Internship interview - Facts

Mid October : Career Fair
A U organised occasion where the famous software giants (and ofcourse lots of other companies for different departments) put up a stall and accept resumes, have a nice chat, answer your questions and distribute freebies.
They process your Resume and call you for a interview.
Microsoft does a very elaborate job of talking to people for atleast half hour during the career fair and then later invites them for an on campus interview.


November 4th : On Campus interview
Among many other desis competing for the position, my slot was one of the earliest. 9 AM on the first day of a 2 day interviewing session.
30 Minutes..
10 minutes : I explained one of the projects that I'm currently doing here at the U with enormous detail (almost to the level of writing the code).
10 minutes : Coding quetsion for which I need to explain the algorithm, write the code in a piece of paper, test it and optimise it.
10 mintues ; Finally, my time to ask them any quetsion I want..
Results to be announced in two weeks..

November 18th : Nothing heard from them

November 29th : Interview offer is made. Had to fill out online forms. Decide on the date to go there. January 24th it was !!!
Had the entire trip sponsored by Microsoft. The flight expenses, food, stay, travel and everything.

January 23rd : Left Minneapolis at 4 AM. Stop at Denver. Land at Seattle. Amit (ami shadow) was there in the airport to receive me. The coding guru typically is so sought after in MicroSoft that he has been sent to Seattle 4 months after he got recruited by MS India and his stay extended for the third time now.
The hotel was peaceful, the weather was awesome !!! , Amit and me had a longggg walk and enjoyed the day.

January 24th (DDay or BDay) :
Building 19. The official recruiting building at Microsoft. They typically interview 70 to 80 people per day !!!

Meet with recruit at 12 noon. Half hour of HR interview
Put on a shuttle to another building 3 blocks down the road for interview with the Project group.

1245 :
10 minutes of basic questions about projects.
coding_question(Xioning Li, Software Development Engineer, 50 minutes);


coding_question(string INTERVIEWER_NAME, post, time t)
{
for(time = 0;time < t minutes;time++)
{
input = "a coding question";
void mind(true);
question_is_known = FALSE;
while(!clear)
{
ask_clarifying_questions =TRUE;
think_aloud = TRUE;
}
getAlgorithm(as_soon_as_possible);
write_code(board, marker);
test_solution = TRUE;
while(!optimised)
{
optimise(space complexity, time complexity);
}
}
return confused;
}


10 minutes of cross questions I get to ask him.


1400 :
15 minutes question about projects, deadlines, problems, achievements
coding_question(Nicole, Software Development Engineer - Lead, 70 minutes);
10 minutes of general talk


1535 : Was left near the vending machine - Had a cup of Choclate milk.
1540 (already) :
20 minutes of questions about coursework, current course projects, grades, assignments
coding_question(Sundaravadivel Paranthaman, Software Development Engineer - Lead, 30 minutes)


1630 :
30 Minutes questions about prospects of being a intern, what are the kind of stuff I expect, how should a typical intern day be like
coding_question(Ludovic, Software Design Engineer - Manager, 30 minutes)


At 1730 when I came out, I had a bad headache , a growling stomach and an absolute blissful feeling of having lasted through the day of around 4 hours of coding and no break in between. A mental marathon !!!
Results to be given in 1 week.

2000 : Left for sight seeeing in Seattle. Had a brilliant beach view with Amit.



January 25th : Back to Minneapolis after an excruciatingly boring journey.

Feb 1st : No news !!

Feb 8th : No news !!

Feb 10th : FINALLY !!!! One group has offered an internship position and would be getting to know the details after talking to the Recruiting coordinator today.

Coming up soon : The experience and lessons learned...