Microsoft's JobsBlog

Want to work at Microsoft but having a hard time getting noticed?  Here’s a chance to make your...

Want to work at Microsoft but having a hard time getting noticed?  Here’s a chance to make your...

Last week I asked for your best creative submission that demonstrates “your skills, your passion for...

Live in New Zealand?  Think you’d make a great website manager?    Yeah, me...

Several of you have emailed me over the last three or four days, and I want to let you know that, yes,...

Several of you have emailed me over the last three or four days, and I want to let you know that,...

Dear Gretchen Ledgard,
Im writing a company lightyears ahead,and on the cutting edge of all technologies of our future.You must be proud to be that close to to a presence few people kwow.
I was hoping you could help me share an idea with R & D.Certinly you must be swamped with crazy ideas but after watching the documentary on Microsofts Games Division, I thought Id try sharing what could already be in use . Hopefully not.
THANKS,
KEN MILLER

And now back to the “Show us why you are the ideal Microsoft applicant” promotion!  ...

It’s that time of year.  Time for another JobsBlog “setting boundaries” post.   I hate...

It’s that time of year.  Time for another JobsBlog “setting boundaries” post.   I hate...

It’s that time of year.  Time for another JobsBlog “setting boundaries” post.   I hate...

It’s that time of year.  Time for another JobsBlog “setting boundaries” post.   I hate...

Currently living outside of North America and interested in joining Microsoft in the US? Here’s your...

Hi Gretchen,
Is it a recruitment freeze at microsoft?
I am applying for the past 2 months and i haven't got any response.
I even forwarded my resume to you.
Do reply back as i am ambitious to enter into Microsoft.

Thanks,
Kamesh

Hey campers! I’m back! Wow. I so didn’t intend to be away from JobsBlog for this long. I have a bag...

"Wherever I feel like I want to go. Gosh!"
Looks like BillG has been teaming up with Napoleon Dynamite....

Hi Gretchen,

I tried sending you a mail to gledgard@microsoft.com with my resume but i got a delivery failed. Please give me an alternate address where i may send the resume. I'm interested in the marketing division for microsoft's game studios. I'm currently undergoing my final trimester MBA(marketing) Please help....

Hi Gretchen,

I've resent the mail with my resune, I think it worked this time. I've also sent a mail to Heather Hamilton, or is it Heather Leigh? Anyway please help, I've always been interested working with Microsoft's gaming division.

Deenu

BTW my email is mike@eportant.com or a-mbrown@microsoft.com any suggestions on my FTE hunt appreciated!

I have not been here in a while, but the blog deserves an A+ in the online recruiting world.

Rock on!

Gretchen,

I ve 1 year experience in QA and testing. I m working in CMM level-3 company in Pakistan. Is there vacancy is available for software Test engineer.

Kind regards,
Raza Zaidi
hasan.zaidi@systemsltd.com

Gretchen,

I was asking QA and Test related job but as u mentioned we hire people who wirte codes(SDTE). I am interestd in Software test engineer job.

Thanks,
Raza Zaidi

Hi,
I was quite passionate several years ago on joining Microsoft,Redmond as I believed I would work only for Microsoft if I ever were to work in United States.

Most probably my resume posted several years ago went into a black hole or possibly into trash of the Microsoft recruiter's Inbox.

Anyway, I got recognized by Microsoft as MVP a couple of months ago, so I am bit happy that I could contribute in some way outside Microsoft on MS technologies.

Vipin

Because I'm Amazon Blog Ted's manager ;).

Hi Gretchen,
Am browsing MS Jobsblog. Found one confusion in terms of responsibilities of Program Manager.

One blog reply says that (FAQ,posted on Thursday, October 20, 2005 3:33 PM by JobsBlog)
Program Managers help drive product development through designing specifications and product goals, vision, and features.... Coding is not necessarily part of a PM's daily responsibilities, but we do look for people with experience coding in C, C++,C#, and/or Java, and your coding skills will likely be evaluated during the interview.

Other blogs reply (Now, who reports to who??, posted on Friday, July 29, 2005 8:52 AM by JobsBlog) says that
A Program Manager (PM) is an individual contributor – meaning the PM is not a people manager. A PM typically owns a feature or set of smaller features within a product.

Obvisously, which means that, a Program Manager needs to code.

Can you please help me on Program Manager's responsiblities?
Thanks in Advance,
Raja

Hi Gretchen,

I just wanted to ask, If I am in america on an h1b visa, and apply to ms, will I go through ms international recruiting, or the standard recruiting path? By the way I think ms does an excellent job in the recruiting ddepartment :)

Hi Gretchen

I am very passionate about software development and hence was looking upto Microsoft for a career. I found quite a few jobs on the careers portal that require background similar to mine. But I have never got any feedback from any recruiter even after applying on the career website.

