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Microsoft Interns Still Feel the Love
theodp writes "Despite layoffs and a blip in earnings, the Chicago Trib reports that Microsoft's summer interns still enjoy the VIP treatment. Although there were 20% fewer of them this year than last, still 85% of the interns are offered full-time jobs. In addition to being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks — such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a free Xbox 360. 'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton. BTW, before he got mixed up with those MBA-types, De Guzman earned some fame as the Doogie Howser of computer science."
Before I get too angry, I should make sure I'm clear on something. Does this mean Microsoft paid money for people to get preferred treatment on the roads?
The escort was so they couldn't escape (possibly to watch a good movie).
Perk or punishment? I have a friend with a few scratched up disks that would argue the latter...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I think most of the interns are CS majors; they're actually pretty common among computer science students, probably 2nd only to the giant flood of Google interns.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
When I interned, I worked for free and I was working on projects myself.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
They have to meet Ballmer? Ok, I guess they gotta pay their dues.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'd still love to know the secret [of how to get an MS internship].
Big lips and a slack jaw.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
In a world where many people have never made a phone call, where children still get polio or die from malaria, where there are some people who make less than $30 USD in a year, let me be the first to say FUCK YOU! Seriously, Libertarian001, what the hell is the matter with you? You honestly think that showing off by using the luxury of an internet connection and personal computer to bitch about other people's fortune is a good idea? Asshole.
Perspective, it's what's for dinner.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Look at what they do for professional sports stadiums every weekend. Heck, look downstream from there,at how much public property tax money is used across the nation to brainwash little kids and get them addicted and operate those same pro sports farm teams in the public school system (which is all they are, subsidized farm teams).
If you got the cash and "the juice", what is public can become private *real quick*.
Butthurt much?
Hate Microsoft all you want, but they're giving people high paying jobs during a tough economy. That's more than Comrade Obama's been able to do with his trillion dollar "stimulus" plan.
If you don't like it, feel free to stop buying Microsoft and STFU.
Interns working on products that are going to ship.
Okay, so that explains Vista...
#DeleteChrome
$4500-$6000 a month is a LOT of coin for pretty much most of the country not containing coastline.
Truthfully, this is real news to me, I never heard of interns making that kind of money. In this economy - and yes, I'm talking about the US - it just seems... absurd.
And paying them so much, too. What the fuck is WRONG with Microsoft?
Big lips and a slack jaw.
Whatever you thing of Microsoft or the effectiveness their intern program I'm certain these potential employees are not only overachievers, but are probably photogenic as well. I don't see any comfort in deluding yourself otherwise.
Your description would probably come in handy for a hooker though.
I was one of Microsoft's interns some time ago and I can tell you that it was nothing like they described in the article. I was actually very poorly treated (and my boss was a big jerk). Amongst other things (mostly Denmark related, and not directly Microsoft), my boss was one of the reasons I didn't want to stay there and why I made sure I wouldn't.
But, it was in Denmark (Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen), so it seems to be something localized.
Onda Technology Institute
I'm sure Microsoft has evidence that the money they're investing in the various internship programs nets them something tangible in the long term - otherwise they wouldn't do it. I've known a couple people who've been MS interns, and they were both pretty happy with the program. I'm not sure why people here are giving MS such grief over this (yes, I'm new here, thank you for asking) - this is pretty standard stuff for most large tech companies.
But I must admit I still smile whenever I walk into the Paul Allen Center - home of the University of Washington's CSE department - and see the disproportionate number of students using Mac laptops there in the main atrium. Looks like the Beatles were right on that score...
#DeleteChrome
'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton
I don't know about this; when I got busted for drunk driving I had a police escort all the way to the station, but I didn't feel like royalty at all.
Can't buy me love
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I'll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
'Cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no no no, no
Say you don't need no diamond ring and I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
If this were Google, most of you'd be praising them, for being such a great employer.
How about we judge a software company by their software and business ethics, there's plenty of things to dislike Microsoft for in those departments...
+1 Funny Signature
Perhaps he majored in political science? That would explain the numbers.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
It's usually the bigger companies that offer these perks for their interns. That and the high pay they receive are usually the incentives for students to work kind of hard to get a spot in one of these programs...
Hence, it's no surprise that because these companies are bigger, there would be an increased risk of dealing with crappy managers and boring dead-end work. Overall, the people I know that have worked in such companies were usually happy with their expereinces...
Two basic things.
1) Your resume needs to get you an interview. This is easy if you're applying for an internship position at a school which MS actively recruits from. Not many secrets here. Try to engage a college recruiter in person at your school. Show an interest! Tell them about a project you've done outside of class. Tell them about that club you're an exec on (even if it is the nerdy math club or pot-smoking surfer's club!). Make yourself out to be well rounded and keen! That will get you an interview.
2) Interview skills! You need to ace the questions you're given. An interview for an internship is pretty short, less than an hour. Spend the first couple years of your CS degree doing http://topcoder.com/ competitions in your free time, ace your two or three algorithms/data-structures courses, and spend a day or two reviewing those same courses before an interview. Think of it as a programming competition. An internship question won't get into anything beyond those classes with the technical questions. If you have a friend who has ever taken any interview training, get him to run you through all the "so tell me about yourself" warmup questions half-a-dozen times. Learn to reference your past projects and experience while answering questions. Even if you know your shit (broadly speaking), if you're not prepared for the interview, you can only really blame yourself. If you've been focusing for the last year on your honor's thesis, review that 1st/2nd year material until you can teach it. You'll thank me :)
Wouldn't that be a gaggle of Google interns?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Ever see a carnival that takes in several city streets and blocks traffic for the duration? It depends on the city, but most cities will, for the right price, allow companies, or even private citizens to purchase the rights to have exclusive control over specific public facilities or resources for a short period of time. It's usually not cost effective to do so, and you're therefore not likely to see a great deal of it. The only example I know of with real numbers would be the First Saturday sale in Dallas, TX. I don't even know if it's still there, but back in the mid 90's when I was a vendor there for a few months, I asked about it. For a few public parking lots and to block one street in Dallas on a Saturday, they paid $5000 for a 24 hour permit.
