Journey from Tier 3 college to Microsoft | GeeksforGeeks

Key Takeaways

don't go for very complex project like you don't know anything about it and you have made a complex project that is something which can backfire you in the in an interview be yourself and be specific because many times what students do they exaggerate their things and you are very new to interview but the interviewer is not very new he takes it to so many tell you and in a second he find out that you are exaggerating the things [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello everyone welcome back to geeksforgeeks my name is muskana garwal now talking about this webinar so this webinar is in continuation with our interview experience series webinar we have massam with us today who is going to share about his interview experience at microsoft and you know he is going to make the placement process a bit easy for us so without any further ado just let me add morse into the stream quickly hi i'm assam how are you doing hello i am doing good what about you yeah i am doing good as well so let us start with the webinar so before that can you give a quick introduction about yourself so the audience connects with you better so hello everyone hope you all are doing well and must be safe amidst this global pandemic i am awesome kumar mishra currently i am pursuing my bachelor's degree with a specialization in electronics and communication from bhagavan pashun institute of technology it's affiliated to guru gobind singh in the past new delhi it is located in new delhi rohingya so uh this is about myself yes that is really great so talking about the interview experience that you know all of us are watching for so can you tell a brief about how many interview rounds that microsoft did you go across and a brief about each and every round that was there so actually uh first of all let me tell you about in which domain i have enter i selected as an internet i am uh selected as an internet in the customer experience and success team at microsoft so start uh let us start with the first interview right so there are actually more than 12 000 application uh which are submitted for this only domain they microsoft had given up one week time for submission of application so after that i have also submitted the application in that duration after that they reviewed the resume and after that they gave us a confirmation mail that uh congratulations you are selected for the uh interview for uh this internship so uh for first round there is a gd group discussion so uh in my batch uh there are approx six to seven students so there are is a group discussion uh held and uh i think in the in the in the same day at the evening i got a confirmation mail that yes i am uh i passed that gd after that uh there are some tax sessions for just to give us insight about what the role is all about and after that uh there is a another uh which is known as break fix uh it is also uh tech interview round so in that there is a lab so you have to uh make the lab and after that so the people who are mentoring of yours they are going to break that lab and you have to fix that after that there is a hackathon uh semi-finals and finals unfortunately i didn't went to the semi final i only go to the semi-finals after that they have shortlisted me for the interview uh technical round after that managerial round and then at the last hr interview with the language screen test so these are some of the interviews which i have went through uh before getting this internship okay so this the entire process seems very um like very different from the general interview process like yeah yes yes yeah actually it's a it's from uh uh let me tell you uh it's from uh not from a uh normal uh interview you know we all are selected from uh there are college higher also but we are selected from a competition which is known as pixathon actually i came across this competition from uh linkedin only i'm pretty much active on linkedin so i get to know about this in uh competition that is fixate so microsoft hires uh for this team uh some of the interns from this hackathon so we have to go through this hackathon and after some interviews technical hr manager from these type of interviews okay so talking about fix-a-thon can you tell me like what was the eligibility criteria and were there any restrictions based on college or cgpa no no uh so they're telling about college there is no restriction on college yes there is a barrier on cgpa your cgpa must be more than eight uh and uh for this year like i am continuing to pass out so fix it on for this time is only for 20 22 next year it's for 23 24 and follow okay okay that is really good also you mentioned that there were technical interview rounds right so in the technical interview round like is it like a normal uh like dsa round or something else was ours no actually yes yes actually it's not a dsa or coding round it's basically for the customer experience and success team for which you have to be good in os and networking so microsoft also share the learning resources also that is pretty much good enough to prepare for this technical round right right basically computer science fundamentals and theory subjects you can you can say that the core subjects so also guys we have a video on this also like wherein you know we have discussed about the importance of these subjects so you can definitely check out that video as well yes uh uh also i have prepared from the gigs resources the oscn part yes definitely you can check out like there are a lot of resources we have like uh we have proper videos as well as articles on operating systems ebms computer networks definitely do not forget to check them out yes so now the next thing is resume i have seen like before we reach till the company resume something that reaches for us to the company so can you tell us like how did you curate your resume such that it stands apart from the rest of the students that are applying yes uh absolutely you are right uh resume plays a very crucial role in your selection uh because at first we were going to talking about any company abc any company found or beat any company uh so your resume short listing is very important because after that only you will be invited for interview and anything so i have paid a lot of attention while making my resume uh i it's not a one-day task i just used i think i went one or two months for just for making my resume good enough i also took help for some people from linkedin only they guided me how to make a resume through which you can stand out so after this thing and there are many tools also like uh resume building tools you can go for that or or make your resume from microsoft word everyone knows how to use it so so yes resume plays a very crucial role in your selection okay also can you tell us like what are the key components what were the key components in your resume like they were achievement section and our project section like what all was there in your region yes uh uh first of all uh there was uh a brief introduction about me that is very important in your resume your how to get to bandwidth to you like your email address your contact number not your address then that should not be in your resume i think and after that uh coming to my achievements i have pretty good certifications which i can mention i have mentioned in my resume and also i did some internships in cyber sales and investigation agency of government government of india so i have mentioned that also and uh currently i am also the chairperson of the technical society of my college so uh that's also a plus point which i have added in my resume so these are some pointers you have to keep in mind while building your resume right that is really amazing also were the projects in your resume discussed during any of the interview rounds yes your project also plays a good role in your in your technical session or hr interview so they ask about the project like i am one project in my resume mostly i have did internships only but there is one project on packet tracer so i i although that was very small but yes uh i have a very good understanding of that so interviewers are very impressed with that right also i've