Microsoft's JobsBlog

PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2007/09/04/hey-genius-tell-us-what-you-think/

hi

I'm actually over 150...

according to a Mensa IQ test that is.

I am located in Vancouver BC and would love to work at the new R&D center here.

regards

tamas_simon@yahoo.ca

It looks like it was designed by a group of non-technical folks who have no idea what their audience would like.

There are two groups of people out there:

1) People who already want to work for Microsoft.

2) People who don't.

The website will help you out only with the former.  Yes, you will get praised for it by many folks on this blog and many folks who come in for interviews, they'll marvel over the shifting background, the lack of color and the 8-bit retro elements.

But I doubt the website is actually going to be effective at getting the types of talent you're looking for.  If you want to recruit people who truly love code, a flash based animation with very little real *content* is a poor way of doing it.

But hey, that's just my honest opinion.

I have already started posting there and its really nice to interact with Microsoft employees :). I stumbled upon this website through www.digg.com :)

Good work Microsoft :)

Regards,

Chaks

it looks cool and I like the concept, by why throw around the word "genius" like that? it just doesn't come across that well imo and is a little obnoxious. and to go back to mentioning IQ scores, I thought Microsoft was moving away from IQ kinds of questions like the brain teasers or riddles? maybe im just taking that to literally, but i still think you guys fall a little bit to much in love with the super nerd hire, ie the guy who's been coding since he was 6 and does nothing but code and play with stuff in all of his spare time. yes, of course you need strong technical people, but why do they have to always fit this mold? also, 50% and sometimes more of software development imo is understanding people and making software that's easy to use and has clever features that people enjoy. look at sites like wikipedia and myspace...what makes these sites great is not the code but the way they organize information for people to access it. my point is, and this is my opinion of course, is that this super nerd hire that you guys love is usually very capable technically but not capable in the understanding people department.  i believe that there are candidates out there that are multi dimensional that you're passing up on because you're so focused on this one type of hire.

bigkissy, who said one is genius only if he tries to solve all those riddles/puzzles/IQ tests? See, you are taking it wrong here. IMO, everyone who are talented are Genius and we do find interesting people working @ Microsoft :)

when you use the genius challenge part it throws an exception on some inputs (the quick sort quiz).

Unhandled exception at 0x3001cf05 in iexplore.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x0000001c.

I tried it on IE explorer and firefox and it threw exception on both. Just write the input click the execute button and then click on the text box again and you will see an exception. Dont quite understand how can managed code cause a memory access voilation exception. It seems the site is using some activeX control developed in C/C++, buffer overflow alert. :)

further more the code register ecx has been initialized to 0x00000000 and the assembley is trying access a dword ptr from ecx + 1ch which throws and exception coz 0x0000001c is not accessible

it is crashing left and right... was this tested before?

I dont think it was tested. It seems dey need to hire a genious to test "hey genious" :)

After doing the GCHQ 'crypto challenge' (in which GCHQ, the British counterpart to the NSA, posted various hidden messages on their website for would-be employees to find; predictably, the message decodes to 'well done, now apply for a job'!) it crossed my mind that maybe it's supposed to crash, and if you point your debugger into the right corner you'll find a hidden message. Or maybe we're supposed to break in and drop our CVs off in %SYSTEMROOT% on the server, as my old security supervisor once did with his report for a pen testing client? ;-)

Speaking as someone who started programming at a very early age, I don't agree with bigkissy's dislike of Microsoft's apparent desire to recruit people of that sort - of course, I am a little bit biased there - but D J Capelis has a point about the design not being very suitable to appeal. Yes, I remember shooting little pixellated sprites on the same 6502-powered systems I learned to program on - but including them as graphics on a modern recruiting site?!

