Henrik in Seattle

The first interview

November 9th, 2005

Pew! That was nervous. I just got back home from my interview with Microsoft, and my body is still a bit weird. Anyway, I'll start with the beginning.

I was scheduled for the interview at 3:30 but was asked to go there 15 minutes earlier to fill out a form before the interview. So I did. The form was basically about what kind of job I wanted (internship or full-time), what I wanted to work with and when I would prefer to start working. After filling out the details on the form, I just sat there and waited.

After about 10 minutes a man with obvious Asian heritage (including a quite hard-to-understand accent). He greeted me and invited me to a room where the interview was to take place. It was a small room with white walls (I can imagine it is the kind of room you put prisoners who are to be isolated). There were also a round table and two chairs. We sat down and he started to speak. We had a thirty minutes slot allocated, and we would spend about five minutes going through my resume and the form I just filled in. The rest of the time should be used for a technical programming question.

The main thing about the resume was that he was slightly (rather) confused about where I studied, from which school I was supposed to get my degree and when. Perhaps that's something I should clarify on my resume for future use. The only thing there is that it *could* be the case that they would prefer if I would finish my degree in Sweden before working for them. But it is also quite likely that their hoard of lawyers will sort that out. He also asked me some about my summer jobs.

Then, over to the main part of the interview: the programming task. I was assigned the task writing the algorithm for merging two linked lists. That is a very simple problem - at least at any other time then when you're sitting in a interview with Microsoft and you're supposed to write it on paper. \**sigh\** So, after doing all the kinds of mistakes which you do because your 1) nervous, 2) writing on paper, and 3) are in an interview with Microsoft, I got the algorithm down on paper. It could have done better, but on the same time, I all worked out roughly fine.

After that we just talked for a minute or two about more or less nothing. I did learn however that they would pay for the relocation from wherever I was to Redmond, including all the way from Sweden. Then, the interview was over. Now I just have to wait about two weeks before I know if they'll invite me to a second interview, or not…

I guess the best thing is just not to think about it until I hear from them. That is somewhat hard, however. Well, tonight it's UF practice at least, so that will definitely help me clear my mind.

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Entry Filed under: Employment