What would you change about the Microsoft careers site?
Last week, Heather Hamilton asked her readers to give her feedback about the Microsoft careers site. This week, JobsBlog is asking you:
What would you change about the careers site?
What issues have you had with the current site?
Do you want additional content, and if so what kind?
Is there something another site does that you'd like to see on our site?
What new technologies or features do you think we should add?
Members of our HR IT team will be checking this thread out, so this is your chance to have a real impact on the Microsoft Careers site. Let us know what you think!
21 Comments
pablo c said:
There is no way to track the status of our submissions. Once you apply for a position and send the resume, you never know what happened with that submission in the end. I am mean, it would be great to know if the resume was considered, rejected or was not read at all.
Sites like monster provides that functionallity, which I think it is very useful.
Thanks
Pablo.
Swaleh said:
I would recommend that the job openings be categorized e.g jobs that fresh graduates can apply for should be indicated as so. So far most if not all of the jobs require some experience
said:
C'mon. I know you've got more gripes ... um, I mean ... "suggestions ... than this! ;-) I've been hearing it from you all for years ... now is your chance!
-gretchen
Beth said:
Advance Search! There has to be a better way to narrow down the listings. I would like to see years of experience, etc.
Rajiv said:
1.Why is it that job posted in 2006 show up in a search?
2.Why is it that the default sort for dates is earliest to latest , i.e. 2006 to 2008. This mean we need to first sort and then again sort to get the more relevant order
3. I should be able to crate multiple resumes, presumably for different roles
4. What's the relation between the profile and resume, I never got it, sorry
yaskil said:
Site is great. You are really really good at respoding comments. Some answer comes lighting fast. That is great. I suggest you to keep this going.
I mentioned this before, there are lack of information on some positions. i.e. what program manager do. There plenty of in the web. It could be better to have them here.
Also search can include comments. You spend time to answer questions using comments. It could help people to see previously answered questions using search. This simple enhancement can save your time, save our time. The world can become better place :)))
Your story part was good. Real world application stories can give more information to new applicants.
I have been reading this blog more than two years. It is getting better and better everyday. You are doing great job.
said:
Well, since I consider myself a Microsoft Careers Site addict, I'll suggest some functionality I'd like added/deleted/changed:
1. Default to recent dates first (I know you can change filter, but when I search the Seattle area, the first results I see are from 2006)
2. Duplicate submission check - I can't tell if I've already submitted to a particular job (One time I found that I applied for a job 3 times by mistake!)
3. The Default Filter for the Job Cart would be great if it were based on date (that is just my preference)
4. Job levels (i.e. 59, 60, etc.) would be nice to know (I'm sure there are reasons for not including them...but from a candidate experience it would be nice to know.)
5. Why are the International Jobs a completely different submission process and UI than US jobs (It seems much less organized when trying to apply for International positions - although on the flip side, the response from HR is much quicker)
6. International Jobs does not hold your resume information from the US interface, so you must re-enter the information.
7. Default Filter for Resume Submissions also starts with earliest date (I think recent date would be better)
8. Resume Submissions that are no longer available stay on your submissions list (they should self-delete once no longer available)
9. (Not Product Specific) - Why do I see this on every other position when as soon as you open it, you can see what product or service it is for?
10. Inconsistent UI - When you open a job description after running your job agent, you do not get an option to return to search results (you DO get that option if you are in the job cart or did not run the agent)
11. Recent Openings (for positions that supposedly match my location and job category) almost never seem relevent, perhaps an added filter would be more helpful here.
12. Job descriptions are random, sometimes they don't even let you have a clue as to what the hiring manager is looking for (i.e. 8 years as a Circus performer, 3 years swallowing swords, and 2 years as a Lead Technical Fire Breather, MBA preferred)
13. Explanation of filters? How do I know if my resume is missing a key word or phrase that is keeping it from being read? (i.e. do I write out Master's, or does MBA work?)
14. PS: I love Microsoft!
Thanks for asking for feedback JobsBlog crew!
Joe B.
Mahmoud Ahmed said:
hi, I am from Egypt (Middel East area),
so it is very good to appropriate page or place in career site
to show the "International Recruiting Year Calender" for each region
for example : [Month] - [Region] - [Email Conatct]
Thanks
Roy {Career Site PM} said:
With regard to Palo's post
<i>"Once you apply for a position and send the resume, you never know what happened with that submission in the end. I am mean, it would be great to know if the resume was considered, rejected or was not read at all...."</i>
If you take the following actions, you will find basic information about the status of your resume submission(s):
- Navigate to the Careers site
- Log-in
- Click Job Cart
- Click View Resume Submissions
Admittedly, it's probably not nearly as robust as you would like to see. We are currently considering some of your suggestions as well as other for a future release.
The Career site project team is reading this blog on a regular basis, so keep your suggestions coming and know that WE ARE LISTENING.
-R
Roy {Career Site PM} said:
Joe Branco - thanks for the great list of changes. I'm not going to respond to each line item, but I've noted each and we'll be discussing these during our requirements gathering sessions.
-R
Aaron Linne said:
How about a drag-and-drop job hook-up tool based off of some basic metadata?
for example:
Off of a skills list, I can drag and drop a "marketing" tag. This would now pull up all of the marketing related jobs. I could then refine my skills turning on and off things like how many year, previous budgets, social media, etc etc, with everything I do effecting what job show up as available.