I'm sure we'd all have different tastes here - being partly an ARM assembly guy, I'd probably be more taken by snippets of assembly language rather than 80's arcade games. Then again, my own personal site is still ever so slightly spartan at the moment...

i agree with you chaka, a genius is not closed to just a great puzzle riddle math problem solver and really is anyone who is well above the rest in his / her particular field. however, note how in this case they mention the IQ score along with genius which seems to imply the more classical brainy puzzle riddle math problem solver sense of the word. and yes I know this is just a fun innocent recruiting tool but it does reflect the fact that microsoft, as well as other big tech companies, place SO much emphasis on the genius technical math problem solver. look at all the huge web sites that have popped up over the years: ebay, myspace, facebook, youtube, wikipedia and many others...not one of them came out of any of the big tech companies. and these sites were not all great technical innovations but rather were ingenious ways of organizing and presenting information in a manner that people would respond to. and i know that you do need genius technical math related problem solvers, especially at a company like MS that develops an OS that it used by the majority of computers in the world, but my point is there is just to much emphasis on them and the other half of software development doesn't get as much attention as it should.

Alright, who told you what my IQ was?  I've been trying so badly to hide behind me facade of being a fool and silly person... ;)

Shame on you.  You really do know everything.

I'm telling Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer that you peeked into to the looking glass.

On a serious side, the site looks interesting.  I'm guessing the choice for black and white was to do with how the things load up on the screen.    I guess I should view the site on the real computer instead of my poor old 2002 Inspiron.   Running off high speed internet and it's quite laggy.  But on the better PC it's not so bad.

It feels a little like wandering in "Peewee's" playhouse... :)

It's definitely interesting if not just a little off.   Which should suit me fine... B)

No offense at all intended, but it does remind me vaguely of "Felix the Cat".   Must be the Black and White.

But the videos were colour!

Cheers

Sean

Off topic.

Who do I speak with regarding a bug in the US www.microsoft.com/careers website?  

My workaround is I keep of copy of the hyperlink to pull of the current job listings from my agent and just modify the appropriate date/time info.  

But my emails since about January this year (I can give a specific date for troubleshooting) have been sending a hyperlink from "NULL to NULL" for the date range which dumps ALL jobs at MS on the screen.

Of course for me it doesn't matter since I usually beat the job agent notification to the punch lately anyhow... ;)

It is written in flash but not in silverlight. Why didn't you use silverlight, which is microsoft's latest web technology?

This site sucks big time man. Janelle pls ask some genius to fix the exception problem and Janelle pls dont post stuff and go into hiding. Pls reply to some of the question raised here.

Hey guys- thanks so much for the posts- we have sent your comments on the fixes over to the development team and it should be fixed asap.

I will be responding to your other comments in an hour or so- off to a meeting.

:) janelle

PS- sorry i didn't get back sooner- I was actually working :)

I will respond to all comments, and wasn't hiding. I would disagree - i don't think this site "sucks" but thanks for your opinion. thats what makes working at Microsoft so great- we welcome all opinions.

Sean - Let me know the specific bug- i will pass it along to the dev team. I do agree - it kind of does look like Felix the Cat.

James- thanks for the comments- you have good points.

Imran- its too bad we had bugs on a site titled Hey Genius- im not so biased that I can't see the irony in that situation. :)

Tamas- have you submitted your resume for the dev center yet? You should!

D.J.- thanks for your honest opinion--- everyone is entitled and i think you brought up some great points. Do you have any ideas of what a good company site looks like? I ask because I am curious, and would love to know what you think is effective.

Thanks for all the posts! Keep em coming!!

-janelle

ha ha... criticism can do wonderful things at time... :)) thnks for  the reply janelle

Ok I have this to say.

If you think you're a genius and so SMART you're unwilling (or too proud!) to step into the low bandwidth side, you're messing the best bits!

The motherboard jokes are priceless!  Although the "dumb vids" are that,  they are true "geeks in action".

And I got beaten by "Ping!".  Grooooan.....

I know, I know.   Impossible.  But it happened.    Darnit.  Should have charged my Bluetooth mouse for THAT intense session too...

Sean

Hey as far as "bugs" go.... Do you think Mr. Gates, Balmer and Allen got it right 100% on the Altair their first go?

C'mon there had to be some "booboos".   Genius doesn't mean "perfect"... ;)

Learning from your own mistakes, accepting them and growing from that is one of the highest forms of intelligence.

I should know... :P  I do it all the time!

Sean

Yup agreed.... learning from your own mistakes is the highest forms of intelligence :). but pointing out a mistake (for the sake of correction) is the highest forms of sincerety.  

They say let us laugh at ourselves before other laugh at us.

my intentions were to point out the bugs so that dey are fixed, not to make fun :), coz being a developer my self I know developers are humans and mistake is one of the most common attribute we share.

