I applied through university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Kharagpur, West Bengal) in Dec 2015
Interview
I'd already done an internship with Microsoft at Hyderabad, India, so I had a shortened process when applying for a Redmond role. There was first a coding test, then a group interview, then a one-on-one interview with a Manager from Redmond. The interview lasted around 40 minutes. I was asked general questions, guided by my resume. The focus was on discussing past projects and achievements, testing problem-solving skills, and checking general culture fit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a linked list with alternating triplets of alphabets and numbers, return two linked lists, one with alphabets only, other with numbers only, in original order.
The interview was a long process. There was first the recruiter screen, which was followed by a 4-loop interview structure that covered technical, behavioral, and system design. The interviewers were very kind and accommodating.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
After my application to ClipChamp - Microsoft, a recruiter reached out and scheduled my first interview. It was about basic interview questions and background analysis. After that I had my technical interview. The recruiter specifically said that I would be facing medium hacker rank questions. So I prepared accordingly. However, what I actually got was to analyse an application and re work it according to new requirements. I felt like I was set up for failure on purpose. Didn’t even hear back after that interview.
Took a bit longer than I thought, spanning about three weeks from start to finish. After a quick recruiter screen, I had a technical round where I was asked about validating a binary search tree. The wild part is, I had literally seen this exact problem on prachub.com while prepping. It helped me feel more confident discussing my approach and edge cases. There was also a behavioral interview where I shared my experiences, and eventually, I received an offer. I chose to decline it, though, as it wasn't the right fit for me at the time.