I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Apac) in Jan 2013
Interview
The Manager I was replacing seemed disinterested in initial one on one, took reference from my current employer as I had done the same role for many years successfull and seemed eager to get someone into the role so he could move up. He said I didn't need to worry about impressing him when I was asking him specific questions about the role. I should have seen and heeded the red flags, but shook it off as just a person anxious to move on from their role. The HR team are very thorough, you need to be very polished to get throught their interviews, the senior manager then conducted a decent interview with very targeted questions on how I specifically achieved outcomes in sales, driving teams, working with virtual teams. The Manager that moved up was trying to create a bigger role for himself, I subsequently discovered that he had very poor relationships with people who worked for him or with him, but focused all of his energy on his direct managers. I was seduced by the potential of working for Microsoft, and wish I had done more due dilligence how they manage people.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
how did you bring a long a team to a victory. Describe specific things you did.