Every software may contain bug. That happens. You should point the bug instead of criticise it. It would help much more.

Janelle I am really wondering why you did not use silverlight to create this site, is there any specific reason?

agreed... My opologies if I was critical

Sean - you should come work for Microsoft! You have a ton of ideas, and seem very critical (in a good way) :) Janelle

Janelle...

Well I ...errr... have been "aggressively applying" since I met the CanItPro team at Microsoft Mississauga since June this year.  

That bunch changed me (in a good way).  I was a "quiet geek" who made the mistake of posting "Confessions of a Computer Geek" to their comments page.

Now their "forcing" me to do Funny Fridays.... :)

They've inspired me in general and made me feel like I was not alone in the world as a pure geek (even at my age!).

Thanks for the help on that website bit.   Can't wait to seem them links go clickety click.

Sean

@someone

I wanted to respond directly to your question re: Silverlight.  As you well articualted, Silverlight is Microsoft's new cross-browser, cross-platform technology for media, interactive, and RIA sites much like this one.  However, the software just launched yesterday and this site has been in development for months.  There are two aspects to this, ubiquity/business goals and timelines.

I'll tackle timelines first -- given that we just launched yesterday and that this site was in development months before it didn't make sense necessarily to use Silverlight.  Much of the capacity and capability for building Silverlight apps in the early adopter era was being used to deliver amazing experiences across microsoft.com, MSN Extra, Halo3, Entertainment Tonight, Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, HSN.tv, and many, many others.  Our primary focus for launch was to generate highly compelling content with high traffic to drive installations -- we think content demand is the key here.  I have no doubt (and I have already discussed with the recruiting team) that sites like this will mvoe to Silverlight over time.  Our internal timeline for phasing out flash investments is 12-18 months.

second, since we just launched yesterday Silverlight does not have the reach the recuriting team needed for their business.  There primary goal is not to drive SL adoption but to find the best talent in the world and hire them.  Based on that, for business reasons today, Flash made the most sense.  When you connect the dots between #1 and #2 you can see our 12-18 month migration.  We are focusing on high-traffic, adoption driving investments first and as the penetration rate grows from 0, to 50%, to 80% we'll be shifting investments to SL.

We expect over 200M within a year and by then you'll see Silverlight everywhere (almost :)).

Hope this answers your question.

Thanks,

Brian Goldfarb

Group Product Manager

Developer Division

Hi Brian,

Thank you very much for your time and for your answer.

Also I have 51.160 genius points :) what can I do with my points??? And a question, is it normal to have that much of points :))?

Cough....

Brian mis-spelled "there".  Should have been their.

Don't worry! I do that one ALL the time.  And only notice AFTER I have posted onto the blog... :)

See to err is human, to compute divine.

Justed wanted to point another thing. There is another bug. If you type in some sample data in the quick sort quiz. let the screen scroll once now press backspace and make the last line empty make sure the cursor remains on the empty line. Press execute u get an exception.

Also the textbox click events are not handled properly. The screen gets clear once you click on the text box after pressing execute button. button's response is very slow. If you click on the text field immediately after clicking the execute button the screen will get clear and after a while you will see the result message now you will have to backspace all result string. It seems the clear logic is written on got_focus() event. It would be better to replicate the logic on click event with a bool test or to remove the handlers for the text button unless the result string is displayed on the screen.

Just Pointing out another bug

.. copy paste in the text field and switch to some other screen and come back and it will agian cause an exception on the got_focus() event.

also write a test case which caused the text field to scroll. now press back space remove all the text on the last line keeping the cursor still on the deleted line. press execute and u will see an exception. probably this causes a null row to be entered which has not been handled.

Secondly the on_focus() clear logic is also not consistent.

Can he cash in the "Genius points" like you could at Grocery stores?  

Thinking this would be cool (or silly)

500 "Genius Points ... Microsoft Bumper Sticker

1000 Genius Pointis ... Microsoft Mouse

10000 Genius Points ... Trip to Redmond... ;)

Here is the bugs I found,

Enter high bandwith site and enter QuickSort Quiz in "Genius Challange",

  - Write 1 as test case. Click Execute and click execute again. Second click should not be allowed.

  - Find correct solution. Copy your solution. Execute your solution. You will get 1500 total points. Enter quiz again, paste your results again and execute until you want more genius points. Every time you get 1500 points. That should not be allowed. I have more than hundred thousand of genius points :)))

Here is logical bug in quiz. In second part of the quiz it is said that Cody was able to get %100 code coverage using 12 test cases. I listed 12 test cases but in my opinion they do not cover %100 of the code. Here is why. For my test cases which are accepted as correct

  - There is no case for boundary values (for maximum decimal, for minimum decimal, for maximum positive integer, for minimum positive integer etc.)

  - There is no test case which uses alpha numeric characters. Consider following case "!,#,1,!2,<3..."

  - There is no stress test. Function should not fail on large bunch of values.

  - Function accepts "spaces" as parameter. Spaces are string. But there are no test cases for string sorting. Or there are no test cases for values which consist of strings such as "a1,1k,2,3...". Consider following case which is accepted as correct " 1 , 2 , 3 "

  - There is not any test case for sorted values. Such as "1,2,3".

  - There is not any test case for unsorted values. Such as "3,1,2". This case is important. We need to see that Leeta's implementation is correct. Also all combinations must included in order to see whether function is working correctly or not. So we need to have following test cases, "1,2,3" + "1,3,2" + "2,1,3" + "2,3,1" + "3,1,2" + "3,2,1". If we add boundary value and stress test cases to these cases we can confidentally say that Leeta's implementation is working very well ;).

Also when you find test cases which covers %100 coverage, they should be less than 12 lines in order to beat Cody. So when you enter correct test cases but more than 12 lines, your solution is accepted. I wrote 14 lines and executed my solution is accepted. Also I wrote less then 12 lines and executed, this solution is accepted either.

Finally I can say that this quiz is very funny and I enjoyed while playing with it ;).

Thanks so much for pointing out the Genius bugs--- you should all receive genius points for those --- i have passed these along to the dev team--- we appreciate you all testing out the site for us...

For those who asked about the genius points --- im finding out for you and will repost here as soon as I do- i hope they lead to something--- that would be really cool. If not, then give yourself a nice pat on the back. :)

-Janelle

ANSWER FOR THE QUESTION - "WHAT CAN I USE GENIUS POINTS FOR AND HOW TO I REDEEM THEM"...

So I found out... you can get points by engaging in certain functions within the site--- so keep exploring.. in order to find out where you can redeem these points you also need to keep looking...its a mystery! (basically play around, and you should be able to find where you can redeem these points--- if I told you where than you wouldn't be a genius after all...

:) Janelle

My school just had their semi-annual technology career fair, and for the first time in two years, Amazon.com wasn't the most un-professional company in attendance: Microsoft was.

When I show up for a job interview, I wear at least a nice shirt, and probably a suit and tie.  I do this because I want to look professional and show respect for the interviewer.  At events like career fairs, I expect similar courtesy.  I expect the recruiters to dress and act like professionals, and to treat me like the professional I would like to be.

While the "Hey Genius" words aren't that bad, the whole image that accompanies the campaign actually discouraged me from even talking with Microsoft representatives.  The t-shirt and jeans look, along with the crazily scribbled logo, seemed to be aimed more at elementary school kids who haven't yet mastered crayon use.

If Microsoft really wants to recruit top notch employees, they would adopt a professional campaign that shows respect to actual geniuses.  

Jacob: Ouch. That is kind of harsh.

In the computer industry many professionals wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. Why shouldn't they wear the same to a career fair? Next career fair I'd suggest talking with the representatives from a company rather than judging them based on what they are wearing. You'll learn a lot more about about the opportunities that are available and you'll see whether they are doing anything that sounds interesting to you. Or you can just walk about because you don't like their clothes....

AC-

Maybe you're right.  The next time I have a job interview, maybe I'll just wear t-shirt, shorts, and sandals to the interview because the company can then judge me based on what I say in the interview rather than what I'm wearing.

I appreciate the fact that many tech companies want to show that they have a t-shirt and jeans sort of working environment... in fact, I would like to work for one of those companies some day.  But I also want to work for a company which hires the very best thinkers, and a company who shows up in t-shirt and jeans to a recruiting event won't very well portray the image that they are trying to recruit the very best.

