Microsoft Program Manager Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated May 26, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 132 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 132 ratings
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| 41–50 of 132 Microsoft Interviews | Sort by |
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Nov 16, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took 2 weeks)
I got shortlisted for this position through University Career Fair. He asked me one design questions & one coding question. Besides that I was asked behavioral questions like why program manager, why this course etc
Interview Questions
"Hello word" to "world hello"
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 31, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 3 months)
I was contacted by MS recruiter in Jun or Jul and he asked me to wait until PM positions opened for interviews. Thereafter he contacted me again in August for a telephonic interview that went on for about 45 min to an hour. The interview was great and he told me to wait till he can arrange for an onsite interview. In Sep first week I went to Seattle for the final round. I had 3 interviews - the first one was about my resume and the work I had done and about a design question and a guesstimate question. This round was good. The second round was about domain expertise and more design ques, I was being interviewed for online division and this round was okish, it could have been better but still was alright. The third round was about the product and behavioural round . This round was good. I was fairly optimistic, however when I didn't get called for a 4th round I started to be unsure if I will make it. However the overall interview process was good and MS provides some good boarding and lodging arrangements.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 31, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2010 (took a day)
Nice interviewer but not very talkative. He was in higher management. He was looking for certain answers to the design questions that he wanted. Seemed to really enjoy his job and the company culture. On campus interview. Scheduled interview through email. Very responsive and efficient. Went into great detail about job responsibilities.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 26, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
Got the interview by applying through my university's co-op job website. Had a seminar on campus to meet with the team and who would be interviewing us. Had 2 back-to-back 1-on-1 interviews with current program managers, each being about 45 minutes long. Asked to design user experiences on different devices.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 24, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2009 (took a day)
There were two rounds of interview as a college grad. Round 1 was a 30 minute on campus interview. Round 2 was flying out to Microsoft headquarters for a full day of interviews. The full day was back to back interviews -- I met with probably 5 people, each in a 1:1 situation. Program Manager interviews are divided into 3 sections: 1) design 2) behavioral 3) problem-solving. Each interview was composed of all 3 sections.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 23, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took a day)
I submitted my resume to a recruiter at a career fair at UC Berkeley. A week later, they emailed me, offering an on-campus interview. The email said that dressing casually for the interview is okay. "Be comfortable! We’re more interested in what you have to say than what you’re wearing. Microsoft employees usually dress casually, but if you’re comfortable in business attire, go ahead and wear it. "
The interview site was at my college's career center. There were about a dozens companies there that were interviewing UC Berkeley students. Most of the companies were consulting, finance, accounting, or business-related. The students sitting in the waiting room were dressed in very nice-looking suits, whereas the Microsoft candidates dressed casually. One guy was wearing a sandals and a brown button-down shirt that was untucked. I on the other hand was wearing dress-pants and a dark dress-shirt. Basically, I was dressing semi-formally, the business candidates were dressing very formally, and the other Microsoft candidates were dressing casually. The Microsoft interviewer wore a polo shirt. The business recruiters were dressing formally.
My interview was allocated 30 minutes. The first question was "tell me about yourself." I didn't say much. I just said what my major was and that I'm a UC Berkeley student who wants to work for Microsoft. During the interview, the interviewer asked OOP questions, which I easily answered. Next, he asked me to give an algorithm to shift a String 10 elements forward. The elements that fall off the right would go back to the front of the String, if you know what I mean. It took me 15 minutes (not sure if this was true, but it felt like 15 minutes) to come up with the solution. I was sweating bullets. The interviewer really wanted me to talk out my thought process and what was going on in my mind. Everything I said was convoluted and did not seem like it would progress nicely to the solution. Sometime during the 15 minutes of problem solving, I was thinking "I'm so not gonna get this job". In the final 10 seconds I suddenly realized the solution and told it to him. If I had figured out the solution earlier, he probably would have asked me to code it in my language of choice, but there was no time left.
5 minutes was left for me to ask him questions. I asked him whether I took too long on the algorithm question. He said "no, we just want to see that our candidates are able to think in a structured way".
I got a rejection email 2 weeks later, probably because my major is not computer science related, but I taken a few lower division CS classes, and I plan to take a couple upper division ones next semester. "We have carefully considered your qualifications and skills. In light of our current opportunities, we will be pursuing other candidates whose background and abilities more closely match our needs at this time. If you have any questions, please contact your school recruiter."
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Oct 6, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2009 (took a day)
This was a very positive interviewing experience. I interviewed with six different people (including a person from HR - my first interview). The HR interview seemed to be more personality and experience based - a lot of questions and jotting down of my answers. The rest of the interviews focused on determining how I fit into the role by asking problem solving questions (none of the "why are man holes round types of questions - more of - "What would you do in this typical work situation?" types of questions). It was a long day, I was very tired at the end of it, but it was a pleasant experience and I rather enjoyed the process. They have a good system in that several different people get a feel for the person.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Sep 30, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2010 (took 4 months)
The first round interview was on campus at my university. A week later, I was told I was being invited to the final round interview on site in Washington. This took 2 months to schedule. Microsoft covers all expenses (airfare, hotel, rental car or taxi, food, etc.) and I went out to dinner with a current employee who had gone to my school after the day of interviews. The interviews were all 1:1 and consisted of mostly design-type questions and a few questions about my resume.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Sep 23, 2011 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2009 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
HR + technical rounds, 1 whole day
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
hard, make sure you have a ball park salary clear in mind and the least % raise you want from current job
Other Details
I applied In-Person and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Aug 28, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 1 week)
I was contacted by a Msft recruiter for the position. She first contacted me by email to set up a 30 min phone inteerview. That interview was just generic questions about my job, my experience, visa status etc. Then she emailed me that the hiring manager will be taking a phone interview as well. The Job description was vague and I asked her for more information, she said I should ask my hiring manager when he interviews me. With the being manager phone call he asked questions on APIs, more questions on my work ex etc. When I asked him more about the job description he said it is a generic PM role. He asked me technical questions nd I told him I am into coding and wouldn't like to pursue such profile either. He said that's fine, this position is not that technical. Then I was contacted by hr to set upa full day interview at the Msft campus. It took 3-4 days to set it up. On the day of the interview I first met the hr person who had contacted me. She told me how my interviews were set up for the day and if I had any questions. I had 3 intereviews set up and a 4th would be with the gpm if required. My first interview was with their dev lead, and he kept asking technical questions on hash logic etc - which was weird but I went with the flow. The next 2 were pm interviews with one being about generic pm questions - like how would you prioritize features, write specs etc. The second was more on their product. After that the hiring manager went out and came back saying I was done for the day and I would be contacted later.
Couple of days later the hr contacted me saying that they wudnt be going ahead with me but would inform me if they had any other roles suitable for me. I was expecting that coz the nature of the interviews gave me an idea that it was a technical role which I had anyways informed them earlier I was neither qualified nor interested in such a role. What I was told in the phone interview and the role I was explained during the 1:1 inetrview seemed quite different.
But overall the hr side of setting up things and responding was fairly smooth and quick.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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