The talent landscape, and why I'm ready to lose it
Update 6/7: Welcome, new visitors! Wow, I'm surprised. I didn't think my little rants were news worthy. Let me first say that the point of this post was to create a dialog between recruiters, hiring managers, interviewers, and candidates ... and I think that was accomplished. In fact, the dialog it has created (so far) has been very rich and beneficial. I want to also point out that I don't feel the problems Microsoft faces are any different than any other company out there ... especially in the tech space. Google is in the same boat. Yahoo is in the same boat. Amazon is in the same boat. In fact, it's a very large ship, and it's conversations like this that help turn it - even if it's a little at a time.
To anyone out there whom I offended, I sincerely apologize. The post, while serious, was meant as an off-the-cuff (and believe it or not, even humorous) rant. Yes, there are lines I would want to take back and remove from this entry, but this is what I said, and it wouldn't be fair to my readers to remove these lines. I also want to say that these comments are a broad generalizatoin. There are many great "with-it" Hiring Managers out there ... and this certainly isn't directed at you. Again, I apologize.
Anyway, since you are here, feel free to visit my other posts (which you will find are 99% of the time very positive about working at Microsoft). And email me if you'd like a job. :)
************************************************
I’ve been in a blogging tug-of-war with myself lately. There are things I want to write about, but I am unsure of the topics’ appropriateness for JobsBlog. After all, the target audience for this blog (at least I think) is the jobseeker, and I want to keep my content relevant and focused on topics that jobseekers would find of interest.
But on the flipside, I know several hiring managers and interviewers (inside and outside of Microsoft) read my blog, too, and there are certain topics I want to direct toward them. And there are certain things I want to tell them that, at times, I don’t think would be so PC of me to say in a public forum. (But maybe being non-PC is the right way to go … it’s so hard to tell when you try to balance being a good and fair blogger with being a good and fair corporate citizen.)
Yesterday, I set up an internal blog so I could post my various rants to a “safe” audience. Josh told me this was lame. Anything I want to rant about related to recruiting should probably be ranted about on the external blog. I think he’s right, but it’s also difficult to properly judge my safety net at times.
My latest tirade revolves around Hiring Managers (and I’m referring to Microsoft Hiring Managers … but I know this problem exists in other companies) not “getting” the talent landscape. Not only do they not seem to understand that brilliant software engineers don’t grow on trees (you don’t, do you?) … but they can’t seem to get it through their heads that 1) Microsoft isn’t the only place hiring, 2) Working at a big company isn’t everyone’s dream, and 3) Redmond is not the first place people say they want to move when they wake up in the morning. (Unfortunately, I don’t think the slogan ….”Where do you want to go today? Redmond, of course!” would fly.)
So I guess I’ve just been really tired of (pardon my bluntness) the entitled, spoiled whiners lately. So much that it’s made me question my desire to continue working in a Recruiting function for this company. I don’t know how many times I can have the same conversation like, yes, Monster.com is a one place to search for candidates but it’s not the only place, and no, Mr. Hiring Manager, you don’t need your own account. We’ve got it covered. Thanks though.
Quite honestly (maybe here is where my tirade kicks in), I’m sick and tired of the Hiring Managers around here not trusting their recruiters. Hi there – news flash. Guess what? I probably have a higher IQ than you (yes, I just went there), and I “get” it. Trust me. They pay me the big bucks to be an expert on hiring for the company. You do your job; I’ll do mine. Plus, you don’t see me getting in your business every time some Microsoft program crashes on me, do you?
No, recruiting is not rocket science, but (and I’ve realize this more and more every day), it’s not easy either. (especially in the industry recruiting space.) Actually, I frequently kick myself for getting myself into a profession that seems to have such tough, seemingly unsolvable problems.
And here’s the other thing. Microsoft has some of the top recruiters in the industry working to solve these problems. We actually know our stuff, and we are actually actively working on solutions everyday.
Part of the problem (and I fully realize this and admit this) is that we as a recruiting organization haven’t done a good enough job explaining the problems we face as an organization. I think it may be part of that ego thing of wanting to make sure everyone (in particular Hiring Managers) believe we are in control of the situation. But it ends up hurting us even worse because we don’t take the time to explain the realities of the talent landscape and better educate employees on how they can help themselves. My team and I have been talking about this a lot lately, so hopefully, you (internal Microsoft employees) will see more education about this in the coming months.
So for now, I do think I’ll include my little tidbits from time to time. No more rants like this (hopefully), and no, I’m not losing it (quite yet.)
But I hereby warn ye, next Microsoft employee who sends me the next great recruiting idea like searching our resume database or sponsoring a one-time event, I will not be so nice. There’s no silver bullet, and to recruit top talent, you’ve got to be prepared to invest long-term in solving the problem. When you are ready to talk about that, you know where I am.
84 Comments
Don Demsak said:
Cool, Gretchen must of been reading Rory Blyth's blog recently, and it shows ;) Give it to them with both barrels of the shotgun.
Sam Ruby recently weighed in on how far to go with a blog: <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1986.xhtml">http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1986.xhtml</a>
"if you don’t get your hand slapped at least twice a year, you aren’t pushing the boundaries hard enough"
TAG said:
I do not see problem with target audience here.
Create a new category for "JobSeekers targeted posts" vs. "Recruters targeted posts".
You have already done similar for Zoe vs. Gretchen categories.
As well - this is not so high traffic blog. Some people have CNN / BBC / local news RSS feeds in their agreegators - as you can guess - only 5-10% of news need fill reading and can be filtered out by header.
Even more - you already was posting non-jobseekers targeted posts into this blogs. For example this one (or it was jobseeker-only oriented ? ;-) <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/2005/03/23/401197.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/2005/03/23/401197.aspx</a>
Leaving a company in face of problem is not good. Keep trying to establish trust.
Regarding one-time vs. long-term - you will never know best solution.
Several one-time events every year can become a long-term solution.
As well - searching database every week is the long-term solution ;-)
P.S> Lame joke:
Ask Bill and his ICOS company to sponsor DNA testing for all babies born searching for "brilliant software engineers". This will be realy long-term solution - as you will need to wait 10's of years for thouse babies to be ready for hire.
For sure - you can try to ask them to create some new tree species for this (Microsoft
already has intellectual property that grow on trees <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-5205574.html">http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-5205574.html</a> ;-) - but this will be out of their research budget ;-)
alanpa said:
I have a great recruiting idea...(please don't hit me)
Another side of the problem (and you may delete my post for saying this), is that sometimes when we get great people in our doors for an interview, we don't interview them well, and lose out on what would have been a great opportunity for everyone involved. Many groups do a yearly or bi-yearly interviewer training session to avoid things like this, and there's no reason that hiring managers and "as appropriates" shouldn't get the same sort of refresher / reminder training.
The problem is that the training isn't company mandated, and it's the individual groups who have to be proactive about not being recruiting idiots.
I *know* what the talent pool is like. I get it. I also know I'm not a recruiter, and I would never pretend to be one. I just wish someone would flip this bit for the other 5000 people who do interviews at ms.
I think one thing that would help is
alanpa said:
not sure where that half a sentence came from at the end - pls ignore.
Nicole Simon said:
Probably it is more about status - we are talking Mister Hiring Manager here, right?
Not to have their 'own' Monster account probably 'hurts' their status - on the other side, if these are the ones hiring, are they the best fit for that job? :)
JobsBlog said:
Alan – LOL. Yes, I know you get it. You’ve convinced me of that. :)
I totally agree with what you are saying about the interviewer training and skills. I also think people who don’t even interview need to know more about the talent landscape. One idea we’ve been tossing around is a brown bag (or even a breakfast series) that employees (any employee) could attend. And we’ve also talked about better integrating this message into interviewer training … but I guess we need to make more people take the training first. :)
methylamine said:
I would add to that:
Microsoft needs to do a better job recruiting INTERNALLY; it is entirely too difficult to move from the field to Redmond, and vice versa.
Recruiting also shouldn't stop once someone's hired. An employer/employee relationship is a lot like a marriage; it takes ongoing work from _both_ partners to keep them satisfied.
We seem to forget sometimes to keep our current employees "romanced" adequately...silly little things like removing towels from the gym. C'mon--did that REALLY contribute to "shareholder value"? It seems spiteful in retrospect :)
jonathanh said:
What do Hiring Managers actually *do*? Do they just act as another layer between product teams and recruiters?
JobsBlog said:
Nicole - Well, in this case, there are only a finite number of candidates out on job boards like Monster so it doesn't take 2000 people to rummage through them.
Methylamine - I won't dispute that. In the past, I tried to get roles out of recruiting and was blocked because "I was just a recruiter." I do think we need to take more chances on our employees.
Jonathan - Since you work at MS, I assume you are just asking what their purpose is (not what they *are*), right? I think Hiring Managers have gotten more invovled in the hiring process as of the last few years. They used to be mainly involved in the offer decisions ... now they seem to be intimately involved in deciding who actually gets a phone screen. Their invovlement (while cute) does tend add a lot of (needed and un-needed) bumps in the process. Ah, another rant topic. :)
But for those of you out there who don't understand my use of the term "Hiring Manager" ..."Hiring Manager" is just the term to describe the person who is in charge of making the final hiring decision for a job. It's likely (but not always) the "reports to" manager for the "to-be-hired." For instance, I have been the "Hiring Manager" for other recruiters. A "Hiring Manager" is probably just a Development Manager, Group Program Manager, or Test Manager who happens to have open positions on his or her team.
andlommy said:
I was ready to post a `Gretchen, why do you always talk of good things on the blog, is it the company policy to express only positive feelings about the company to people`, but now i get my answer, "no it's not".
As i see it every company has it's pros and cons and speaking of them freely is a way to solve them.
Nice post gretchen ;)
Jim said:
You get kudos for expressing your real feelsings on this blog, not a "corporate image."
Mark Jennings said:
Gretchen,
I have been in this industry for 13 years now and things really haven't changed.
In order to be truly respected like other parts of the business,we must draw our foot in the sand and not accept riduculous statements or behavior from the hiring managers we support.
The type of riducule and second guessing that is allowed to go on in our industry is not tolerated by sales, marketing, engineering or legal professionals.
I agree,you must respond differently when you get a "brilliant suggestion" from someone who doesn't know how to recruit.
Good luck and dont let the fools bother you.//markj
jeffs said:
Nice topic Gretchen, and flame on!
Not being a recruiter, I can only imagine the problems "hiring micromanagers" can create for you. However, as someone who has often frantically floundered to get recruited, it can be a real boon to have such managers do such things as, oh... say, DO a phone screen before the recruiter is even involved! Sorry, but this is kind of a model scenario I have worked towards over the past few trials :), and it has been beneficial to me to a large degree IMHO. True, recruiters theoretically posses better skills and tools to handle the start to finish, but 1) whats a hiring manager to do in a time crunch (from their perspective)? and 2) for the recruit-to-be, what better way to make an impression and get the foot in the proverbial door? My big issue with the landscape these days is figuring out how recruiters AND hiring managers can see solid successes and experience in a candidate over the mirages of "certifications above experience" and "all consulting engagements are successes" type mentalities. Clearly, the wise and progressive thinkers (like you :) ) in the recruiting field do not succumb to those false visions, but in the a large number of cases, they do. IMO, there is a vast and largely un-tapped pool of more experienced candidates that can be mined, if the techniques to find them can be mastered.
Cheers
Jeff
JobsBlog said:
andlommy - Yeah, it was starting to feel the same way to me, too. Thanks for validating my attempt to speak more freely. It feels good. :)
Jim - thanks :)
Mark - Thanks for the support. I'll stand firm. :)
Irada said:
I smile reading this post, and the reason being... I have been a "hiring manager" for a few years by now... Please don't hate me quite yet... I am one of those good ones, who lets a recruiter, even more so, counts on a recruiter to do her job, so that I can do my job. Normally, I prefer to work with the recruiter through all the steps of the process including participating in a panel interview if there is one, helping to determine a final candidate, creating an offer together with me, and extending it. In all honesty, I can't imagine why would anyone want to do someone else' job. As long as we, hiring managers, know what are we looking for and can communicate that clearly, the process works! Communication, collaboration, open mind and trust - that's all you need.
Now, I have to tell you that there were times, when I had to get involved with a recruiter more closely. Someone was new and inexperienced or just had difficulty handling the assignment. But this is true in case of a developing hiring manager as well.
Regarding interviewing training. It works. I strongly recommend that as I saw the difference it made. The only thing I would suggest that you combine traditional training with some action learning or best practices sessions, pair up an experience interviewer with a beginner hiring manager, or anything else along those lines.
In any case, thanks for the post - point well taken! By the way, I loved the recruiting videos you, guys, together.
Gautam said:
The issue originates because some Hiring Managers look at a group like staffing or other parts of HR and say to themselves "Hey, this is just common sense"
No its not. It's probably a higher skill than product sales, because you are dealing with people all around, not software/industrial products...and so much hinges on the intangibles.
Another reason is that hiring managers might only be seeing the very smart people in their teams, which leads them to believe that software engineers grow on trees. If only they had to go out gardening...!
regards
Gautam
ExMS :) said:
Hey there,
This was an interesting read and while I do agree with all 3 of your points, hiring managers at MS don't seem to. Most (not all) think that MS is the only place where all devs want to be and they can always get their way with their reports/recruits...this ofcourse drives away (existing) talent (like me :)), let alone find new ones. Though MS has done a lot of improvements on its image...I'd luv to see more. After all I learnt a lot their. Keep up the good work...
