Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

HeatherLeigh — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:04:35 GMT

Hi Kris,

Are you looking for a position in the US or somewhere else?

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

Kris — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:26:56 GMT

Hi Heather,

I have seen so many positions at Microsoft career website that match my skillset and work area. I graduated from Umea in Interaction design, Sweden and did my master thesis in collaboration with Microsoft Cambridge Research.

After my graduation I took Job in Germany Now I am looking for change and would like to apply fr Jobs at Microsoft. I tried the career website it just sends automated replies. I would like send my resume and portfolio to you. Please be the god angel and help my resume.

cheers

Kris

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

belmontej — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:23:47 GMT

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your prompt reply! Yes that is useful information.

This entire process has been a bit confusing for me, I reached out to career services at my school and they had no clue the contact information for the Seattle University Microsoft recruiter. After promising to find the information, 3 weeks in they still did not know.

Finally I had a professional contact in MS try to find out; they directed me to the College Recruiting Marketing Board, which then referred me to a Seattle University recruiter. She was the one who recommended my contacts send my resume to the email alias I mentioned in my first post.

Needless to say this has been quite the process and ultimately I just want the resume in the right hands. I am grateful for your offer and am going to send my resume/cv your way so I know at least one copy gets to the right person.

I am concerned that perhaps I may have missed the college recruiting window for this year, but even if that is the case I will never stop trying!

Thanks!

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

HeatherLeigh — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:02:36 GMT

Hi belmontej!

I think I can asnwer some of these questions. I need to say that I don't work in the college recruiting program, but I sit next to them and I think I know enough about how they work to answer these.

I should also let you know that I redacted parts of your post. The aliases you mentioned are internal aliases that we use within the company. So definitely don't want those out there for external people to use to apply :)

So getting your resume to the recruiter is key. And specifically at first, that should be the recruiter for your school. That is where the process starts. One way to go this is to refer and one way is to apply online. Online application is a legal requirement too, so everyone has to do it. This is why you got that email asking you to so that.

The college recruiting process runs on its own timeline. The recruiters do school visits and set up interviews there.

Regarding your questions:

1) I wouldn't use any aliases not listed on the career site. Applying online and checking with your career site about any interview days and utilizing the process for that should be enough to get your resume in front of the correct recruiter.

2) Unfortunately, I can't tell you who that recruiter is but if you send your resume directly to me (heathham@microsoft.com) I will make sure it gets to that person. This is a one time/one person offer only :)

3) Nope. No difference. We hire the best candidates without any regard at all to who referred them.

4) Review the postings on the college career site. You could also do searched online for: "microsoft interview" AND intern*

You can't coint on that info but you may find something that you can use.

Yes, there is a central system that everyone uses to track who is referring you. We have a candidate tracking system. Multiple referrals are nice, but pretty much, once it is in the hands of your recruiter, what needed to happen has happened. The referral provides the intro and acts as a recommendation to look at the person but cannot influence the outcome of the interviews.

I hope this helps!

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

belmontej — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:43:22 GMT

Hi Heather,

I just came across this post and at a much needed time. I am an undergraduate marketing student and I have been receiving internal referrals from different people at MS, they have been sending them to the alias <redacted>. After 3 different referrals, one of which I suspect went straight to an undergraduate recruiter instead of <redacted>, I finally got a form email advising me to apply officially online (which I had already done a month prior).

I have two meetings scheduled at MS this Tuesday and want to make sure that if these people refer me the information gets into the right hands! So I have a few questions for you:

1. Should I have them use <redacted> alias instead? I feel like collref may be an unattended box.

2. Or have them send it directly to a specific recruiter, if so who would that be?

3. Does it make any difference if a Director refers me vs. a Group Marketing Manger vs. an Individual Contributor? Does the referrer’s position impact the results at all?

4. As an undergraduate student how would I even know what teams are looking for college hires so I could get my resume directly to a hiring manager?

Finally, I have been working very hard building relationships with marketing and communications professionals across many different teams at MS, is there any central system to track everyone whose referring me? Aside from the great conversations and exciting times on the MS campus, will getting these multiple referrals help me?

I know I just asked A LOT of questions, but any clarification or guidance you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

Byran — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:56:26 GMT

Hello Heather,

I did some research online. Peope said recruiters spent at most 2 mins per resume, and sometimes 10 seconds. So I followed the suggestions of those websites and tailored my resume for every job that I applied.

For each job I applied to MS, I put my relevant skills and compentences (according to the job description) in the Summary of Qualifications section at the very beginning of my resume. Even for those job I had about 80%+ match with the job description (and I don't think it is easy to find a perfect match with a long description,) I was contacted by nobody.

Would you mind giving me a nice help on glancing my resume and telling what you feel about it?

It may take you a couple mins, but your couple words could change my life. My email address is beefong@gmail.com.

I wish you a Merry Christmas,

Byran

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

Bryan — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:23:53 GMT

Thanks for your prompt response, Heather.

I was graduated at the beginning of 2009 and submitted a new grad application to MS. A recruiter contacted me around March. When the recruiter asked me what I was looking for, I was too foolish to make my chance very narrow (I said a SDE in any team, but the Bing team would be preferable since I am a PhD in Machine Learning and Data mining, with 5+ years of SDE experience.) Finally, the recruiter said she could not find any match for me. Then all applications that I sent to MS just like I threw my resume in a black hole.

I just wonder if there are some systems in the "application database" that block my applications or make warnings when a recruiter tries to access my record as I was interviewed by MS within a certain period of time?

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

HeatherLeigh — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:46:44 GMT

Hi Byran,

You can apply directly to jobs and can be referred by others. The year is just our requirement guidelines for retaining that particular copy of your resume.

So, if you haven't been contacted by a recruiter it means that they have not found a position that matches your background, according to the business qualifications identified for the position. I wish things were different but we can't engage with everyone that submits their resume for a job. But I can promise that if a recruiter identifies you as a potential match for an open position, there's nothing that would keep them from reaching out to you directly.

The best way to be noticed is to have skill sets that match the position requirements. Having someone refer you can certainly get some eyeballs on your resume, but at the end of the day, you need to match a set of objective requirements to be contacted about a position.

So I'd really recommend spending some time with the job descriptions and evaluating whether your resume demonstrates you skill match with the position and how clear that would be to a recruiter reading the resume. If you read the description and see something in the requirements thatyou have expeirence with, just make sure that it is effectively highlighted on the resume.

Hope that helps!

re: Microsoft's Employee Referral Process

Byran — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:16:33 GMT

Hi,

I was referred by my friend at Microsoft on September 2009. However, no recruiter contacted me and I received a standard email saying that Microsoft will keep my file for a year.

Does it mean that nobody can refer me again within the year? How about if I apply the jobs directly online?

I tried to apply for tons of jobs online, which I think they are closely related to my skill sets; however, I was reached by nobody.

Is referral having more chance to be shortlisted by the recruiters?

Please give me some suggestions on getting my foot in the door of Microsoft.

Thanks.

Byran

Employee Referrals: Why saying good things about your referral really can help!

Microsoft JobsBlog — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:23:10 GMT

Heather posted today on the employee referral (ER) process . Reading her entry was timely for me, as Zoë and I just met this afternoon to start putting some formalized thoughts around how we can better leverage our company’s existing ER process to bring