And yes, you can rent cops.. in uniforms... with cars, for pretty much anything you want.
The real question isn't how they could do such a thing, but why they would even bother. I never thought of a group of interns going to a Harry Potter movie as being an event worthy of a police escort, let alone requiring one.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Good money, plenty of perks... this is not the Apple way.
A few years ago the company was on the brink of disaster and made huge salary cuts. Now they are making sh*tloads of money, thanks to the iPod and iPhone, but the salaries are still low. Last year, Techcrunch published data pulled from Glassdoor.com, showing that Apple engineers are paid 15-20% less than their counterparts at Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Some food for thought: who made more money at Microsoft? Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates? and who made more money at Apple? Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak? Engineers always have been a commodities for Apple.
lucm, indeed.
Do you only drink and post on weekends?
Wouldn't that be a gaggle of Google interns?
He he. Your Google gaggle made me giggle.
In general good advice (except for the pot club thing), but for a company like Microsoft (or Google, or to a lesser extent Amazon, and probably others of similar size) the initial interview is barely a foot in the door. It's usually under an hour long, conducted on your campus or over the phone, and pretty general - you're talking with recruiter types, not with the people who you would actually work with.
*IF* you do well in that inital interview, you get a second one on site with the business. Many of the larger companies will fly potential interns out to their location for this second interview. The second-round interview itself it pretty grueling - 4 hours (it varies by company; I've seen as short as 2 or as long as 6.5) of constantly being grilled by people who want to test not only your knowledge and experience, but also your intelligence and approach to problem-solving. The people you'll talk to are engineers, usually the ones who you may end up working with directly. The interview may take place long before the job begins (for example, interviewing during the fall for an internship that wont start until the next summer).
If you get the offer, and accept it, they'll fly you out again when the summer starts. Some companies (including Microsoft) also reserve and subsidize housing and transportation for their interns, who come not only from around the country but even from overseas.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I interned for Microsoft in 2008 and for Google last summer.
At Microsoft, we got a police escort to the zoo. But, to be honest, while the story casts it as a VIP thing, it's actually set up to minimize traffic disruption.
Microsoft has 800+ interns in the Redmond area, which means about 20 buses if they need to go anywhere at once. Attempting to push 20 buses through already congested streets is a nightmare. Better to shut down the roads for a couple of minutes than risk an accident or clog up the streets.
The housing benefit isn't exactly a steal. You can share an apartment (with another MS intern) for about $600/mo, or they will give you $3000 to find housing on your own. I chose the latter.
Relocation costs are effectively plane fare plus a couple of days of car rental, or mileage if you drive.
I was offered a full-time job, but I turned it down because I was more interested in graduate school. The full time job is contingent on working for the same group that you interned with. I must admit that the package they offer is pretty tempting.
Google paid me considerably more than Microsoft. I worked in my home city (Boulder CO), so I didn't need relocation or housing. I did get to spend a week in Mountain View (paid for by Google) for orientation and training.
Google didn't have any major events in Boulder, but I'm not sure about Mountain View.
Google's interview process was considerably easier than Microsoft's, but that's because at Microsoft interns go through the full interview process (for me, two phone interviews plus 4 interviews onsite at Microsoft). Google does not offer interns full-time jobs unless they go through a conversion process that includes the full interview track.
Both Microsoft and Google had me doing real work that went into actual products. My code was reviewed, just like a normal employee. I went to meetings, had performance evaluations, and worked an 8-9 hour day, just like a normal employee.
By the way, if anyone wants to know about the interview process:
- Neither company asks 'brain-teaser' questions anymore. It's straight-up CS fundamentals, algorithms, and data structures.
- I was interviewed by actual developers from the teams that I ended up working for. These people know their shit and will see through BS.
There's no magic trick or great mystery here. Either you know your shit and can get hired, or you don't and it will be apparent.
No offense, but as an MS intern from this past summer (who doesn't have a slashdot account), I disagree a bit with what you said.
MS does most of their recruiting from a few universities: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, UT Austin, UW, etc. I attend one of these schools.
The MS interview process is fairly extensive, with several different weeding stages:
1) Resume. They'll take a quick glance at your GPA and decide if they want to interview you. There isn't much else they can look at since they get flooded with applications.
2) On campus interview. You'll spend 30 minutes talking to an engineer from MS.
3) Redmond Interview. You fly to Redmond to interview with potential teams. You'll have anywhere from 3 to 4 1-hour interviews in a single day. The questions can be varied, but expect to have to know more than data structures and be prepared to use some theory. They won't ask what the runtime of quicksort is.
Assuming you get through 1-3, accept the internship, then you'll essentially have a summer-long interview at the end of which they'll either offer you a full time job or another internship if you do a good job.
General Tips when Interviewing:
-Dress casually. I gave a presentation to several high-ups this summer wearing t-shirt and shorts. I was not underdressed.
-Think out loud. They're more interested in your thought process and approach to problems than they are in your solutions, much like showing your work on school work.
-Have fun with it. If you're at ease and relaxed, you'll do better.
If the parent douchebag would have read what the person hes aiming this at was talking to, he would have realized it was sarcasm to point out the others idiocy... talk about woosh...
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"