Extreme Home Makeover and the Dinner Date Finale
Remember my dinner date?
As promised, I took a Jobsblog reader to dinner the night before his interview to give him some tailored career advice and insight on Microsoft. We had a fantastic time and I told him to call me as soon as his interview day was done to tell me how it went. So at 2:00pm my cell phone rings and he says, “I feel like I am on Extreme Home Makeover and I was just shown my dream house, only instead of my dream home, I just got my new dream job!” 
I love this guy. Anyone who compares a new job to a makeover show is my dream candidate. I am thrilled to announce that Pat Munns is moving to Seattle and joining the CRM team as an SDET. Aside from the great wine and seafood we had the night before his interview, he had a few other tricks that he used to help him land the job.
Here is Pat's advice:
When I would apply for jobs at Microsoft, I would apply exclusively to SDE jobs. I didn’t think to apply to SDET jobs because I assumed it wouldn’t be as interesting to figure out how to test something. I went for months, applying to jobs, getting a bunch of phone screenings, a few interviews, but no offers I felt really excited about.
Then, I got a call from a Microsoft recruiter who talked to me about what it means to be an SDET. I began to realize that SDET was not what I thought it was: it seemed like SDET was actually a slight superset of SDE. When I thought about it, the difference really just came down to ego. I reasoned that if I let go of the ego requirement, I could still have everything else I wanted in a job. It was a no-brainer. I had 8+ years of SDE-like experience. If I wanted to grow and learn new things, I needed a change. I wanted to look at software from a new perspective. So, I went all-out and prepared for the interview.
Of course, Microsoft has this notorious reputation of being impossible to get into. My experience had definitely supported that so far. The interviews even have their own Wikipedia page. Some JobsBlog readers post comments about how they won’t even apply to Microsoft because of the interview. I was intimidated. I imagined being asked to implement an insert operation for a 2-3 tree on the whiteboard.To prepare, I studied my old data structures textbook, and worked out a lot of the coding exercises with paper and pencil. I read the testing chapter of Code Complete twice, and did a lot of reading online about Dynamics CRM. I would awkwardly interview myself out loud. I didn’t know exactly how polished I needed to be. So, I kept going until I would start second guessing my decisions, worrying I was preparing in one area too much at the expense of others. It got to the point that whenever I would learn something I would feel myself forgetting the stuff I studied yesterday. I took that to be the sign that I was pretty much as ready as I’d ever be.
It was an awesome coincidence that Jenna posted about taking an interviewee out to dinner just after I had received confirmation that I was going to Redmond. It took me about 5 minutes to quash the unease I felt about telling my story on JobsBlog. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.Jenna obviously had a ton of great advice to share. More importantly, being able to talk and get all of my interview worries off my chest with someone who understood what I going through, was a huge boost. It allowed me to go into the interview the next day relaxed and composed. Plus, Jenna was really cool and I had a lot of fun. Even if I didn’t get the job, I wouldn’t have gone home disappointed.
It turned out I was interviewing in what Microsoft recruiters call a “finals day”, which is an event where they interview a bulk of people in back-to-back meetings. My day started in the lobby, waiting for someone to come in and call my name. At any given time, there are 1 to 5 other candidates in the lobby waiting to be called as well. All together, there was probably something like 10 interviews going on at once.After a few interviews, I was beginning to get concerned because I didn’t ace any of the whiteboard coding problems with the air-tight, elegant solution. There were some things I hadn’t prepared for, like implementing different data structures in SQL, so I had to fly by the seat of my pants. I frequently felt like I was ‘thinking underwater’; it seemed like I couldn’t work through the problems fast enough to produce a complete solution before the interviewer cut me off to move on.
However, I made sure not to get sloppy and to reason through my decisions rationally. It helped to think aloud because then at least I didn’t appear to be totally perplexed. A few times I slipped into thinking about the solution too deeply and I fell into some assumption traps that the interviewer set for me (just remember there are lots of variations of linked lists.)
Sometimes, I would get the feeling that my style of thinking about the problems was not working for the interviewer, but I guess for SDET positions they probe a lot to see if you are a breadth-first or depth-first kind of problem solver. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get any puzzle questions, because I enjoy trying to solve those.
After my 3rd interview, the recruiter came in and told me that the team liked me, but they were still unsure if I could free my mind of assumptions like a true SDET. An interview later, I was beginning to feel the mental fatigue, and the recruiter took me aside and said that the team gave me the thumbs up.
I was elated, but it wasn’t long before I started worrying about whether I would sink or swim at Microsoft. I guess I have a sort of pessimistic outlook on things, always on the lookout for what could go wrong – hey, maybe I am cut out to be an SDET after all!
