, I typically have to review at least 1000 resumes.  So as you see there is a lot of work that goes into finding “the hire” at Microsoft.

Ok, so now that I've given you a taste of the “numbers”; at the end of the day I still have to say it’s not “just about the numbers”!  I KNOW that at every step of my process these numbers are living, breathing human beings and that I am as much there advocate into Microsoft as I am a gatekeeper for my Hiring Managers time.  I try and keep that in mind as I am making my decisions about whom to contact, who gets priority as far as getting on my calendar first and such.  Communication is crucial to this job and providing a positive recruiting experience is paramount not only to Microsoft but to MY personal reputation as an industry recruiter.  I know full well that networking is a critical path to success as a recruiter and if you do not look at things outside of the “numbers” your network may well collapse. 

Take Frank for example; I came across Frank during a search for people that had applied to one of our Program Manager positions (Yes we do look!!) in our applicant tracking system.  Right away I was able to tell (in my opinion anyways ;-p ) that he was a hire.  OK!  So this was made a bit easier by the fact that he had been through a loop at MS recently and received all positive responses on the feedback, but the team was not able to move to an offer at that time.  

Immediately I did two things; contacted the recruiter that was in charge of the original loop to see what was going on (our reputation for doing the right thing within our own community is also critical for success) and flagged the candidate for follow up so he didn’t go off my radar.  Once I got the “story” and the “ok to move forward” from the other recruiter I contacted Frank to see if he was still interested in opportunities with Microsoft and if he remembered the position with Office Live he had applied to. Yes and Yes!  Great!  Now onto my screen questions so I could submit him to my hiring manager. 

Frank and I had a great conversation and while he wasn’t the “typical” core tech software development background Program Manager candidate I typically look for this position required a strong User Experience background which Frank had in droves!  Now from Frank’s perspective he had not really considered a career at Microsoft as his background is very strong within Apple’s products.  Frank is also a blog follower and has used Jobsblog to gather information.  Read some of the things that he had to say about the MS recruiting process and our bloggers.

Taken from an email from Frank:  “The blogging thing is way cool and I think it can only help someone in your position.  As someone who has supreme power as the MSFT Jobs gatekeeper, a lot of folks are looking to your posts for guidance and insight as to how to attain their dream job.  Your last post was great for someone who is looking to get into MSFT as a developer and gave some very insightful information.  I would love to see more posts like that.  I can't begin to tell you how much I have learned from the Jobs Blog and many other blogs within MSFT.  It was a MAJOR contributing factor to swaying my opinions and attitude about Microsoft in a positive way.”

He also had a bit of advice for me which is always appreciated as blogging is something new for me!

Frank said, “I say keep up the good work and for future topics, think about how you felt trying to get in and the types of questions that you were wondering about.  If it's something you can write about now, I think it's a safe bet there are many others wondering the same things.  Talk to you soon...”

Frank is interviewing with our team soon… wish him luck!!

~Eric

PS:  A shameless shout out to my son Drake who is celebrating his 1st birthday today!! Happy Birthday Drake - Daddy loves you!

by Eric Stutzman

Data Structures? Order Notation? Isn't that a bit on the academic side for the Industry Candidate screen?

As an Industry Recruiter, I am typically looking for someone that has 5 or more years of experience plus a Bachelor with a Masters in Computer Science preferred. I have several standard questions I ask in my screen that require someone to select the appropriate data structure and check the runtime and space complexity of their algorithm, or I may give you the data structure and have you come up with an optimal solution based on order notation.

Here is where it can get interesting as quite often I am challenged by my interviewee as not having to do this "in the field" or "in the day to day engineer’s life" or even "I know this. It's just been so long since I was in school." Now that may be true for many companies, but I am told by my groups that this type of problem solving can be and is a day to day reality here at Microsoft. So, trying to get a better understanding, I reached out to some of the engineers and managers that I support for a better explanation.

One response that I got was that many of the application developers I am talking with are working on solutions that are for internal customers or customized solutions for a client or two; where as Microsoft's core tech developers are working on solutions that could have tens of thousands of customers, so the solutions they have to come up with MUST be the most efficient solutions possible.

Other engineers agreed.  SDEs and SDETs at Microsoft are answering challenging design questions everyday and MUST keep efficiency in production at the front of their designs.  That's why these questions are so important.

What is your level of understanding with data structures and order notation? If you are applying for SDE and SDET positions, you may want to brush up on this, as many staffing consultants will want to know! Our hiring managers will not only want to know, they will want you to be able to come up with the most efficient algorithm and then write the code for it keeping use cases and test cases in mind!

Eric

by Eric Stutzman

I figured I would start out my blogging venture by talking about my passion; Core Tech Recruiting for Microsoft Business Division.  Microsoft has really seized onto the convergence of software as a service (SAAS) and many of the groups that I support are making the right moves into this space.  In the coming weeks I will be providing you with an in depth look at Microsoft Business Division by having all levels of employees (from General Managers through individual contributors) highlight their groups, their challenges and how YOU can become a part of it.

I know my opinion is biased as this is the group that I work for, but talk about a really cool collection of groups and products to support.  By now you must have heard the buzz about Unified Communications.  No?  Well here is a good read to wet your appetite.  Talk about a great suite of products to bring your business communications to the next level!  Perhaps you have heard about Office Live!  This is really going to help small business be able to "establish, manage and grow your business online".  Another group I will mention today is Microsoft CRM; just take a look at how far this product has come in the last year and a half.  I couldn't possibly mention all of the great products that are part of Microsoft Business Division in one post, but be sure I will be highlighting this division over the coming months and weeks.  Where will MBD go next?  Stay tuned...

Until next time!

Eric