Adam Barr said:
Gretchen, you are correct that many Hiring Managers have big egos and think they can do anyone's job. BUT, remember the story I told you about my sister-in-law's experience with HR from the outside. Now imagine she had come to work for Microsoft--what do you think her initial opinion of HR would have been? In fact this issue (since at her level she would have been hiring people) was one of the concerns she raised about working here.
- adam
JobsBlog said:
Irada – Yes, that’s very fair. With new recruiters, I really would like to see them make a push to be more integrated into the groups they support. What ends up happening is the new recruiters don’t want to seem like they don’t get it, so they bluff their way through it and don’t adequately set expectations … which perpetuates the problem I was ranting on.
Gautam – Yes, recruiting definitely seems like common sense, and while a lot of it is, I would say it’s common sense based derived from informed decisions. I think another reason why Hiring Managers don’t see that good talent is hard to find … is that they themselves (and as you point out, others on their team) was/is good talent that was found.
ExMS – Totally agree with you. This problem perpetuates into retention as much as it does recruiting,
Adam – Point well taken. HR/Recruiting has a long way to go to improve our image both internally and externally.
Brian Korzeniowski said:
Gretchen - The crux of the argument you are making seems to be this: Do you recruit natural geniuses (i.e. those born with natural aptitude and abilities), or do you recruit smart, intelligent people who have great potential. I would argue it take a different recruiter mindset to reach each audience, and franky - you cannot recruit both at the same time without losing focus of your passion, purpose and mission as a recruiter in the first place. Sounds to me like someone is forcing you to bump up against an artificial glass ceiling, or someone does not respect you as a fellow co-worker and human being. Maybe you should look for another company that values what they say they do. You sound really unhappy lately in your posts.
Ask yourself this question: Are you enough of a big bad recruiter to make it without Microsoft on your resume? If you are, find another company - go find Zoe. I hear they have openings at WAMU. :-)
Just my two cents...
MSLead said:
I'm no hiring manager, but I do interview loops VERY frequently. The candidates I've seen over the past few years have simply been *horrible*. They talk fast, but they have no ability to think through a problem. Yes, I understand it's hard to find people like that, but why do I have to deal with all the chaff as well? Recruiting has been a nightmare to deal with...they have an arrogance level above-and-beyond any other org I deal with. They can do no wrong. They always have an excuse. Whatever recruiting is doing, whether through their fault or someone else's, it needs to be fixed. Someone in the chain has a complete lack of skill when it comes to differentiating people who can think from people who just spew jargon. Recruiting is supposed to provide us with half-way decent candidates to interview, and they are currently not fulfilling that role. *THAT* is why Hiring Managers don't trust them. If I went to my boss and told him "My job is hard, please don't expect me to do it well or hold me accountable for poor results" he'd fire me on the spot.
AcrossLakeWashington said:
Great post, Gretchen. I have a message to the MS hiring managers who are trying to figure out why Gretchen is P.O.'d, or who have rants of their own about the recruiting org.
The rest of the world is using the dysfunctional elements here against MS to pull/harness/capture/lure talent once destined for Redmond to other, more enticing ventures.
Start working together, or you're going to continue to get the quality of candidates you've seen to date, only they'll progressively get worse. The rest of us use the bureaucracy and blindness of Redmond to our advantage.
JobsBlog said:
MSLead - I don't think I said you shouldn't hold me or other recruiters accountable for our performance. I just said you should take some time to understand the marketplace before jumping to snap judgments.
AcrossLakeWashington - not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not. :) But I do think all companies have this problem of hiring groups and recruiters not connecting properly. It's not just Microsoft.
JobsBlog said:
Brian - Sorry, I missed your comment there.
No, I am not unhappy. (And no one has been mean to me personally.) I have one post that is critical of Microsoft but balanced with my other posts, I don't think that makes me seem unhappy. And I think Microsoft does live up to the values we promote.
I think the problems I describe happen everywhere. Not just at Microsoft. The other recruiters from other companies who have agreed with me from this post just confirm that for me.
Edward Mitchell said:
Gretchen, I am a former Microsoft employee. I left to attend grad school and generally found Microsoft to be a fine place to work in the tech industry. I agree with your comments, though, regarding recruiting. I was once on an MS team that left a position open for essentially a year as we interviewed great candidate after great candidate. Most had PhD's in almost exactly the area we wanted but one person would always overrule everyone else finding one little thing that was not "perfect". The result was the position remained unfilled for a year. It would have been far more cost effective to hire any of the many great people we interviewed, and if absolutely necessary, paid to train them for a few months! Instead, we had no output from an unfilled position. This, of course, made no sense. But your observation and my experience appear to confirm that managers sometimes miss the big picture.
So why I am not back working for Microsoft? Well, I and my family love living in Spokane, the low cost of living, great weather, bountiful outdoors opportunities, remarkably "small town" atmosphere, no traffic jams, no long commutes. If only I could persuade you to open an office over here!
RE: recruiters doing a good job? said:
If you are really convinced that Microsoft recruiters are doing such a good job, check here:
<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/208214">http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/208214</a>
And this is NOT the first time!
Joe said:
I'm a network engineer with almost 20 years in the field, and I've been approached by MS several times for a direct hire, especially this year (I'm an SMS product specialist). The MS recruiters I've dealt with have been without exception professional, collegial and know their stuff cold - far more than most IT recruiters. I get called mostly from NC but have heard from Microsoft folks all over, and you are charming as can be. Hope this brightens your outlook a little!
Ronnie said:
Excellent post. I didn't know that internal folk were so aware of what was obvious to me:
"1) Microsoft isn’t the only place hiring"
"3) Redmond(Toronto in my case) is not the first place people say they want to move when they wake up in the morning"
My feeling that stuck with me longest after not joining MS was the arrogance of the Hiring Manager.
Cheers,
R.
Java Developer said:
Absolutely LOVED this post. And congratulations - you made the front page of Google News - that's how I found you. Just curious - is YOUR resume up to date? Have you thought about how you might transfer this blog over to its new home: blogs.formermsemployees.com ?
Hey, I'm actually looking for a job too - my gig is up in a couple weeks - 6/20/05. Does MS hire Java developers?
My email is brent.w.dunklau@irs.gov (yes - I work for the IRS - don't mess with me :)
BDT said:
Whoever said "arrogance" hit the nail on the head. I recently had a couple of interviews with Microsoft, and thought all the rumors about "arrogance" were just jealous people who'd been turned away. Then I hit interview number three... The oozing of machismo and 'my wee wee is bigger n' yours' pretty much left the foul taste in my mouth. I essentially realized that this wasn't the place for me since I eat arrogance for lunch, and began to toy with the interviewer, just for the sport of it.
For example, he asked a classic MS interview style question: "What would your friends say if you told them you accepted a job at Microsoft?" My answer? "They'd laugh their ass off an ask if I had rocks in my head. My friends use LINUX and Java."
Alec Saunders, a former MSoftie captures the arrogance well here: (ironically, with arrogance ooooozing from the blog):
<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://saunderslog.com/?page_id=312">http://saunderslog.com/?page_id=312</a>
MIkey D said:
YAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!
