Hi,

Following is my experiences in Microsoft interview.

I've been interviewed for 3 times, talked with 3 interviewers, but all these
interviews were similar.

First it would be a programming question, ask me to write code, and then
they should ask me questions about testing, e.g. wrote the test case for the
program you just wrote.  Finally they let me to ask them questions.

The first interview went on well, the interviewer is American, and of course
his English is pretty good.  The coding problem is to convert Bin string to
Hex string, I did it just so so, but during programming, we made good
communication, I explained every thing I wrote on the screen, he seem
satisfied with that.  Also he said my test cases were pretty good.  We had a
pleasant conversation about Microsoft's tech. and about Denmark.  After
that, he told me I would have another 2 interviews, I was so happy and wrote
to you immediately.

Next interviewer is Denish, the coding problem is about link list.  I think
I had done it pretty good, and he also said so.  He said my test case were
also good, and we talked about tech and something else.  But there were some
conflicts during the conversation, the network connection broke for a short
time, and I said I can't see what you had typed on the screen, he can't
indentify my pronunciation of "can" and "can't".  I remebered American
indentified them by stress, if the stress is in "ca" it should be "can't",
otherwise if the stess is in the verb after "can", it should be "can".  I
tried to pronunce them that way, but I don't know whether there was
something wrong with my accent, he can't understand.  These things happened
some times during the conversation.

The last interviewer seem in charge of the internship program, but I didn't
know it at that time.  He sent me the rejection letter today.  He was not as
voluble as the formers.  Because this interview was immediately after the
second one, I felt tired.  I think I have not had good performance.  The
coding problem was really easy, but once you felt it easy, it seem you had
not got the point of that.  I had finished this question just using 5-6
lines, but I think there were something I had missed.  Later, I found I had
not added examining conditions I added them.  I was really confused and
felt uncomfortable that he had not made any comment during the interview,
never said right or wrong, good or bad.  And his English was not easy to
understand, we had made a lot of misunderstandings.  Finally, he
misunderstood my question, I ask him, I found that your team didn't just
have testers, but also developers, program managers,...  is it right?  It
wasferent from other companies.  He read my question as "Do you have other
positions rather than tester?"  I think that was so bad...

After all, I would summarize my interviews.  I think the disadvantiges about
me is mainly:

1. English is not perfect.  You know, to communicate with native speakers is
a litter bit easier, because I can understand them well and they also
understand me well.  For example, if an American speaks Chinese, we may
understand each other well.  But if a Japanese speaks Chinese with an
American, they might be in troubles.

2. Althrough my algorithms might be good, the language I chose is C, because
it's my favorate programming language, and it's easier to wrote good
algorithms in C.  But they required OO programming language, especially C++
or C#, also during the interview, they asked me to use what ever language I
like, I think it might be negative effects on using C.

3. I don't know... I write them to ask about suggestion on what should I
improve in the future, but I don't think they are willing to reply.

Anyway, it's really a wonderful experience, althrough I have not got
through, I think I've learned a lot and I feel more confident in future
study.

Also thank you for providing me such opportunity.

I can also provide you Chinese version, please let me know if you want.

Best Regards!

from Da Jiang