I could then pull in "mba", refine it to "recent" and the jobs list would add jobs i'm qualified for and take away jobs i'm not.
i'm picuring an interface like the surface drag and drop stuff... it could be a great example app for silverlight. or, if it was very surface-esque, you could have it running in the HR lobby for people to play with!
Fabricio said:
My comments will be very short:
1. Unify US and International careers sites. The US is a lot far better than international one.
2. Even being able is the position you submitted a resume is open or closed, it would be great to be able to have more visibility about the process. Don't know how detailed it can be
3. Offer a link to the career path of a open position. It means, if I'm applying for a Program Manager position, clicking on the title would bring me to the career path of the branch I'm applying.
4. Facilitate the navigation on the results of a search. It happens to me that sometimes, when I navigate forward on the results pages, I can't never get back to a previous one.
5. Put a field indicating that some positions does require citizenship or work permit for a specific region. (Something like Latpro.com)
Regards,
Fabricio
Leila said:
I would like to upload my resume in Microsoft Word format not text.
Beth said:
If a job is closed, why is it still on my viewed submissions page. I have submissions that go back to 2004. Also a way to remove yourself from a submission would be great.
Roy said:
Beth wrote: "If a job is closed, why is it still on my viewed submissions page. I have submissions that go back to 2004. Also a way to remove yourself from a submission would be great."
I believe you are referring to the submission history feature. Assuming that to be the case, the reason why it remains in your submission history is because the purpose of that section is the give you a historical receipt of your submission transactions.
Would you prefer:
a) Auto-removal is position closes?
b) A user driven function for removing them?
c) Submission history items to expire after "X" days?
d) A combination of the above?
Microsoft's JobsBlog said:
Here's the final post in Kenji's series about the Microsoft recruiting process! As promised in my last
Ahmed said:
I'm from Egypt, and the international application website looks so 1999!
One more thing, copy and pasting my CV? Come on!
Let me upload my CV please!
Gena said:
Hello!
I have a few ideas about how I might improve the site.
I would love it if the resume builder did not limit the number of skills and qualifications you can list (or at least allow more than 10). I had to leave some useful skills off of my resume.
It might be nice to have a list of common technical skills (XML for example) that could be selected in the skills and qualifications. I would still retain some free text fields since not every possible skill could be listed but it seems like this would make the process faster and reduce data entry errors.
It might be nice to be able to include both the text version of your resume and the Word/formatted version. In other words, one version optimized for search, another optimized for printing/reading.
It would be lovely to be able to set the display properties in the job agent along with the search criteria. Then the results would automatically appear as you prefer.
Thanks, Gena
said:
I was delighted to see that HRIT fixed my biggest site compaint within 48 hours...That of the vanishing search results. Kudos! I knew it would be a simple fix.
said:
Ok gripe time but creative construction time.
I'll be to the point.
I've been working with your US careers site for the last two years, I've found workarounds and glitches that make it useless sometimes (Unless your a persistent son of a gun like me... :) )
Job agent notifications.
They DO NOT WORK ANYMORE.
I haven't seen one in about 6 months. When they were working (I can give an EXACT date/time from good/bad) It would send you a notification and a hyperlink. The hyperlink would list all jobs fitting within a date / range (since I would ask for jobs that had changed since last notification)
Currrent version (last I even got) sends out an email with a hyperlink pointing to the correct site and JobAgent but from Null to Null which lists all jobs on the careers site.
When you are working with large numbers (say 140 postings) and beginning selecting them, when you navigate to the next page, sometimes you GET the next page of 10 25 or 50 (depending on your count)
And then sometimes you get a page of NO jobs. The only fix seems to be go to job Cart, submit and reload the agent all over again.
I will probably be "heavily using it" tonight, so I would suspect I will have a much more accurate description of the booms.
It used to work flawlessly until about midway January 2007, then all this happened. Not sure on the "why" but that is the time frame.
Hope this helps
Sean
Friday Funny Guy
Brian S said:
My biggest complaint is not so much with the site but rather the weak job descriptions in many cases. I know I have a applied for positions that I am not qualified for but the job description indicates that I am and in other cases I know that I have not applied for positions that I know I am qualified for but that is not indicated by the job description.
I would echo other feedback asking for some sort of way to track whether or not your submission has been reviewed/considered/rejected and even possibly why. Some corporate sites are starting to do this and it is nice to know why your were overlooked for a position.
Since I am field based (not in Redmond area), I spend a lot of time searching in the "non-location specific" area and come to find that many of the positions classified are in fact very specific but might have multiple location options (New York, Chicago, Boston). I would like to be able to see those positions when I search for positions in Boston. I feel non-location specific should be just that for listings of positions where applicants can live anywhere and still do the job.
I know you will laugh but it would also be nice to see either the hiring manager or the recruiter for the position just so we can personalize the application. I have a pet peeve sending submissions "To whom it may concern" or "Dear Hiring Manager".
I would also like to have the ability to reach out to a recruiter. I feel I am highly skilled and have been a finalist on at least three occasions but have always missd the cut due to internal hires. My feedback is always, you would be a great fit here or there. In my case, I am limited to the positions due to location that I can apply for (Account TS in SoCal is what I am looking for) and it would be nice to be able to communicate with recruiters for this area instead of just dumping my resume into the database when a posting comes up. Some positions I have been contacted for and others I have not so I don't really get the selection process when the job description is the same. An Account TS job description is pretty much the same but there is obvious differences given the selection criteria. I am sure this is the same for other job descriptions.
I would also like to just submit my resume as a word doc and not have to convert to text.
Thank you,
Brian (aspiring Account TS in SoCal)