The Unofficial Guide to Getting a Job at Microsoft

Rating:
Summary: This is how we should be thinking for the 21st Century
Review: I know people who apply at Microsft obviously have top notch skills. After reading this book, I realized top notch does not mean knowing everything (which is basically what everyone thinks). If I'm good at what I do, I can consider my skills top notch as well. This book gave me the confidence that I am good at what I do and how to capture that in my resume and my interviewing skills. It's this approach that should be adopted all over. This book helps you to focus your job search better, or focus what you want to do for a particular company like Microsoft.

And now as a hiring manager, I found the chapters on behavorial interviewing extremely useful. The tips showed me how to probe more effectively the skills my candidates are good at and how they use them; how they apply their ideas and how they think; and that it's okay to have weaknesses as long as they know what they are and how to manage them.

If you are looking to interview, go on interviews or change the way your company thinks in interviewing, I would highly recommend you buy this book. The fellow who called this book stupid sounds like he's got a chip on his shoulder. I found his review to be well...unhelpful.

Rating:
Summary: Two BIG Reasons To Read This Book!
Review: So many people are in awe of Microsoft (MS) that, on one level, this book fulfills the basic purpose of telling the reader what the rudiments are of getting a job there. Sure, if you're planning to apply for the job of personal assistant to Bill Gates or establish yourself as the imminent software guru who's going to develop the MS strategic thrust for 2005 -- then this book may be too basic. But, keeping in mind that MS employs lots and LOTS of people, the book is a true getting-started guide which can help someone honestly considering how to get a job at MS -- at multiple levels of the company. (Despite the "Unofficial" word in the book's title, Smith had to have had some critical sources who really KNOW how MS works).

Moreover, there's a second reason why this book clicks. So many people admire the company and list it on their most-favored list (and invest in it!), that here's a whole new way to look at the company. By reading about how the employment game works at MS, one can perhaps glean how it is that the company competes and performs. Which makes the book valuable even if you're planning to continue working in automotives or clothing sales.

For most people, Microsoft is now a monolith. Smith sought to unlock the basics of how MS hires people. In the main, she succeeds. (There's also a wealth of addresses and links for MS worldwide!)

Will everyone who reads this book and applies for a job at MS get hired there? Probably not. Will everyone who reads this book and applies for a job at MS have a better shot at getting employed? Yes.

Rating:
Summary: This book delivers!
Review: Sorry, but it's true. I wish there was a "0 stars" level -- that's what this book deserves. The only redeeming quality is that it includes links to a couple well-known sites that do have a little bit of useful information (Chris Sells runs one site -- check a search engine).

How would I know? I recently left the big M for another venture but I previously did lots of technical recruiting. I can't tell you what to do to get hired by MS and neither can this book for one very simple reason that unfortunately won't make the author or myself rich: THERE IS NO SECRET. If you're a) smart b) technically skilled and c) motivated to build cool stuff then you're probably in good shape. If you're not, all the books in the world won't help you.

A typical example of why this book couldn't help you at all is because it doesn't include ANY of what we call "technical questions." For the programmers out there, an example would be a specific question about the C++ language, or perhaps a question to design a class to do XYZ or describe a product design given a vague product category, or maybe implement some function given a description or design an algorithm. Every interviewer has a handful of these that they'll use often and you can't prepare for them. Memorizing an answer won't get you far because the questions morph as the candidate answers them or appears to have memorized them. :-)

The book does attempt to describe the hiring philosophy of Microsoft. Too bad there is no single such philosophy per se. Everybody has their own opinions about how to identify good talent, and some people specialize in digging into certain areas with candidates in a sort of cooperative process to discover as much as possible in one day. Don't believe for a second that Bill Gates sat down one day and wrote a definitive guide on how to interview candidates and that this guide was printed by the thousands and drilled into everyone's brains. It just doesn't work this way.

If you're not convinced yet, know this: the middle section of this book, 35 pages, is a complete list of every Microsoft business office the world over. Nevermind that nearly all technical product development positions are located in Redmond, WA, with a minority in the Bay area. And I'm sure the address information is on the Web in case you really need to submit your resume for a post in Portugal.

If you still think this book is possibly worth reading through, I hope you'll cancel your interview schedule and save yourself and MS some time and money. Few serious candidates could read through this book and expect to get hired from the information -- the only way this book will get bought is through places like amazon where there's nothing but a picture and a glowing publisher summary -- you wouldn't touch it if you were in a bookstore.

If you have money to buy a book, try something useful like Essential COM or Code Complete or Debugging the Development Process or one of Knuth's books or Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Lieserson (sp?), and Rivest. Anything but this book -- please! I hate to see people profit off misinformation.

Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate and not helpful
Review: Take it from someone on the inside, this book is not going to help you. I picked up the book while killing time at a bookstore and was amazed at the bad advice. Some of the sample questions were outright illegal ("Do you own a computer?" -- If I asked this, the HR department would have a fit!), while others were industry standard ("Tell me about a time when you had a problem in a group and how you solved it.")

You can get similar information online for free, and it will probably be better quality.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: There is nothing in this book that you can't get from any free internet site on job search and interview help. I have interviewed microsoft and know of others who have interviewed Microsoft, some work there some don't. Nothing in the book helped my experience with MSFT and nothig will help anyone else either. If you buy this book you will be wasting your money. As far as the interview with Microsoft it can be said in one sentence. BE YOURSELF. If they like you they hire you if they don't they won't. It's mostley a beauty pagent and each set of interviewer will have his/her notion of who they want to hire. DON'T WAST YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK.