How to get an internship at Microsoft?
Read all about the intern recruitment process for the under-graduate students by the software giant- Microsoft Corporation!
Microsoft Corporation, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, is one of the most valuable companies and world’s largest software maker. There are numerous internship and training programs at Microsoft for students, starting from pre-university levels to post graduation and doctoral levels. One can apply for several technical and non-technical roles in Microsoft at their official website. For Microsoft’s summer internship, the company visits a few reputed colleges.
Who are eligible to apply?
For applying to Microsoft summer internship 2017, one needs to have completed his/her second year of under-graduation in a field related to Computer Science.
How to apply?
Generally, the company has a cut-off CGPA below which students are not allowed to apply and this cut-off varies from college to college. Students need to get the requisite information for applying from the Training and Placement Cell of their college.
What after applying?
In many colleges, the company initially conducts a coding test or a written test for screening students. The further recruitment process generally consists of three rounds.
Round 1– Students are given a problem statement and are required to come up with an algorithm to solve it.
Round 2 – It’s generally a group fly round where 2 questions are to be solved in 30 minutes. Examples:
– Find the length of the biggest palindromic substring present in a string and print the palindromic string.
– There are 100 doors in a row and all doors are initially closed. A person walks through all doors multiple times and toggle (if open then close; if close then open) them in following way:
In the first walk, the person toggles every door. In the second walk, the person toggles every second door, i.e., 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, etc. In the third walk, the person toggles every third door, i.e. 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc. and so on… In the 100th walk, the person toggles 100th door. Which doors are open in the end?
Round 3- In this round they take a technical interview. Questions pertain to your subject of interest as well as the basics of the computer science field. Few sample questions are-
Find determinant of a nxn matrix provided as 2D array.
How is Sieves of Eratosthenes implemented?
Questions on finding anagrams.
Questions based on deadlock, stacks, queues and binary trees.
Questions regarding OS concepts.
Round 4- In this round an HR interview is taken. The questions are generic and mostly the type one expects in an HR interview. Few sample questions are-
Where do you see yourself in five years from now?
If you are the project manager and you have to choose between two conflicting viewpoints of your team members then what would you do?
In case you don’t make it, what reason would you give for it?
The interview process is held in August. Selected students get emails from Microsoft in January to upload their resume and ID proof. On basis of their resume, teams and projects are allocated to them. Each intern is assigned to a manager, a mentor, and a buddy. A buddy is a junior employee who helps you get acquainted with the office and the way of working at Microsoft. A mentor is for technical doubts and the manager assigns projects.
The evaluation process differs from team to team. Most teams do two evaluations in the 8-10 week internship program- mid-term evaluation and end-term evaluation. In both these evaluations, the project work is reviewed through interviews or written test.
Word of advice from ex-interns-
Interview advice– Focus on just one language (such as C or C++), data structures and algorithms. For data structure and algorithms, NPTEL lectures by Prof. Nitin Garg and MIT OCW are recommended. Apart from technical knowledge, it is very important to have good communication skills.
Work very very hard- There is a very real chance of getting a PPO at Microsoft if you impress them during your internship. After the internship, few candidates are recommended to appear for the pre-placement interviews and if you’ve already proved your mettle during internship then you are almost through.
Unparalleled work culture- Flexible working hours, recreation area in the office itself, pantries, own cubicle, subsidized housing & transportation, healthy stipend; what more can an intern ask for? People at Microsoft are not at all formal and as long as you get your work done on time, you’re allowed as many breaks as you want.
Mindblowing mentorship– You interact with the best of the best at Microsoft! The mentors at Microsoft give ample time, space and know-how to switch from student to professional mindset.
Resources: You can find previously asked interview questions and experiences here and here.
‘Microsoft is not just a company, it is a culture!’, says Mahak Goindani from IIT Madras. Mahak interned at Microsoft, Hyderabad in the summer of 2014. Read all about her splendid experience – Summer internship at Microsoft.
If you are also looking for similar internships, check out these cool computer science internships. To apply for some amazing internships, register with us.
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