Can you please tell me what should I do to get a favourable reply atleast reach the interview stage

My Background
1> C/C++/C#
2> Varied experience ranging from big Product companies to big Consulting companies
3> Varied experience ranging from Application programming to systems programming.
5> Around 5 years experience
6> Status : In US on H1-B


Thanks
-Vikhram

Hi Gretchen

It was very pleasant to hear such a quick response. And it was very useful for me to browse through the blog you pointed to.

I have my resume in a very similar style. I also made some modifications based on the comments on the blog. Should I go ahead and email you the resume (gledgard@microsoft.com) or post it through the career website? I can also send you the job codes which I am interested and fit my resume.

Thanks
Vikhram

Hi Gretchen,

I came across your blog site today for the very first time and have been enjoying it so far after writing a graphics pipeline overnight (matrix manipulations, you said you love geeks...). I would like to offer some comments and ask some questions before my afternoon nap.

Some of the resume tips are very helpful, even more so when we consider that they come from someone inside Microsoft. However, a lot of them can also be found elsewhere. I find it sometimes difficult to follow tips because I don't know if I'm following them correctly. I think concrete examples would be super nice. For instance, post a real resume and point out why you think it's good/bad. Of course, names and companies can be erased. I know this sounds like a lot of trouble, but it would help readers understand exactly what Microsoft people are looking for.

I am going to graduate from University of Waterloo, Canada in April with a bachelor degree in Software Engineering. I have done a few internships but most of my work has been Java-related. I use C++/C for 90% of school projects, the graphics pipeline for instance. Does this put me in a disadvantageous situation if I want to apply for a job at Microsoft?

Thanks
Kang

Hi Gretchen,

One friend suggested that I can post an algorithm question that I was asked during a recent job interview (sorry, not allowed to say which company). Since I am still in the coding zone now, I decided to give it a try and hopefully will convince the recruiters that programming languages don't matter.

Q. Given an input string in ASCII, write a function to return the character which has the highest frequency of occurance. If there is a tie, the first character that reaches the highest frequency wins.

A. First step, let's come up with some sample input/output. For "abbac", character "b" should be returned, and for "aaabbc", character "a" should be returned.

Since the string consists of only ASCII chars, we can easily construct and maintain a char array, whose indices map to the ASCII values.

char asciiTable[256];

We can use this table to keep track of the frequency of each character. For example, as we go through input "abbac", the ASCII value of 'a' is 97. So we do

asciiTable[97]++;

The complete algorithm is (error handling is ignored)

char c;
for(int i = 0; c!='\0'; i++){
c = input[i];
asciiTable[c]++;
}
//Go through asciiTable to get the largest element.

The advantage of this approach is that we only need to traverse the input string once to compute the frequency of each unique character. The problem is that it doesn't tell which character reaches the highest frequency first and we have to loop through asciiTable to find the highest frequency.

We can do better by eliminating the loop that goes through asciiTable:

int highestIndex = 0, highestFreq = 0;
char c;
for(int i = 0; c!='\0'; i++){
c = input[i];
asciiTable[c]++;
//Change only if current frequency is larger than highestFreq.
if(asciiTable[c] > highestFreq){
highestIndex = i;
highestFreq = asciiTable[c];
}
}
return asciiTable[highestIndex];

Now, we don't need another loop to traverse asciiTable and we use two extra variables to record ordering information: highestIndex always points at the first character that has highestFreq. The tradeoff here is that we are doing a comparison for every char in the input string. This algorithm can be further improved if it's known that the input string has a relatively small size. I actually derived how small it had to be during the interview, but I will leave out the details here.

Gretchen, I apologize for such a long post:P. I just want to show that I'm passionate about coding. Writing code to break code is the most challenging work and I really wish to face that challenge as a SDET at Microsoft.

Kang Wang
Software Engineering - University of Waterloo
Email: kangwang1982@gmail.com
Phone: 519-884-1381

Not sure what to think about this one.  James just sent me a link to Lisa Haneberg's Management...

i want a job in microsoft

i am abu baker my email is bakersahib@hotmail.com

The Communications Core platform team for Windows Live has lots of interesting opens, and Dare is...

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Today, I had lunch with a new Microsoftie who avidly followed JobsBlog during his application...

A couple months ago, I linked to a great post Steven Sinofsky wrote about the Microsoft Program Manager. ...

You look so sexy and exotic in that picture. :-}

Hai  Gretchen Ledgard
      This mahender.Iam student representative from my college.I looking for a job in top companies like microsoft.Can u plz tell me procedure how to post my resume to microsoft.Wel iam gud at coding .I would be gratefull to u if u provide me this opportunity.

             Thanking you,

with regards,
Mahender
91-9885529511

Wel plz telll me whether there any opportunities for freshers

Weell this is my emailid mails2mahender@hotmail.com  


      Thanking you,

With regards,
mahender
schamp of scient for dnughs grp
91-9885529511

Today’s guest is Mel Sampat. Mel joined Microsoft as a Program Manager with the Windows Mobile Group...

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BillG is back on Channel9 today.  I haven't watched it yet, but I wonder if Charles gets...

Hi Gretchen,
                   I sent an email to you. This is just a note, so
that my email gets noticed in the flood of emails you may
be receiving daily from job seekers. :)

Thanks
Vipin

I've seen this quiz before, but it's still funny ...
I got a 5 out of 10.  Apparently, I should...

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Hi Gretchen ,
I keep reading your Blog now and then . I'm a final year Electrical Eng student ( with a Comp Sc minor ) at the Indian Institute of Technology and very interested in Image Processing , Graphics . As far as I know Microsoft India Dev center does not do much work at this field . Would there be a position for these areas in other Microsoft locations ? I have done some interesting projects in this field . I have sent a resume to Microsoft once but was not able to stress on this particular field as such .
Thanks
Prashant

Hey Gretchen, this is a good blog. Nice work! I have sent my resume to you. Please take some time to review it. and by the way, I received an out of office reply until Jan 23? guess you forgot to update it. :-). anyway, thanks for your time.

venkat

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Hi Gretchen,
I had an onsite in-person interview with Microsoft, Redmond for an SDET position last month and unfortunately, I got rejected. I got the rejection email from the recruiter and said my resume will be preserved in the database. As far as i understand, a candidate once rejected (after an in-person interview) has very less chances of getting an interview call again. But this is not what the rejection email from recuiter implied. So I just want to know if I should keep applying for other posistions now or should I apply after some time like 1 year. Please give me an honest suggestion so i can make the best out of my time and resources. If you feel that I should apply after 1 yr or so , after some more work experience with an updated resume, please do tell me. I heard from some friends that, if one gets rejected from Microsoft interview, he will never get an interview call again. Is that true?
Anyway, thanks for your time.

Bob

Hello,

Obtained my degree in CIS from DeVry June 2002.  Employed at Qwest communications as a Senior Project Analyst until 4/05 we experienced a departmental layoff.  I have not been able to find full time employment since.

I graduated when IT hit the all time low and did what I had to do to survive meaning any IT job!!! just to obtain some experience.

My goal and objective was to obtain a technical sales position taking into consideration I was successful in the Automobile sales industry which was tough being black female in a prodimantely male industry when there were practically zero females during my tenure.  I wanted to take my prior Automobile sales experience along with my CIS degree.... and venture into Technical sales having a pretty solid foundation of sales.... sales is sales regardless of the industry.

However, I find myself willing to get my foot in the door even if it means going in as an Admin. Assistant!  what do you suggest I do to obtain full time employment at "Microsoft"

Audrie Relf
AudrieRelf@hotmail.com

I think Jenna, Zoe, and I have been dethroned by some new MicroChicks on the scene.  Laura Foy...

CNN.com talks about the weirdest jobseeker stunts.  After reviewing the list, I would recommend...

Hi Gretchen,

                  I interviewed with Microsoft on February 17th. Got the offer the next Monday i.e. Feb 20th. I will start on April 3rd. I definitely want to meet you. You have been a great inspiration.

I guess i can find your e-mail id once i join. I am all up for a jobCast entry :)

Sachin

Gretchen -

Greetings from Rochester, NY !

Our new vertical job search engine (http://www.Just-Posted.com) was officially launched last week, and is causing quite a stir.

Unlike most job boards or job search engines, our new search engine delivers unparalleled job search result relevance.  

Provided Microsoft has an XML feed  - to its online jobs database - we can begin serving her jobs immediately to millions of job seekers visiting Just-Posted.com and our syndicate partners' Web properties.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to drop me a line at: (585)315-2027.

Hope to hear from you soon !

Thanks.

Jeff Tokarz
CEO / President
Just-Posted Inc.

Tel.:    (585)315-2027
URL:    http://www.Just-Posted.com

If you've ever dreamed of attending a fabulous Ledgard party and meeting Suggestion Kitty in person,...

Hi Gretchen;
First Thanks for a great informative job blog on web
I have recently completed my graduation in Computer science and IT from NED university, Karachi, Pakistan. I want to join microsoft as software development engineer but the problem is that I have no idea about the time on which I submit my resume and second Question is that I want to submit my resume to you also so at which address I submit it to you?

Thanks

Over in Scobleland, they're talking about how blogs can influence (positively and negatively)...

Since Jim is on vacation this week, our buddy Glenn Gutmacher offered to fill in for him. ...

hi gretchen..
quite impressive..and inspiring profile on post..
iam in the final year of my masters in comp applications from bangalore university..and i feel i have that creative bent of mind and the ability that MICROSOFT is looking for ..
need-the-less to say that microsoft has always been my dream organisatiopn to work with..
i will be indebted to u if u send me a reply..regarding how to apply to ur esteemed organisation..
my mail id is ...devdoot_r@rediffmail.com
thanking u..
devdoot

Dear friends - After two wonderful years of rich and always interesting conversations here on JobsBlog...

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