We are all in the same boat!
Josephh said:
I'm approached quite frequently by MS for contracts and occasionally for FT positions. However, the compensation is never enough to tip the balance all other things being the same. Contract egagement rates in particular are totally embarassing at Microsoft for a company (and individual) that promotes software as a profession and yet is pushing to allow more H1-b visas...
Sam said:
I don't know much about Microsoft or what kind of job opportunities are available there - but it seems to me (I am currently a recruiter in another industry and have been for the past twenty-five years) that since you are who you are, the leader in the technological revolution, that you would have no problem providing virtual workplaces for the all those talented individuals who don't want to pack up and move to Redmond. Isn't that a big part of what you are selling at Microsoft - the ability to work from anywhere at anytime? Just a thought...btw, nice blog.
James said:
I sure hope things are changing. I got asked back for my third interview for MSFT, and I was so aggravated by my second tier interview that I told them no-thanks. I had several other offers from companies that didn’t want to play the “arrogance” card and didn’t treat me like a jerk. That said I’ve since worked closely with MSFT developers on several project and I have to say most people I have met seem very nice and are great to work and collaborate with. So I hope the interviewers learn some new skills or you just get some people with a better view of as you call it, “the talent landscape”.
Phantom-Linux said:
There are many Linux zealots out there that don't like Microsoft and would not want to work for them. I went to a career fair in college and met with a recruiter and a manager. They were suprised that I said I wanted to work at Microsoft so I could check out Seattle and see Fraiser :). They did not like that very much at least not the gentleman wearing the suite. I never got a call back ... Don't worry don't get worked over with your job, volunteer at the hospital make furniture out of wood. Have people over once a week enjoy life. Will book mark thy blog.
Chris E. said:
As a contract worker here at Microsoft - I can tell you great talent is also being wasted in vendor positions. Mining those who are already at MS in a vendor capacity is a great untapped market. It is extremely difficult for someone like myself (on my 3rd longterm contract here at MS) to move from a- or v- to a blue badge. I have the skills and the personality to contribute strongly to a company like this, but I end up having to submit my resume to MS the same way as the millions of others who apply every day to MS.
Arthur Sorkin said:
I was approached by Microsoft in late 1999/early 2000 to come up to Redmond from Silicon Valley to interview. This was based on an
internal recommendation of a senior manager who knew me from a previous job. Your three points about Hiring Managers were definitely true in 2000. Especially (1) and (3).
I was not looking, and, if I had been, moving to Redmond would not have been high on my list. My specialty is one where there are very few qualified people (anywhere). The Hiring Manager and everyone else I spoke to should have been selling me on MS for that reason alone, and because I was there by invitation. But they clearly didn't understand the need and didn't try. I was not impressed.
Also, the Hiring Manager told me on the phone (and again in person) that mostly working out of MS's Silicon Valley offices was a possibility. The third level manager said "absolutely not." This didn't inspire confidence. They needed to get their story straight
before they ever spoke to me. And it seems clear that at some level, they understood your (3), but they were in denial too.
There was one other factor that you didn't mention, and perhaps this has changed in the past 5 years. In Silicon Valley, one would be paid the market rate and would get stock options or stock. MS's policy at the time was that they only paid some percentage of the market rate (70% ??) but that somehow the stock made up for that. This was sheer fantasy.
But it also in some way is related to your (1). The people I spoke to had no idea what the world was like in Silicon Valley at the time. It was like they were only used to dealing with a captive audience who had few other choices. And that anyone who was made an offer would certainly jump at it.
Edward said:
Looks like this just got picked up by CNet.
<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-5735457.html">http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-5735457.html</a>
Haberdashery said:
Yeah, in my humble estimation, the MS Recruiting process is whack. I interviewed with them a couple of years ago, and it was a totally rediculous experience.
For one thing, a total of 9 months had elapsed between first contact and my actual flyout. 9 months. I could have become a proud father in that time.
During those nine months, I answered a battery of essay questions via email, had a few phone interviews, and did a WHOLE LOT of waiting, during which time I actually found myself a job.
The interview itself was pretty bogus. It was the sort of tech interview where they try to "lead you" in a certain direction to solve a certain problem in a certain way. They didn't tell me what the problem was - I had to figure that out from the sketchy details that were provided to me. In this scenario, if they don't do a good job "leading" you, and as a result, you don't actually understand the problem, well, you're SOL.
Then there was lunch - I was warned of a lunch interview, and kinda figured it would be a "soft skills" kind of thing. Simple enough, I thought. After all, I'm a nice enough guy, right?
What it turned into was me having to solve a really difficult riddle and digest spicy Thai food at the same time. My interviewer made it clear that I had to solve the riddle by the time he was done eating. Also, if I was spending too much time with the riddle and not enough time eating, he would remark on that, something to the effect of, "Don't let your food get cold." (Do they mark off points for that?)
Needless to say, I didn't get the job. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how the "skills" that they "tested" had anything to do with my skills as a programmer, but I figured, "Well, they're Microsoft. Of course they know what they're doing." As it turns out, this may not be the case.
And what happened to me, you may ask? I stayed with the job that I got while I was waiting for MS to get back to me. Two years later, I've been promoted to the head of my department, and I'm now making more money then I would be had I gotten the job at MS.
They missed out on a good thing, but I have a feeling that I'm not missing out at all.
J A said:
This reminds me of an encounter I suffered at the hands of a MS recruiter about 15 months ago. I got a call from someone inside an interactive agency with which a certain MS division frequently partners. Based on their working knowledge of my skillset the agency put me in contact with a recruiter.
I was emailed a fluffy, vague job description to which I responded "can you send me the full job description" (which was probably my first mistake). The person at the other end seemed offended. The fluffy, vague version was all that had been prepared. It was chock full of feel-good language that failed to message the basics such as job responsibilities, reporting structure, etc.
Against my better judgment I followed-through with a second call with a different recruiter who had clearly not reviewed my credentials - in fact, he failed to note that I was in a different time zone and that 9 am to me was 7 am for him. We rescheduled for his convenience but during the conversation I was talking technical while he was talking marketing. I was talking nuts and bolts while he was talking spit and polish. It was a poor fit. Eventually, this second recruiter asked that I give him my best "elevator pitch". I stammered a bit since this wasn't a sales or marketing-related job - and I knew I was having the wrong conversation. I seriously had better things to do with my time.
Eventually I told the recruiter that I thought this was a bad fit. That I was looking for something more specific and technical. And that I appreciated his time.
The best part is that I think he got off the phone with the belief that he'd successfully weeded out an inappropriate candidate while I hung up thinking 'this guy's a nut'. I got the feeling that he expected me to trip over my own feet to work for MS. Well, he was wrong. My earliest contacts with MS led me to believe that the inmates are running the asylum and I have no interest in bothering with a company taht can't treat me as a unique individual even in the early interview stages. I'm quite glad that I didn't take that job in Redmond. I'm currently much happier in Cupertino.
