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Google Vs. Microsoft: a Tale of Two Interviews
jfruh writes "You might be a bit jealous of Andrew Weiss: fresh out of college, he got interviews with both Microsoft and Google. He discusses (to the extent NDAs allow) the differences between the two experiences, ranging from the silly (Google's famous gourmet cafeteria vs. Microsoft's gaming room) to the serious (Google's technical emphasis vs. Microsoft's focus on explanatory and consulting skills.)"
Having been an intern at both, and gone through at least the intern version of their interviews, I didn't see a huge difference. Can you solve problems? How do you approach different types of problems? Simply put, did your education (both formal and personal) teach you enough to know the important things that any software engineer should know? Communication is incredibly important, and your ability to communicate how you are solving the problems and dealing with issues factors in quite a bit.
Once inside, they do have different cultures, goals, focus, but as far as getting in, I feel there's very few people who would be hired by one, but not the other.
Well, that was a fairly lame article...
Anyway, I interviewed with Microsoft back in 1989 or 1990, and it appears that things have changed since then. Back then, they definitely were more focused on technical questions. I don't remember anyone asking anything about customers or business or communications. It was all technology, with a bit of design thrown in. The position wasn't even a hard-core programming job. Since I was a few years out of college, the customer/business/communications questions would have been nice, since I would probably would have been better positioned to answer those than the college seniors, as my then current job had me working with customers a lot. Their recruiting group was horribly disorganized back then also -- they switched recruiters and the job at the last minute, so no one (myself, the recruiter, the interviewers) was properly prepared. I suppose they've probably fixed that since then... One of the weirdest things was the "cult of Bill" -- whenever you asked a question, the answer seemed to always be prefaced with something like, "Well, Bill thinks that..." Even questions that had nothing to do with technology or Microsoft, like "what do people in Redmond do for fun?" "Well, Bill thinks that being fit and active helps the brain, so a lot of us like to mountain bike..."
Considering that he was offered the job of "Associate Consultant" at Microsoft, I'd say he was interviewing for completely different positions.
I know people who work for these companies. What you say here is absolutely not true.
Very good point. I had the chance to interview at both Google and Microsoft. I found the interview styles to be pretty similar. Google was a bit heavier on the technical. Microsoft was a bit heavier on general problem solving. That's easily explained by the fact that I was interviewing to be a developer at Google and a tester at Microsoft. No big deal. There was one glaring difference between my experiences at the two companies. Google flew me to their Seattle office, set me up with a hotel, rental, car, food, etc., and spent the whole day in interviews with me before the recruiter told me that they don't actually have any openings and they're just building a candidate pool. Microsoft took me to Redmond, gave me a similar treatment, and I got an offer the same day.
Microsoft actually has people who will talk to me about the problems I have with their software and systems. They, in many cases, will work with my company to fix the problems, or at least provide a workaround. I've never been able to talk to anyone at Google about a problem or have them acknowledge it, much less work with me to fix it.