Moreso than the booth design, the single coolest thing about your career fair presence at my campus was that your personnel were in street clothes.  I believe the girl that spoke to me was wearing Rainbow sandals.

It just allows you to relate to your audience so much more sincerely, and also makes us nervous convention-goers more able to relate with you who we really are.

If a congomerate of the likes of or one of its kind,I mean MS,whose core is centered around genetenerating revenue via the affluence of its behemoth and superlatively unchalleged technicality does have some place for an entity that considers itself to be the below mentoned, not on the basis of mere self speculartion or introspection,but also on the observations or remarks of till date all of my affiliates as well as afficiandos, then I feel that I should be given an opportunity:

1.)Literary Genius capable of penning or talking about anything under the sun spontaneously.Something that I would urge to be tested if deemed O.K.

2.)Technically quiet adept at working via XP as well as Vista,but naive when it comes to the scripting of programmes via tech razmatazz.

3.)The very first job entailed research via www.This was th e time when I had to search for keys even to type my name.Tips on which companies to research on and the domain specifcs were dictated directly by the respective sales representatives (Business Dvelopment and Regional Managers).At the onset I was solely focussed on knowing what the difference betweend a software and hardware meant and was competent enough to make sales entries in CRM databases.

Then arrived a moment within  a span of six months wherein generic research via search engines like Google,where incidently my verbus vocabulary did  play a crucial role, I was capable of compiling presentaions on applications as basic as word and power point, that were not ony applauded for the vital info(via sub search engines like hoovers) but resulted in the initiation of a niche for a separate dept. intentioned at doing solely the same to be concerned.

4.)Pardon the adjectivity, but communication flows within the realms of my soul.This furthered the cause of gaining info like contact details of CEO, COO 's which were communicated for furher IT entrenchment of the company in case.

5.) A JOKE: AT the onset, I was asked by my in charge to get a print out. In the urgency of proving my prudence, I forgot the word out and was literally trying to carry the half a ton printer to vicinity of my dept but to no avail.

That day I was the laughing stock for the process peers as well as on the entire floor, who did not intend to hurt my feelings, but the stupendous and natural elaboration reciprocated a laugh, I agree.

6.) Despite of being the butt ridicule I unflateringly decided to learn at least one thing in one day.Being inhumanly hardworking helped; the aftermath of what prevailed as I have already mentioned is a case to the point where determination can an shall always will deserve miracles.The Joke is my badge of honor whom I shared with all those who were bewildered by the complexity of technical verbosity.

7.) I have been involved in ISP trouble shooting for a brief tenure of approx 6 months and then with insurance,legal transription(SME) and very basic tech guidance to portfolio managers.

Misc. skill sets learnt on my own without paper authentication but can be proved if asked to, at the drop of a hat if , once again deemed O.K.:

Face Reading,Voice reading, Psuedo analyst, orator, essayist, free lancing, and last but not the least Writing Poems.

Qualifications apart, I am supremely confident in my abilities,being  the most tenacious of learners, a bee-hive tenant(hard worker),I mean, most importantly loyalty personified.I am only capable of being if not the very best than at least a modest asset for the sake of my upkeeper.

All I need is a good break; the rest shall follow, because I wish to leave a mark for myself in the echleons of time.

As I mentioned lucid research based on instructions in the manifesto, may seem child like, but I 've proven my point

and the same reflects in the list of my credentials.

Can you accomodate a not so tech savvy,but sincere and genuine candidature into the manifold of your mindboggling arsenal of talent.

I promise to do add my little bit, drawn from my everything,talent ,hardwork, punctualityy,included, to the likes of an already supernova of international arsenal.

while the compiler is doing the job can he/she please include sammy_syd@yahoo.co.uk as well in my comments so that it does not take extra page space.

Its a very good website. It should initially have volume MUTED! I was actually using my library system to browse the site on campus and looking at the website all my friends gathered around to have a look at it until the Technical head in that section had come to 'shhh' us

Hello friends!! I hope you are all doing well. Now for a shameless marketing plug :)…. Microsoft has recently revamped our college info and application site and also created an AWESOME interactive site to go along with it, titled appropriately: http://www.hey-genius.com