Corey said:
From a contractors point of view...I'm in total agreement to you. But I feel MS is on a regular basis loosing talent due to the rock star FTE mentality. I've worked with more jackasses at MS than anywhere else in my career and I don't plan on returning to MS after two contracts.
Google said:
Of course you can't find good programmers anymore, they're all going to work with us at Google.
a little birdy said:
The Microsoft hiring process is the primary mechanism through which the company propagates its dysfunctional culture. The gang-bang style interview obssesses on problem solving and dominance relationships.
What is Microsoft good at? Fixing bugs and reacting to competition. That's what they hire for.
What does Microsoft suck at? Original thinking, elegant design, efficient organization. Why? The current recruiting/interview process does not address these qualities.
The dominant hiring mythology at Microsoft is:
Hire smart people and they will figure it out.
...which is absolute bullshit, but this is what the system is designed around. Read Deming to understand why this is bullshit. Microsoft is organizationally inept in the extreme, and one day this is how they will be beaten.
--a 10-year MS veteran and dreaded hiring manager
Disaffected MSFTy said:
Just maybe it's hard to hire good talent when there's so much disaffection inside microsoft - I mean who wants to go to Redmond, to get paid 67% of the industry standard, get stock awards (YAY! I CAN BUY A USED CAR!) and work real hard, become a stellar performer for a barely past inflation raise.
I feel bad for recruiters, how are you guys even selling Microsoft these days?
Rufus said:
(found this post via the Mini-Microsoft blog at minimsft.blogspot.com)
I'm a Microsoftie and I've done my share of external and internal interview loops. The quality of people we find to interview (and it's a lot of hard work to find them) continues to drop. The best people just aren't interested in coming to work for Microsoft, even in one of the big money making product groups. It boggles my mind. And then if we do make an offer (glorious day!) they typically get a much more compelling offer elsewhere.
I talked with a dev manager last week who said he has over 100 positions to fill over the lifetime of his vision. I have no idea where he's going to find ten great developers let alone one hundred. And we absolutely can never lower the bar.
I'm beginning to think that Microsoft has to make some fundemental changes that are externally visible in order to become an interesting, compelling place to work. Bless Gretchen for all she no doubt goes through: I would not want this job and would not be able to handle it for more than three weeks without turning into a rocking shut-in babbling resume keywords.
What I'd like to know: what are the best of the best looking for in a long-term employer and how does Microsoft have to change to become that company? Microsoft, more so than any other company in the world, is the people it hires.
DD said:
Well, part of the company culture is having people who think "I'm Smarter Than You" (Adam Barr had a nice post about this awhile back, calling it, I thin, ISTY Syndrome). Not surprising then that any slightly successful manager would think they're smarter than you. I have found the competency level here to be pretty much the same as most places I've worked, yet an utter lack of humility is much more common. I've found that some of the people who interviewed me have turned out to be a bit...less than average. I suspect the problem isn't really the "talent pool", but the out of whack estimations of some of the hiring managers as to their own place in it.
I'm finishing a year contract, and I've turned down one request for an FTE interview so far. I'm a pretty average dev, and it will take an above average offer to make me want to stay and deal with a culture that encourages prima donnas (not all, there are still many great people here and smart ones too). Other places are indeed hiring.
Wallace B. McClure said:
Wallace B. McClure said:
CMG Manager (Netherlands) said:
Hi Gretchen,
Nice to meet you. Its clear that you care deeply about your profession and I would guess you are one of the more effective recruiters at MS.
Some of your comments bothered me and I'll try my best to clarify (forgive my English - I'm sending this in from Holland)
At CMG, we go through several phases, often including software programmer, project manager, etc. I've had all the *hats* on at different times.
Gretchen posted: "I’m sick and tired of the Hiring Managers around here not trusting their recruiters...You do your job; I’ll do mine. Plus, you don’t see me getting in your business every time some Microsoft program crashes on me, do you?"
In many cases, its not a matter of "trust." It is often a matter of failing to communicate what the HR really wants to the recruiter. Note that my phrasing intentionally is not saying that the HR nor the recruiter is to blame. It is asserting that the communcation is often poor and that is what needs to be improved. An analogy would be if we were friends and you wanted to set me up on a blind date, so you communicate with me, get a rough idea and then it starts. If I failed to explain what i really want, I could imagine some major disappointments forthcoming. And even if I did my best and you followed through, often the date doesnt work out. And if it doesnt work out, is this a trust problem or just finding out that I can't communicate what I truly want in a date?
Gretchen posted:"Hi there – news flash. Guess what? I probably have a higher IQ than you (yes, I just went there), and I “get” it. Trust me. They pay me the big bucks to be an expert on hiring for the company."
This kind of thinking is what can cause lack of communication. In particular, it shows quite alot of arrogance and it probably is also something that the HR is also guilty of.
Gretchen posted: "But I hereby warn ye, next Microsoft employee who sends me the next great recruiting idea like searching our resume database or sponsoring a one-time event, I will not be so nice."
If the idea-poster was arrogant or patronizing, then certainly respond in a not so nice manner. However, by having this behavior, it might be blocking off communication when it seems that everyone needs to improve it. I would certainly not like to be insulted by anyone at my company, but I would also like to get polite and well thought out suggestions. I certainly would not want to scare off people with a reputation of jumping at them if there was a flaw in their idea.
Now I'm going to stop lest this book get out of hand.
Brian said:
I think one of the reasons people don't want to work at Microsoft is because of what people like Jim have to say, "As a developer your job never ends at 5 p.m. When you’re creating, you keep working and refactoring ... "
Jims Profile: <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://members.microsoft.com/careers/epdb/profileDetailPage.aspx?profileId=40">http://members.microsoft.com/careers/epdb/profileDetailPage.aspx?profileId=40</a>
In there it says, "I spend about one-third of my time in Dallas, one-third in Redmond, and a third in San Mateo."
Jim does your family enjoy you being home 1/3 rd of the time? Do they love the fact that your job never ends at 5:00pm the few days you are home.
I don't work at Microsoft so I truly don't know what hours everyone puts in but I think people see it as working long days the majority of the time. I think the trend is becoming people want to have time with their families, and enjoy life outside of work more than they used to.
Companies should be focusing on training people to work smarter and not harder. Just because someone worked a 12 hour day doesn't mean he got more accomplished than someone who worked 7 hours.
Companies need to become focused on what is good for the employee and in turn that creates loyalty. If a company said everyday at 5:00pm GO HOME, go spend time with your family, your friends, your XBOX and come back refreshed tomorrow and put in a solid effort I think they would get more out of people. I know the majority of my ideas come to me when I'm outside the office.
Your Recruiting Campaign and Culture should become Family First. Jobs can come and go but your family is with you forever. Oh, don’t get us wrong we want you to work hard at Microsoft and love your job but your job shouldn’t be everything in your life, it should be one thing in it.
Promote things like flexible schedules, 4 -10 hour days, or a 9 – 9 hour days with the 10th off. Work from home 1 day a week. Friday is get out of work at 3pm during the summer.
I’m sure the last thing a company wants is to reduce hours and loss productivity (so they think). But we have had doctor’s appointments at 3pm and had to leave early. Somehow on those days all of our work gets done. The same amount of work we would have done if we had stayed until 5.
Again I don’t know what goes on there and you may have had all these ideas already. Just my 22 cents.
discouraged said:
I've never applied for a job at MS, although I scan the openings every so often. From what I can see, there are several things that might make it difficult for me to get a job there:
1. Most of my development experience is on various flavors of Unix and Linux.
2. I'm not consistently good at the kinds of logic puzzles that I've heard are asked at MS interviews.
3. For the last four years, I had a position where I had to wear a lot of different hats, so I was not able to focus and specialize in a technology area. Thus, I'm not up-to-date on some new developments and rusty in others.
Anyway, enough about me. As for your difficulty in attracting and retaining top talent, the impression I've gotten from some people who had a choice between Google and MS is that there were more opportunities at Google for doing creative work, especially in search. The free food and stock options didn't hurt, either.
Tracer said:
Wow. How bent is this entry - could you be somewhat introspective? Although MS has it's share of "entitled, spoiled whiners," I've also found that in several cases, MS has lost great candidates due to incompetent recruiters. (Just what percentage of hiring managers at MS would fall into the whiners category? Perhaps there's a common thread there...)
One external candidate friend (and an ex-Microsoftie returning to Redmond) working with a hiring manager at MS recently said that he wasn't getting *any* of his calls returned by the recruiter, and the hiring manager had to escalate in order to get an offer sent out.
Here's a great recruiting idea: encourage the other "top recruiters in the industry" at the company to break down the barriers to get great candidates into the company, and advise HR (rarely seen as being very focused on employee retention) on ways to keep great employees as part of the company. (C'mon, what do you do with all that exit feedback?)
I've enjoyed your insight in the past, but this egotistic and somewhat juvenile entry has me looking for a spoonful of salt. There's a fine line between being edgy and condacending.
Sherry Karr said:
My husband, a programmer, sent me a link to the cnet piece that talked about your blog. I told him...hey I know who that recruiter is. Anything she has to blog about is worth reading, hahah.
Anyhoo...I am sure MicroSoft knows your motivations for your blog. I for one, find them refreshing, and you have a lot of interesting and helpful things to say.
MicroSoft is such a giant, and I would think that other companies would find it relief that they have the same recruiting and hiring issues as other companies out there.
That being said...this is why I am a third party recruiter hahah.
Wonderful blog as usual...keep up the good work and don't let anyone make you feel that you need to be silenced. I am sure the hiring managers know they have a great recruiter working for them. They should be grateful to have you and your blogs.
=)
test said:
test
Arthur Sorkin said:
Just to be fair, the problem isn't just with the Hiring Managers. Recently, I was called out of the blue by someone claiming to be from Microsoft telling me that they had scheduled me for a phone interview at a particular time and date. Wanting to know if that time was ok.
I assume this was someone from the HR department. The level of arrogance and presumption in this particular practice is mind boggling.
Paul Davenport - Intuit Sourcer said:
I read excerpts from this blog in the below article...
<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-5735457.html">http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-5735457.html</a>
I'm glad I took the time to actually come here and read the whole entry. It clarified some points of concern I had.
However, is a rant with no presented solutions something that is going to attract candidates to your company? I don't think so.
Exposing weaknesses within your company can be a somewhat honorable thing to do (i.e. "We have nothing to hide") but it should be coupled with some possible solutions, ESPECIALLY in such a public domain.
If some of your hiring managers are "whiney" and you as a Recruiter are "ranting", I'm seeing a culture of frustration without solution...absolutely somewhere I wouldn't want to work.
Gretchen, you are better than this! What solutions do you and your peers have in overcoming these issues?
Steve said:
This is what I like controversy amongst the ranks. Maybe mini-Microsoft should come clean as well <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/">http://minimsft.blogspot.com/</a> He makes good mention about Gretchen in his blog! Shun the praise, shun the excellence. Oops. Yeah, stuff is getting better isn’t it?
It’s easy to be negative and unmotivated, but it takes some work to be positive and motivated. While there’s no off button for those relentless “tapes,” there are things that you can do to turn down the volume and shift your focus from the negative to the positive. (Donna Cardillo, R.N.)
Christopher Coulter said:
Nice rant, but I think the geeky-styled arrogance is at the root of it all, rather than HR/Recruiting vs. Hiring Mgrs. The cushy R&D dot.com like echo-chamber 'tech conference here, tech conference there' campus-environment makes it seem like MFST is the center of the entire world. Why indeed would anyone want to work anywhere else? MSFT employees are always fostered up that they are the 'best'; as they have all these 'tricky mind-game interview processes' to weed out the somehow unfit. And if you are outside the mothership, you, obviously, aren't of much worth. It's pitched as come to us and play the political games (we are best of breed), rather than pro-active find the best. Just because lots of others are knocking on the doors, doesn't mean you can bury head in sand. Smug tech company elitism, the real heart of the matter, not particular to MFST, just seemingly more overt.
JobsBlog said:
Alrighty. Sorry for the slow response in the comments. Tech*Ed has been crazy, and I finally have some time to focus today. I know a lot of people have emailed me, and I will respond to each of you but it may be late next week before I get to it. (vacation next week .. thank goodness.)
Below, I've responded to everyone who has left a comment. If I accidentally left yours out, let me know:
Edward - Thanks for the comments! I can totally understand the appeal of the smaller town.
Recruiting doing a good job – I never said MS Recruiters do the best job. This post wasn’t about that, and in fact, if you read my other blog posts, you will see many many entries where I talk about how we are constantly trying to improve our processes to better meet the needs of our clients (hiring managers) and external customers (applicants.)
Joe – Thank you. :) It’s nice to be called charming!!
Ronnie – Thanks!! Not all Hiring Managers are arrogant. I just don’t think they are always well-informed (and that’s recruiters’ – including me – faults for not properly educating them.)
Java Developer – Actually, yes, my resume is up-to-date. :) <It always a good idea to update your resume every 3 months.> We do hire Java developers. We usually look for people who have at least some experience with C++ or C# - but developers who primarily code in Java are still awesome developers!
BDT – As much as you probably won’t believe this, I really don’t think *most* people at Microsoft intend to be arrogant. We sometimes live in a bubble (me included), and arrogance that comes across is a by-product of not being fully aware. But thank you so much for expressing your feedback. It’s notes like yours that help us change our culture … we are trying to be more aware.
Mikey – I know!
Joseph – I think there is a lot more to working at Microsoft than the monetary compensation, and I do think it’s a great company to work for.
Sam – Thanks. Yes, I agree with you. However, I do beieve that is something Microsoft is getting better at – although we have a long ways to go.
James – I do think people at Microsoft are very nice. I’ve met more real, down-to-earth folks here than at other places. I think another part of the arrogance comes from the urban legends surrounding Microsoft interviews – and at least, I for one am trying to dispel those myths and help turn the tide.
Phantom-Linux – Thanks. :)
Chris – Email me. :) (You may have already though – sorry I’m behind on my email!) As a recruiter, I’m not allowed to directly tap into that v- or a- community for the clear purpose of hiring people fulltime – but yes, definitely email me and we’ll see what we can find.
Arthur – We definitely have a big opportunity to educate Microsoft hiring managers on your points below. I just hope they will consider listening to me now.
Haberdashery - Thank you so much for your feedback. I’m really sorry to hear about your experience. And for anyone else out there, you are always so welcome to send me this kind of feedback. These are the type of comments that help us affect change.
JA – I don’t think the inmates are running the prison per se – but I do agree that our recruiting process does need to get more personalized. Thank you so much for coming on here to share your experience.
Corey – Sorry to hear that. :)
Google - Well, I know th
Scott Andrew said:
I have to agree with the no moving to redmond thing. I have been asked about working for Microsoft on and off for the last year. I am not interested in moving however, I have been telecommuting and leading teams from my home in S. California for 5 years.
The thing that i hate to hear is, well you have to move. There are reasons very talented people can't move. There should be ways for a company as large as MS to support Telecommuting contractors and/or employees.
Scott Andrew
Anonymous Recruit said:
Forgive me for posting anonymously, I am currently going through your interview process (and have been for months now).
I can tell you exactly why you are having trouble finding quality hires.
You are chasing us away. Having survived numerous technical interviews at this point (many being downright brutal with the "mind games"), the only reason I have not given up on your process yet is that I never leave something unfinished. If I did not have that particular character trait, I would have lost interest in Microsoft months ago.
And to be frank, yes others are hiring - many in much more critical need than yourselves - and they are offering fairly nice incentives too. Most of us 'cruits *have* jobs already, we are not desparate. Your competitors do not have the same roadblocks in place - the time from first tech screening to employment offer is less than two weeks for every employer but Microsoft.
Perhaps I am just a glutton for punishment, and enjoy repeatedly taking days off from my current job to interview with Microsoft - only to be told each time "you did fantastic, and all interviewers gave you a thumbs-up, but they decided to pass anyways"?
Or perhaps I am like the majority of your interviewees, and getting chased away by the hiring process?
Now, I will say that the recruiter I have been dealing with is *awesome*! I have dealt with a lot of recruiters over the years (as both a job-seeker and an employer), and the person I have been dealing with here has been, by far, the most professional, friendly, knowledgeful, and helpful that I have ever encountered. It is the process that is behind them that is broken. I can sense the recruiter's frustration with the process (as much as they try to hide it), it seems as though their hands are tied half the time.
And now you know... the rest of the story said:
Gretchen,
I hear what your saying and I think there's also more to the story.
Having been a interviewer in a number of internal loops this year, I appreciate that the pool of the 'Microsoft caliber' folks isn't as big as it might once have been.
I know that I have personally recruited folks to MS and the HR folks that have set up the loop have left such a negative impression of the company, that they've opted to go elsewhere.
Things like -
* Setting up multiple informationals and cancelling at the last minute
* Insisting on weekend interviews and then no-show on the call
* Calling the person by the wrong name
* Telling the person no relocation was required and *encouraging* them to apply, only to change their tune on the informational (at the start of the conversation, not the end)
I personally just transferred to corp from one of our field offices and had a similiar experience. I was in consulting and I'd communicated repeatedly that I needed 24 hour lead time to request the VTC room in the subsidiary and schedule time appropriately with my clients.
I received a call at 7pm at my local time, for a full day loop the next day. I pulled strings to get the VTC set up, only to find out the person setting up the loop dropped the ball, which resulted in an multi-hour phone interview. If I wasn't already working for the company and passionate about a move to corp, I would have dropped out as well.
Not only were the folks I referred *not* interested, they're walking negative billboards.
I've never worked with you specifically, so I wouldn't hesitate a guess asNot only were the folks I referred *not* interested, they're walking negative billboards.
If this is happening with the people we personally bring to the table, how many people are we losing that we don't know about.
This is what drives hiring managers to get more involved in the process. When we're looking for the best and the brightest, actions like these contribute to losing folks to places like Google.
Jim S said:
Microsoft and many other tech companies need to look at "onshoring" for many reasons. I live in the metro Kansas City area. People who live here who hear what homes and office space cost in Silicon Valley (or probably Redmond) costs generally have their eyes bug out as their jaw drops. That's one factor. There's also a certain amount of being out of touch with non-high tech businesses, small businesses and mid-sized businesses that goes on. Just having sales people out in the field doesn't really cut it. We've heard of the distributed computing model but what about a distributed business model?
An example using my home town and Microsoft could go like this. Microsoft could have an office in metro KC. This metro area consists of 7 counties and about 115 cities and towns for a total population in the 2000 census of 1.7 million people. Some of the corporations that call it home are Sprint, Hallmark Cards, H&R Block, AMC Theaters and American Century Investments. This is just to give you an idea of what kind of city we're talking about. There are a lot of small to medium sized cities within a couple of hours drive, including the college towns of Lawrence in Kansas (University of Kansas) 45 minutes away and Columbia Missouri (University of Missouri) two hours away. Telecommuters in this varied environment could do almost of their work from home while the office in the KC area would serve as a place to have them occasionally get together for face time with fellow Microsoft employees and there could also be the occasional trips to Redmond. There's probably other places where something similar could work and it would certainly make for some diverse viewpoints as well as cost savings. Just a silly little idea.
Gargs said:
Gretchen said "I’m not sure what it’s like in the Netherlands, but in the US, I really don’t feel like recruiters are respected and I really feel like most people think they are smarter than me because they majored in CS and I majored in English".
As an Indian living in the US for 4 years trying to get 2 graduate degrees, I have to say that it is very true for American nerds. Majoring in English or anything Humanities related is considered akin to being stupid. I, of course, have no reason to worry as I have an electrical engineering and computer science background, but this is something that really annoys me when I intereact with young undergrad students. The problem doesn't end there. You see the same kind of arrogant mindset in mid to senior level executives. Corporate America has an edge over the rest of the world mainly due to its communication and management skills. It is really easy to train and to be trained to become a software developer. Kids fresh out of college with a history degree can get trained in writing good quality code, but it is inherenty hard to develop business and communication savvy.
Now, regarding the original post, I agree with the person who pointed out the lack of communication between entities. Lack of communication is the weakest link in any failed enterprise/endeavor, be it marriage, education, or even getting funding from a VC. I am not sure how a behemoth like Microsoft could suddenly get over this problem, but you need to act fast.
