For the last couple of months, I've been trying to fill an open position for a software engineer in my team to work on servers for our new IP-based TV system. One thing I've noticed is that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of web sites about interviewing at Microsoft. Almost all of them are based around listing all the 'trick questions' that people at Microsoft ask and tips as to the correct answer. But we don't ask trick questions. I'm sure some groups do, or did, but we don't. If you actually want helpful information about interviewing at Microsoft, you should read the blog that Gretchen and Zoe, two of the technical recruiters at Microsoft, keep.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are really reluctant to ever say, "I don't know" in response to a question. That's not actually the worst answer you can give -- a completely made-up answer is. For some questions where you don't know the answer, it probably makes sense to talk about how you would figure out the answer. What are the steps you would take? After all, almost all bugs start out like this ("why is this crashing?"). On the other hand, if it's a question about some obscure C++ feature you've never used (for me, that would be almost anything involving the word 'template'), just say you don't know. When I interviewed at Microsoft, I knew almost nothing about C++ -- almost everything in QuickTime at that point was written in C -- so I admitted up front that I couldn't answer C++-specific questions. I still got the job.
Another thing that seems to throw people is the simplicity of some of the programming questions. You can actually tell a lot from the answer to even a simple question. One person, when asked one of these simple questions, explained to the interviewer that the question was beneath him. While this was certainly an interesting interview strategy, it did not turn out to be a successful one.
My favorite phone screen moment: when I asked someone an algorithm question and, behind the noise of his hemming and hawing, I could hear the clacking of computer keys. A few moments later, he suddenly had the answer. Google is so great, isn't it? This, too, did not turn out to be a successful strategy.
1.) If Microsoft didn't ask trick questions why is there a cottage industry surrounding it?
2.) If knowing how to solve the puzzle is as great as knowing the answer to the puzzle (if not better) why was Google a bad result?
2b.) If this was a phone interview who says the poor sap wasn't trying to do two things at once?
The problem with most interviewers perspectives is they don't realize how unique that perspective is.
Having said that...I've gotten the "beneath me" type answers before too. Those guys aren't worth the time of day.
Posted by: Nick on April 6, 2006 12:44 PM