Mock Interviews for Microsoft Developer Position

I have decided to offer a dry run / mock interviews for developer position “a la Microsoft” to community. My announcement received some 40+ interests, so here is fullfillment of my part …

Update on 2019/6/1: After 3 mock interviews in first 4 months, I realized I don’t have as much time as I hoped for. Therefore I decided to change the preparation requirements to make the mock interviews really worthwhile for both sides - you, the candidate and me. The goal is to save each others’ time and for me to scale better.

Personal offer, nothing Microsoft official

First and foremost, this is a personal offer. I will do the mock interviews in my spare time, not on company time (although my work hours are flexible). It is not part of my job. My employer, Microsoft, does not sponsor or encourage the effort in any way known to me.

Why me?

I am fairly experienced interviewer in Microsoft. I like doing interviews and I conducted probably around 200 of them in last few years. Half of them were “quick” 30 minute screenings on college campuses in US & Canada, but still interviews.

What’s in it for me?

Nothing, at least materially. This is my way of giving back something to the community. I do not expect any payments, compensations or endorsements for it as a reward or payback.

Although, I will ask you afterwords to give me a recommendation (in your own words) about your experience on LinkedIn, if you can. If you can’t, that is fine too. Main reason for the recommendation is to help me build trust relationship with other candidates in future faster and provide insight what to expect and about usefulness of the mock interview from different point of view.

Overall I will also ask you: If you have feedback on the interview from your side, please share it with me - it will help me get better as interviewer and it will also allow me to steer the mock interview effort in a direction useful to the participants.

Who is it for?

Primary target audience are developers who plan to interview with Microsoft in near future, but are not sure with themselves and would love to “try it out” first to understand the experience and be better prepared. It is something I would have welcomed myself before interviewing with Microsoft in 2005.

The reasons people participate may vary - from just lowering their stress, confirming their technical knowledge, or testing their language skills (interview in English can be intimidating to many non-native speakers like me). I won’t judge your reasons, I may ask out of curiosity :).

What to expect?

First, while you can expect a reasonably seasoned interviewer to talk to you over email and eventually over Skype, please beware that I don’t claim to be the best interviewer ever, or someone who knows exactly how things are. All I am offering is my personal experience and my personal view point.

You may disagree with me and that is perfectly fine. If I tell you my honest opinion after the mock interview, or if I recommend improvements to your resume, it does not mean I am right and I know the best. You should view it as one view point and it is totally up to you if you want to act on my recommendations or ignore them.

Here’s what I expect will happen:

1. Prepare for the interview - see section below.
2. Send to my private email address:
   • Your resume (in a structure you plan to send it to Microsoft).
     • I won’t share your resume with anyone unless I get explicit permission from you.
   • Short text about what kind of developer job, or product you would like to work on (e.g. Windows, Office, Bing, Dynamics, Azure, XBox, games, UI applications, Visual Studio, compilers, frameworks, etc.).
     • If you don’t know, that is fine. (I didn’t have specific idea either before joining Microsoft ;))
     • Motivation: It will help me give you better feedback on your resume.
   • When you plan to interview for Microsoft.
3. I will prioritize incoming requests with these criteria:
   • Underrepresented groups in SW engineering (let me know if you’re in one).
   • People with nearest interview deadlines / plans.
   • Everybody else.
4. I will provide resume feedback via email if needed (first impressions, how it matches your desired job profile, etc.)
5. I will schedule Skype interview with you - 1h.
   • Originally I hoped to do 1-2 mock interviews each week, but that was just wishful thinking. In reality it is barely 1 per month :( … although I could try to use lame excuse that I needed to experiment first and fine-tune the process, but that would be mostly a lie. Anyway, I will try to keep doing them here and there when the workload at daily job permits it (which may be a while). I will focus more on resume reviews when possible.
6. We will do the mock interview.
   • Expect me to start the mock interview the same way as in a real interview - including introduction, warm up questions, etc. The full experience.
     • Note: I always allow programming language of choice, pseudo-language or even mix of languages - the ideas are important, not the syntax.
   • Debrief at the end with direct and honest feedback (10 min).
     • Would I give you ‘hire’ or not? And why?
     • Details on what went well, what didn’t go well and how it matched expectations.
     • What to improve / look for.
7. After the mock interview:
   • I will welcome direct honest feedback the other way - How did you feel during the interview? Could I do something better as interviewer? Or as part of this mock interview effort?
   • I will ask you to NOT disclose my interview question. I plan to use it for other mock interviews and wider knowledge would undermine the effort here.

How to prepare?

I expect that you are already fully prepared for Microsoft interview.

For resources, tips and tricks, please read Preparing for Interview at Microsoft.