I have never been called by an MS recruiter, and my personal opinion of the hiring process has fluctuated from being very positive to very negative to about average at present based on stories I hear from friends. The last time I saw a Microsoft banner at any career fair at my University was sometime around 2002.
That said, someone posted about how Google's hiring process is a lot more refined. I was called by a Google recruiter in May, and although she was very friendly and flexible, she told me outright that she would be asking me 3 technical questions given to her by engineers in the group, and that she did not understand the things being asked at all. Maybe I am naive, but I don't think this is the best way for a company to go about hiring engineers. Does Microsoft follow the same type of interview procedures?
Ed Kaim said:
Ed Kaim said:
Jeremy Langhans said:
wow ... VERY interesting stuff ... hmmm
--
Jeremy Langhans
Senior Sourcing Guru
www.jeremylanghans.com
jeremylanghans@gmail.com
949-872-2328 Home Office
425-736-6189 Mobile
"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British Statesman, Prime Minister
Simon Cooke said:
Steve - it's pretty obvious who minimsft is if you've been reading a lot of Microsoft blogs over a prolonged period of time. The style and content very accurately match a blogger who pretty much stopped posting around the time that MiniMSFT started up - and that blogger used to post in pretty high volume on very similar topics.
Nunavut said:
It'd be more competitive if the jobs were interesting and the compensation were to meet industry standards.
But it's not compelling.
And I've had my share of arrogant interviews. Two different job interviews, and in both the level of condescension was disgusting. The third job I interviewed for I took, but I managed to avoid all the unpleasantness, because I was already a contractor & didn't need the job - somehow that made them compete a little more for me.
I stayed at MS long enough to vest some stock shares, but left. Why? Because there were so few really interesting things, and because Microsoft reacts to market trends as quickly as the Titanic did to icebergs. (And because so much time was spent on projects that were complete wastes of time, and everyone involved knew it, but it was important to "keep the developers busy." As if they couldn't figure out it was make-work.)
Where's the RSS feeds in Office?
Where's the support for XML and Java? (I mean real support, not the MS-flavor support.)
Where are the compelling graphic upgrades? Have you *looked* at the UI for Windows or Office lately? Have you looked at any random Mac app? Do you see the significant difference in design and execution? Windows and Office are just UGLY, guys. I know you think Longhorn's gonna be great - but you cut the graphics engine, and you're still 2 years late.
ack said:
Check <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/06/15.html">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/06/15.html</a> for some nice info.
anonymous said:
Hiring managers do trust recruiters. That's why they take recruiter's feedback and proceed to next rounds of interviews.
Absconditus said:
It is humorous that you believe a recruiter is the most important part of recruiting people. Perhaps you should take a look at the company you work for.
Bryan said:
I just took an IQ test and the result was all: "Higher than Gretchen's." Take that! Zing!
(Sorry, that's all I've got).
As a MSFT SDE, I can attest to the hiring manager bitching and moaning.
Mike said:
Another vote for the "no, I won't move to Redmond camp"; that's what ended up derailing my various interviews with MS over the years.
(I would, ironically, like to like and work in Seattle; my wife would love to live there again; but I would not and could not tolerate living in or commuting to Redmond. There's a lot more people out there today working in tech who hate the 'burbs than you think. - I live in quite central Austin today).
gauti said:
I can sincerely say that this is the first time I have wanted to work at microsoft. Seems there are really smart people working on really difficult problems, and that is what makes companies interesting to talented people. So, just convince us (programmers) that there are really difficult technical problems to be solved, and we will come. So, where do I send my CV?
Herschel Horton said:
Gretchen, this was an eye-opener! My I suggest that you have a one-on-one with Scoble (<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/</a>) about "RANTING."
If we all only had the guts to RANT SO WELL!
-Herschel
Steve No Jobs said:
Hard to be an honest guy-even harder to have the guts to speak up.
Best wish to your job with MS.
Otherwise I don't see I would cross path with MS in any way, I am one of the 'big mouth' person who say things as they are myself.
Brooks said:
After reading through all the comments here, I have to say that a lot of the complaints sound remarkably familiar -- not from job applications, but from applying for a graduate-student position in one of MIT's engineering departments some years ago -- or, I should say, from deciding whether to accept; they'd already accepted me and offered me a full scholarship, so this was to convince me I wanted to accept the offer, and for me to pick a research group to work with.
The "recruiter" from the student services office was wonderful, but most of the faculty I talked to seemed to treat the interview as an impostion on their time, and made no efforts at all to convince me that I wanted to be there. (One of them wouldn't meet with me at all, saying that his postdoc handled all the "hiring decisions".) After a couple of days of that, I started wondering if things would be any different when I was actually working with them, and decided to go somewhere else rather than find out.
discouraged said:
Thanks for your response. I'll take a look at the MS openings again and see if there is a match. I only have about a year's worth of Windows dev experience, and it was eight years ago. A lot of technology has changed. Also, as a professional in this industry who has interviewed lots of people, in all fairness, I just cannot do the same level of work on Windows that I can do on Unix or Linux. On the latter, in a project, I can hit the ground running (for most things), and for other things, it would be a matter of reviewing some topics. But I would be learning Windows dev pretty much from scratch.
I have been participating on some online forums and working on some small programming projects to review things I've gotten rusty at. So far, it's going ok, but I still have a ways to go.
You are correct that Google has become very skilled at promoting its perks. I think this is something not to be overlooked. Perks are an attractive commodity, especially to the very talented. An important perk of Google's is that they get to spend 20% of their time on pet projects, some of which may actually be put into production.
BTW, I have interviewed with Google. My experience was the same as the individual who first spoke with a nontechnical type who asked three questions. I was asked three questions as well. One of them I answered in terms of powers of two. She asked me to give the exact number, which I thought was somewhat odd, and reached the conclusion that she didn't understand how I got my answer; she just had an answer key.
Good luck ... hope we all find what we want/need.
JobsBlog said:
Everyone - Thanks for your comments. I have decided to turn off comments in this post, but if you have further feedback, please email it to me directly at gledgard@microsoft.com. Thanks again for the great discussion.
BCBlog said:
读博记趣 - MS recruiter - Joel - Scobleizer
The best post yet on the reality of corporate blogging at seattleduck | kevin briody said:
PingBack from <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://seattleduck.com/?p=775">http://seattleduck.com/?p=775</a>
I blog freely « Genius Required said:
PingBack from <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://lab49careers.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/i-blog-freely/">http://lab49careers.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/i-blog-freely/</a>
Copyright Revewals » Microsoft’s JobsBlog : The talent landscape and why I’m ready to lose it said:
PingBack from <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://copyrightrenewalsblog.info/microsofts-jobsblog-the-talent-landscape-and-why-im-ready-to-lose-it/">http://copyrightrenewalsblog.info/microsofts-jobsblog-the-talent-landscape-and-why-im-ready-to-lose-it/</a>