Microsoft Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – free comps and gadgets
and loads and loads of friends to make

Cons – few holidays than expected, very sad and that

Advice to Senior Management – be dont worry bout a thing cuz every little thing is gunna be alright ;)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – Great people to work with. Committed to personal and professional development. Brand opens a lot of doors. Good products. Great vision to diversify into new areas. (Advertising, games, multi-channel delivery, cloud). Exciting developments in R&D.

Cons – Big company with a tendency to use overlay sales approach. A few too many spreadsheet jockeys who focus on title and promotion at the expense of making a real contribution.

Advice to Senior Management – Microsoft is a great place to work - I'd absolutely recommend it to lots of people.
Take a good look at the real value add of RBDs - there are a lot of airmiles being gathered for questionable returns.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Great Benefits and Sometimes great work

Cons – Job Stability is less
Salary rises/bonus are ok
Work pressure can be a lot at times

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – THe people you work with are great , Get loads of tools to do your Job . Great training. Great envoirment to work in. There is a career path but be warned you have to do a lot of sucking up. I would say a lot managers are not that good . these guys have come from other companys where they were not doing so well and end up managing you .But there is space for you move up the ladder and across dept. If yor manager lets you.

Cons – Managers lie to you. when you do a good job you can still end up at the end of the year with nothing. some also has to lose out . the whole to team can do well but still one person will get rewarded and someone else will lose out. all depends how much of a buddy the manger is . Someone managers been ther for years just wasting spoace .

Advice to Senior Management – stop lying and bettruthful. Stick up for your team members .

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – working with great techy people

Cons – some management are lacking in people-skills

Advice to Senior Management – make people feel appreciated when they do a good job instead of always insisting it could have been done "EVEN better!"

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – Management really went out of its way to make employees want to come to work. Also, great perks if you're willing to stay at work late.

Cons – If you're not into technology this may not be the place for you. Despite great work place environment, it often revolves around machines, not people.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work. Perks are important, so don't lose sight of that. It's also very important to maintain great senior leadership-employee relationships.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Good working conditions, cafes, restaurants. People try to do their best, are pleasant and mainly decent. Some great technical and sales people but they are hard to find. Great place to work for 3 years ... then get out and get out fast.
All that said it's not a basket case, Microsoft in the UK will be a great place to work, just going to take some time to sort out the current situation, if you think you can help us turn round the cons then this might be the place for you.

Cons – Scorecard mentality, Senior Exec don't seem to be able to get it right most of the time, good talk but no walk. Too political for most, no sales culture worth speaking of, too many people doing non jobs, rewards are mixed, not enough difference to reward the high performers to stay. Too many of the good ones leaving right now.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't think that things are going well, we need a turnaround plan now. Just when the UK Sub has reached the pinnacle of internal MS success, that is the time to worry. EPG culture is toxic and its leadership is mis-directed, PS leadership confused and random, HR clueless; other groups have new leaders so we will see. Change it up quickly.

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Great technology and a company that is best placed to win in the new economy. The benefits are good and the people are good.

Cons – The management style is very autocratic and it's a case of being told what to do and how to do it. They're not interested in feedback and morale is pretty low. On the carrot and stick equation it tends to be motivation by the stick with not much carrot.

As a result a lot of people have left and continue to leave.

The directors and the sales force are paid on different objectives and this causes a lot of friction as unnatural behaviour is required which frequently benefits the Directors but not the sales guys.

Despite having a great technology story for the market, Microsoft's weakness is that it is incredibly internally focused to the detriment of the client.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to re-engage with your employees and start treating them with respect. A hard economic climate does not mean that you have to make life extra hard for everyone as result. It's possible to have fun and also be successful. The salesforce is best placed to tell you what your customers need and yet you never ask them what they think. It's naive to believe that the "centre" knows best as it clearly doesn't.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft

Pros – Very flexible working environment, nice canteens and coffee shops. Big brand, well-known by everyone. Cool brands like Xbox, Zune and Windows. Lots of smart people, some quite nice! Very relaxed working environment with shop, dry cleaning, "massage parlour" and lots of Xboxes.

Cons – Ugly grey buildings on outskirts of Reading, looking increasingly tired and in need of a refurb. Quite a lot of career-obsessed people who are highly political and will tread on others to progress. Senior management team "talks the talk" but rarely "walks the walk", they're rarely more than drones for the Redmond bosses. Scorecard mentality crushes all hopes of local innovation and intelligent problem-solving. Little genuine passion for customers; the rewards for getting hold of all their money are far greater. Dwindling investment in training, just pointless mandatory online training to create more drones.

Advice to Senior Management – Retire and make way for some fresh blood with 21st century ideas.

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – Great canteens and break out areas. Friendly colleagues. Latest software available for staff to test out before general release on the market.

Cons – Incredibly political place. Too many staff all seemingly doing the same role. People seemingly working individually than for the company as a whole.

Advice to Senior Management – To reduce staffing levels by at least 40%. Far too many people doing the same job.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend