Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

Silicon Valley Product Manager — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 08:36:50 GMT

Steven,
Curious how the list of schools being visited is derived? Seems like there are alot of schools that are top ranked that you are not visiting...maybe just this trip out? I would think that Microsoft & Office want to get the best possible talent. One way is to interview the most selective and grueling colleges. Ones that come to mind (and ranked at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/natudoc/tier1/t1natudoc_brief.php)
not on your list include:
Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Univ of Chicago, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, Tufts, Univ of North Carolina, USC, Wake Forest, Lehigh, Case Western, Georgia Inst of Tech, NYU, Univ of Illinois-Urbana.
Not to pick on any one school, but in your list its easy to single out several and go "HUH???"; several are 2nd rate at best if not 3rd. Many of the ones on my list are ranked much higher than many of those on your list; yeah I know the ranking issues...but it does seem odd. Just curious how your list is developed?
I know for a fact that Google and Yahoo recruit at more on my list than yours. Is there some concern that Microsoft needs to find 'safe-havens'? No probably not., just a fluke of lists?
Regards
Silicon Valley Product Manager

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

steven_sinofsky — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 08:45:11 GMT

This is only a partial list of schools as I said--it represents the schools that folks on the office team are visiting in the next few weeks.

We have and will visit nearly all the schools on your list. We visited most of the schools you describe this Fall already.

If you look back at the blog you will see I visited the first two on your list this Fall. And you will also see some comments from folks "hey what about <this school>". So I posted this list to make sure folks know that we take a very broad view of recruiting from colleges around the country (and I didn't include any outside North America that we are visiting!)

We visit well over 100 colleges in the course of the year and interview students at many more (I couldn't even count).

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

noname — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:01:32 GMT

is the top rated schools are the only place where you can hire brightest talent or you can look in other places also say a school which is not have high rankings?

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

Silicon Valley Product Manager — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:02:04 GMT

Steven,
Yes thanks just as I offered, an abberation of lists for this trip only.
But your quick response does raise another question: visiting hundreds of schools is a very broad effort. I would think some particular 'targeting" would be in order to get specific talent . Can that be tied to being a 'dev' ? Or is it the philosophy at Office/Microsoft of "cream: in the process of hiring and performance reviews, the true cream will rise to the top."
Silicon Valley Product Manager

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

steven_sinofsky — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:11:14 GMT

I guess I can't win. Too few, too many. :-)

We hire those with the best abilities and potential we can find anywhere around the world from any background.

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

JobsBlog — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 23:14:05 GMT

A Microsoft recruiter here. :) Microsoft considers students from every university across the US and the world. Naturally, we can’t be in all places all the time so we only visit a select number of schools (some visited more often than others), but our recruiters review, interview, and hire students from a variety of universities. In fact, we have an entire recruiting team just focused on recruiting students from the universities we don’t visit in-person.

To learn if Microsoft is visiting your school, you can review our upcoming college events at http://www.microsoft.com/college/yourschool.aspx. If Microsoft isn’t visiting your school, don’t fret. You can apply through our website at http://www.microsoft.com/college/app_overview.mspx.

And if you attend one of the schools Steven mentioned, be sure to get out there and meet the cool people from Office.

- gretchen

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

steven_sinofsky — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 22:36:42 GMT

Question from a reader:
"Do Microsoft have some seperate posts for Fresh Graduates in Development? I mean, are there any seperate seats for them or do they need to compete in open market?

Moreover, Is there any criteria to get hired at Microsoft?"

Answer:
We hire as many qualified folks as we are able to, both current graduates, recent graduates, and the full spectrum of industry folks.

All technical candidates go through a rigorous technical interview (see blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog).

We do not have a competition between experienced and college graduates for the same position--there is plenty of room for all qualified folks.

--Steven

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

Ali Raza Shaikh — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:05:20 GMT

Hello

Is there any process for hiring International Students (Undergraduate) for the Office Team.

re: Heads-up -- check us out at schools all across the US

steven_sinofsky — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:21:34 GMT

More information is on http://www.microsoft/college. We do visit some international campuses as well and of course we have offices in many countries where depending on your background you might be interested in pursuing a position in a country office.

Readers might also choose to write their legislative representatives and ask them to consider the H1-B visa limits now in place.

--Steven