I applied through college or university. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Microsoft in Oct 2012
Interview
I handed in my resume through school's career fair. Then MS contacted me very soon. An on-campus interview was arranged in the next week. The problems are not that hard. First is some questions about your resume. Then algorithm. But you should be well prepared for some classic algorithms and basic programming language knowledge. Due to the agreement, I can not tell too detailed about the question. But It's a very famous string algorithm. Due to my limited knowledge and the rush in preperation, I didn't get the offer.
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Melbourne)
Interview
After submitting an online application, I received a HackerRank assessment after passing the resume screening stage, then I was rejected after completing the assessment and did not proceed to further interview rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The assessment consisted of two LeetCode-medium-level coding questions to be completed within 75 minutes.
45 mins technical interview with a member of their San fran team. Very relaxed and informal but questions were focused and lots of follow ups. Easy to schedule as was over video conferencing platform
Straightforward technical loop overall, with strong interviewers at every stage. I genuinely enjoyed the in-depth conversations around technical challenges and algorithmic problem-solving — the entire process felt well-structured and genuinely engaging.