Microsoft Reviews in Chicago, IL

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good people, take care of employee

Cons – You have to fight lot to get visibility. Lot of pressure. Stack ranking kills innovation.

Advice to Senior Management – Remove stack ranking 1-5 performance process.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – I really like the culture of Microsoft as well as how they treat there employees. The work was fast paced and challenging. It's a hard company to get into - but once you are there, if you do good work you will be recognized.

Cons – Typical meeting had 10-15 people all with laptops open reading email, ignoring the topic at hand as they usually had no "say" and were just in the loop so as to spread responsibility. Very bureaucratic.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your managers - or fire them. If you have more than three people in a room chances are a lot of time is going to get wasted that should have been used productively. Use email and polls to get buy-in.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great people and love the work

Cons – Lots of politics and a maturing company means there's not as much opportunity to advance

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for less than a year

Pros – Resources resources and more resources. It's amazing to work for a company that seems to have a great idea of what it does, why it does it, and has the information available to help team members execute successfully.

Cons – There's a tendency to not take charge (if you don't take ownership, you can't get blamed). And there's definitely a bit of a blame culture (which feeds the prior item).

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Challenges are pretty good and fun

Cons – Big corporate environment is very difficult to work in.

Advice to Senior Management – Cut down on review, which means less stress and better prodictivity

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Well recognized in the IT industry;
Broad set of products available (from consumer to enterprise space);
Pay/Benefits;
Remote work.

Cons – The word performance is frequently highlighted by top management at all levels however many times it does not translate to reality when employees are evaluated. Main metrics such as quota attainment, commitments achieved, and peer/customer feedback can be ignored when managers stack rank their employees. The process ends up being extremely biased; working more similar to a popularity contest than fair measurement of performance metrics (with perhaps just a few necessary adjustments). For those who have been with the company for a while it is clear that overall employees in the frontline fell a lot of instability.
At last, career progress in the field is very limited as well. High performers in the low base of the pyramid tend to leave earlier as a result.

Advice to Senior Management – Be true to the company's values and stand behind it;
Take a careful look at your talent pipeline and reward it;
It is tough to be innovative in every single sector but Microsoft would be better off taking fewer investment decisions than trying to have a play everywhere.

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – I came in as a MACH College hire, and I am getting great experence learning from other.

Cons – The Pay in the College hire is verry low, and hard to catch up bacause of the HR rules.

Advice to Senior Management – N/A

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Microsoft is an unbelievable place to work. Great people, leadership, community, benefits and pay. Consistently rated in the top 3 places to work in Crain's Chicago Business journal.

Cons – Very competitive work environment. If you are a slacker you won't do well here!

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – 1) Well recognized company name and products helps you cut to the chase when talking to IT decision makers. No time wasted on positioning your "best of breed" solutions
2) Resource rich
3) Health benefits

Cons – 1) Companies wo frequently comment about work-life "integration" probably have a problem with it.
2) Tougher to find next role at level 63+
3) Feel too pressured to do a new job every few years. Would like to enjoy being a "professional in place"
4) Data quality needs improvement

Advice to Senior Management – Train managers to help employees to grow and develop. Seems like managers are just trying to manage their own careers and metrics.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – A challanging environment with significant opportunity for advancement and recognition. Management generally is very supportive with regard to its personnel practices.

Cons – To focused on products without sufficient leadership regarding the value of those products to their customers. Tends to be somewhat of a cult in terms of the attitude that Microsoft can do no wrong. Need to improve its ability to provide leadership and guidance to its field sales force to enable them to better represent Microsoft to their customers.

Advice to Senior Management – Be more open to dissenting opinions. Foster greater understanding of and the ability to communicate the value of your products to your customers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend