The Microsoft Interview Loop

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

When you interview on-site with Microsoft, you're scheduled to interview with two product groups or two teams within the same product group. On the day of the interview, you start out by having two interviews with the first group and then you have one interview with the second group. What happens next is based on your performance up until that point. One of the more unique things about the Microsoft on-site interview is the fact that your interviewers share your results with each other while the day is still in progress. During the interview, your interviewer will take notes on you and forward them to your subsequent interviewers for review. If the feedback during your initial three interviews is positive, you’ll continue to have as many interviews as it takes to reach a decision. If you do really well, then your last interview will be with a senior employee who will sell you on the benefits of working at Microsoft and try to convince you to accept an offer (aka the “as appropriate” interview). If the feedback during your initial three interviews is negative, then your day will be over and you won’t have anymore interviews.

As far as I know, Microsoft is the only major company to employ the philosophy of “in progress interview feedback”. There are advantages and disadvantages to this technique. On one hand, it allows interviewers to expose and exploit weaknesses that a candidate may have and ensures that no two interviewers will ask the same question. It also saves the wasted time of having to continue interviewing a candidate that will not be offered. On the other hand, it’s possible that human bias may be introduced into the equation. If an interviewer receives negative feedback from a respected colleague, it could potentially have an influence on his opinion and make the situation much tougher for the interview candidate. In large corporations where cliques and politics run rampant, it could put a lot of pressure on the interviewee to perform well in the first interview.

As you’ll see in the final part of my Microsoft interview experience, my interview loop ends up getting cut short. At the time, I was obviously disappointed. However, later on during another poor interview with a different company, I was all but ignored by my three interviewers during a lunch interview and at that point was just praying that they’d cut me off early.

Overall, my opinion on the subject is mixed. I feel like I’d need to experience the process from the interviewers point of view to fully understand its impact. This is definitely a topic worth discussing though and I’d be interested in hearing any opinions that people may have on the subject matter.

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