Hey guys, Today I just wanted to share my Microsoft interview experience with you guys. I know a lot of you guys might not even be coders or don't really want to work for Microsoft but being a coder, this is one of the dream companies for me so getting an interview with them was not only a huge deal for me but made me the happiest and most nervous guy in the world.
I would like to say that Microsoft does really care about students because they invited me to an On-Campus Interview but I already was on an internship in ND and I couldn't drive back because I just went live with one of my company projects. The interviewer understood the circumstances and was understanding enough to offer me a phone interview.
Well once she scheduled the interview date, the next one week was just me being hyper,nervous, watching programming and data-structures video and coding. I am not kidding I wrote more than 100 programs in those 7 days. I had 6 hours of sleep everyday because I was busy coding and learning and I wanted to be prepared for the interview and finally the day came.
I finally got the call at noon on Monday like we decided. While picking up the call, there were two things i was scared of-I was afraid she might not be able to understand me because of my accent and I haven't prepared enough for this interview. My interviewer(I won't take name but let's call her Pizza because she was awesome) Pizza calls me and we do the formal introduction. Then she hits me with the basic questions like tell me about yourself,why do you wanna work for Microsoft ,which is your favorite technology etc and then suddenly she asks me how many golf balls can I fit in a soccer ball and how many of these soccer balls and golf balls can I fit in a school bus? Now this question just surprised me because I was expecting coding questions. There was a minute of silence( it felt like 10)and I guess Pizza realised that I was taken aback by that question so she tried to calm me down and then said -"Make sure you keep saying it aloud what you are thinking so I can see how do you approach it". At this time I was happy that it wasn't an in person interview because for some reason I was sweating profusely. I feel I answered that question pretty well but I was shaking and sweaty for some freaking reason. Well after that she asked me a couple of more questions about linked list and reversing stuff.
At the end of the interview she told me they will get back to me in a couple of weeks. I just wanted to share this so that you guys are more ready than I was.Don't overthink about it because the interviewers actually try to help you and guide you if you are on the right path. If you are completely wrong then it's a different story.Also make sure that you practice saying what you are thinking out loud because for some reason it's harder than you think it is.I hope this helped you or atleast you guys had a good time reading this. I am still waiting to hear back from them but I have more confidence in myself and so even if I don't get it now, I am gonna get in the future and I will keep trying unless I wear them down ato accept me .Dang ,I soound like a company stalker. Oh well.