- Jenna
12 Comments
Robledo said:
Hi Jenna, once more a great initiative. You and all Jobsblog recruiters make us really inspired about Microsoft.
Awesome work, Pat. Congratulations!
Just one out of topic comment: I would like just to register my WOW (or better, a lot of big WOWs) for Microsoft Surface (www.surface.com). Really impressive! Any open position at Surface's team? ;-)
Susan said:
This is all great information about how to do a great interview in SDE or SDET. What I want know is how to ace an interview for user assistance and education. I would love to see an article about UA. Products are great, but if no one knows how to use them, then what is the point? Hurrah for user assistance and education.
ML said:
I'm wondering how long did it take after Pat's interview loop for him to be contacted about being offered a position. I've heard "up to ten days." Any insight into why it would take that long to hear back from results of "the loop" ??
Ens said:
"An interview later, I was beginning to feel the mental fatigue, and the recruiter took me aside and said that the team gave me the thumbs up."
It seems to me he was offered on the same day. That's how I got my offer. They may do things differently on "finals days" and out of the country bulk interviews than on others.
Janelle said:
ML- i can answer that question. It appears that Pat interviewed in a large super day of interviews. All interviews and teams tend to do things differently. If a lot of people all interview on the same day then we will get those results out same day, since we aren't waiting on interviewing other people. Sometime with industry candidates the teams wait to make offers until all candidates have interviewed, which is what causes the hold up. We never make people wait longer than that (even though Im sure it has happened before).
I know for college candidates we do not "compare" you with other candidates, so the time frame is usually only a few days. Sometimes the hold up can be an issue with a visa, or finding the perfect amount to offer someone. Or it can be that the hiring manager left on vacation without telling the recruiter his/her final decision (you'd be surprised how many things can cause delay).
What I would say is that if you have an issue with a deadline, ie you need to know the results by a certain date then say so up front. If you have an offer, or interviews, or anything let us know. Recruiters deal with so many candidates a week that just remember that we may have to call back the candidates with offer deadlines first, and then it may take longer to get back to you. Hope that helps!
-Janelle
Jambalaya said:
Hi Pat, nice beard ! can u teach me how to shave like that?
Liz said:
Susan - for info on UA (aka User Experience, aka Usability), check out Angela's posts that tend to focus on that area: <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/tags/Angela_2700_s+posts/default.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/tags/Angela_2700_s+posts/default.aspx</a> .
ARD said:
Hey! I saw that guy! I came for an interview also and am moving to Seattle next month. Congrats and see you there!
said:
I should have followed up with Jenna on the dinner offer because I wasn't hired ;-( .
On a more positive note, the overall interview experience was awesome and hope to do it again!
Kevin
Jill said:
Garyoke - what made the interview experience awesome? It seems we hear a lot about when experiences aren't great, but what about when they are? I'd really like to know more about yours and when did they say you can interview again?
ML said:
Janelle,
Thanks for the response. I'm hoping that I'm contacted soon. I believe today will be the 10th business day. This can be quite nerve wracking ;).
said:
Jill,
What made the experience 'awesome' for me was the overall interview experience. Although I was not selected, I did strike up some interesting conversations with some of the professionals I interviewed with. After self-evaluating myself after the entire process, it was probably for the better that I didn’t do this particular Product Planner position within MS Learning. For better lack of words, this particular Product Planner position seemed rather boring, non-innovative, non-creative, and non-active based on my talents and resume.
As a current high school technology teacher for the past five years, my Microsoft Interview was vastly different from what was encountered in other job interview experiences. The process of going building to building was unique, along with the entire experience being a good lesson to share with my senior business English students next year within our employment unit (If I am still in the classroom).
I was not offered an opportunity to interview again. In fact, I really did not get too much feedback on my actual interview other than an e-mail from my lead recruiter stating "... Microsoft has decided not move forward with my candidacy."
What exactly they were looking for, why I was not selected, how they found my resume in the first place, yada, yada, yada is beyond me! I sort of felt like a 'wild card' candidate selected to interview for this position; no industry experience in the area/field they were looking for but a ton of knowledge, education background, and related experience associated with the position.
I would love to pursue other positions at Microsoft which may be a better match of my talents (educational technology, school IT leadership, K-12 technology, public schools/technology, technical training, presentations, E-learning, or technical evangelism). Several readers and some recruiters on this blog did not make it into Microsoft or similar innovative companies their first attempt. Having the opportunity and experience to go through the entire Microsoft interview loop has reassured me that I am a marketable candidate within a variety of technology related professions in the event I want leave teaching/athletic coaching.
Kevin