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Finding the Best of the Best
Howard Dierking
MSDN Magazine recently had the opportunity to sit down with Scott Pitasky, General Manager of Talent Acquisition at Microsoft, and members of his team to learn how Microsoft approaches recruitment. We learned that as the world gets smaller, Microsoft is continually adjusting not only its strategies for recruiting but, in some cases, aspects of its very culture in order to find and hire the best of the best. Several enthusiastic staffing managers and technical leaders participated in this discussion, and we'd like to thank them for their insights: James Hunt and Randall Boseman located in Redmond, Amit Vasishta of Microsoft India, and Chris Gootherts of Microsoft China.
If you search the Web for "interviewing at Microsoft," you'll find countless stories—some funny, some terrifying. However, many of those stories address a very fundamental question: what qualities does Microsoft look for in a software developer? Addressing this question allowed Pitasky and his team to describe how some of the historical qualities have been reshaped or completely replaced. At the core, however, three primary qualities were discussed: passion, intelligence, and the ability to solve problems.
The word "passion" came up often, clearly a Microsoft priority. What's unique, however, is in how the interview process has changed to evaluate passion in a candidate. Historically at Microsoft, passion meant being passionate about what Microsoft was doing at the time—and, as a result, many talented candidates were overlooked. More recently, passion has come to include any thing or activity that an individual feels strongly about. Boseman described an interview where the candidate talked in great detail of purchasing a motorcycle in Turkey and riding it through the Middle East and Europe. The candidate's enthusiasm for that experience was a better predictor of his passion than any technical debate.
Intelligence seems like such an obvious quality for someone in the software engineering field. However, like passion, intelligence has come to be redefined over the past several years. You've no doubt heard the stories about "puzzle questions" in Microsoft interviews. The problem with such questions is that they only determine one kind of intelligence—and many other types, such as interpersonal intelligence, are required to successfully create great software. Realizing this, Microsoft has significantly broadened its notions of intelligence to capture the qualities and experiences of great candidates who can help Microsoft innovate and grow in areas that the company is just starting to explore. To quote Pitasky: "We've gotten smarter about how we define smart."
According to Pitasky, the notion of a good "fit" for Microsoft is an old concept that is no longer relevant. Instead, hiring managers look for candidates who demonstrate a marked ability to learn and problem-solve. This has required a change in Microsoft interviewing culture over the past several years, says the group.
So how does an interviewer adequately measure these abilities in today's culture? Boseman says it best: "I would know exactly who is a good fit for a team if I could just have 30 minutes to play basketball with them. You can learn a ton about a person by watching how they play on a team." And while there's no plan for adjusting the interviewing strategy to include a game of 5 on 5, the group did describe how the use of role-play scenarios (either real or hypothetical) enables the interviewer to get a glimpse into how a candidate might behave in a team setting.
So as Microsoft has grown larger and the world has gotten smaller, the new global recruiting philosophy is that the company "hires from anywhere for anywhere." However, this requires Microsoft to take into account many differences in region. For example, in the United States, the number of computer science majors has been steadily dropping by about 15 percent per year. As a result, Microsoft has had to look toward other types of degrees and search technical communities for local heroes. On the other end of the spectrum, in India, you find a large number of candidates with engineering degrees. There, the local challenge is finding a diverse group of individuals who can not only solve deep technical problems but who also have the potential to mentor and to manage. Meanwhile, Israel has a large percentage of senior-level developers, while China has a noticeable gap in its mid-level and senior ranks. In general, one of the group's top priorities is in further developing Microsoft into a more global company, starting with the very people it hires.
Our discussion concluded with a funny interview story. A recruiter had scheduled an interview in Redmond with a candidate from Michigan, but the candidate didn't mention he had a medical condition that prevented him from flying. On the day of the interview, the recruiter arrived at work to find the candidate's RV in the parking lot—he had driven all the way from Michigan. Now that's passion!
Howard Dierking is the Editor-in-Chief for MSDN Magazine.