seen that a lot of times students are confused that what kind of project should they work on like should they work on simple projects as you mentioned that you know the like the interviews were impressed by that project and some students try to work on very complex projects so what will be your suggestion what kind of project should we work on that totally depends on what are your passion what is your questions like basically i am from ec background but i am more interested in cyber security so if you see my resume or linkedin profile my certification are also in the cyber security domain and internship also in the cyber security domain so it totally depends on your passion and what do you like to make so just you have a strong understanding of your project that i think it's good enough don't go for very complex project like you don't know anything about it and you have made a complex project that is something which can backfire you in the in any interview yeah i hundred percent agree with you i i think we whatever project we are making we should make it like from scratch yeah honestly right yes yes yes don't go for a buying project because it's available ready yes yes everything is available actually but it is it does not mean that you can not work on it from like from scratch again right the next thing that i wanted to ask like you went through the entire process so like what is your observation if you have to suggest three things for the students who are applying this year that do not mean these mistakes something that that you've observed that your peers made some mistakes or you yourself made few of the mistakes what will be your three suggestions if you have to give like what i understand from your question like you are asking what microsoft look for in an intern or a new hire no no so i'm asking that you went through the entire process so what are the three key mistakes or like what are your key learnings that you you know had something tied to yourself okay i i got yeah so uh first of all like for whatever role you are applying uh be it uh c e n s team customer experience and success team sd role data analytics anything first of all do your own research about the role what what is it it is uh aligning with your passion do you know about do you know fully about that role so do your own research before applying to any role not only in microsoft any company uh after that uh know your core competencies like your strengths your weakness and things like that and one thing which i find in an interview like before microsoft i got man uh offered from many other companies so one thing which i suggest every uh every student in the interview be yourself and be specific because many times what people students do they exaggerate their things and you are very new to interview but the interviewer is not very new he took so many interview and in a second he find out that you are exaggerating the things so be awesome and be specific and then after that demonstrate that curiosity and thinking to learn new things that's a thing that uh the companies like microsoft or google the these companies look for in the candidate that he's curious he or she is curious and his learning ability so these are the things which i think uh candidates have to work on yes definitely i think these three things are really important for any interview also i wanted to ask as you mentioned that computer science fundamentals are important right so what is the difficulty level of the questions that are asked in the interview if you have to judge on easy medium or hard it's not very easy uh we can say it's intermediate some of questions are hard definitely i i was not able to answer that but yes mostly it is intermediate and some of them some of them are hard also as you mentioned that you know even you were not able to answer a few of the questions so it is not like uh they expect you to know 100 of the questions right absolutely not because they also know that you are very new uh you don't know you everything 100 of any subject so they also know but yes you have to answer a few questions right definitely and like explain like as you mentioned that we should not exaggerate so yes be be clear be to the point and you know just answer whatever they're asking yeah yeah correct next thing i wanted to ask that throughout the entire process what is your observation like what do you think microsoft is exactly looking for when they are hiring students like if we talk about microsoft like microsoft is a very big company it's my dream company like uh sitting in front of you i am not believing that i am selected microsoft it's a dream as of now only also so what microsoft is look for in his candidate uh with a new work experience the passion for technology he is very passionate about he or she is very passionate about technology because it is basically a technology industry so first thing passion for technology and then the technical and analytical skills uh in any candidate because there are many challenges in these type of companies which come to day to day so he is to uh the candidate must be very technically and analytically very strong after that the cognitive ability by this i mean that the potential and skill for an employee to lead communicate and interact mentor or multitask some kind of reasoning so these uh these are some skills which microsoft look for also the alignment with company culture like micro the current culture of microsoft like empowering everyone to achieve more uh and uh growth mindset so these are some something that uh microsoft in a hr interview or any interview look in the candidate right definitely i think company culture is very important i've seen that most of the companies that you know most of the big companies pay more importance to the company whether a student is able to fit in those particular their work environment or not right so yes company culture is important and you should know how to work in a team like individual i can work but in a team it is very different yes yes because microsoft is a very big company you have to work along with a team not going individually right collaborative environment is also necessary right definitely and right now i think everything is going offline so your offices will be offline or whatever uh like our internship is more most probably will be in online mode and uh after an ft conversion which is based on the performance only so after that we have to go in the office uh although i am uh listening that uh there are hybrid model uh which many companies are accept accepting in their working model so if that that's coming to microsoft uh i think that the hybrid model is also in microsoft so we have to work in both offline and online mode right that is really great i hope everything turns on offline sorry yes yes yes because this pandemic situation is very worse yeah also i wanted to ask like there is microsoft engage program so there is a referral system in microsoft engage so is it the same thing for six at one as well [Music] anyone can refer or not uh i have not uh i'm not confirmed but yes uh referee is there in microsoft it's for sure but i am not confirmed uh for texas one they are taking referral or not because it is an internship mostly right so i think the students who are applying they can go through the website and you know go through the rules and i suggest i suggest everyone to be active on linkedin and follow some uh ft's of microsoft so because they they uh and is specifically from cnst so they are they share the news of pixathon whenever it will come for 2023 batch so be active on linkedin you will get to know because the application window is very limited uh i think for one week they will open the application window and after that they have they will close so be active very much active on linkedin and follow some hr's or fds of microsoft from customer experience and success team right definitely as you mentioned that you also got to know from linkedin so i think it is a great platform yes i actually i got to know from hr uh akansha mata map i got to uh she had posted the the fixate news and also she's my hiring manager okay that is really great that is really and i think it is so competitive so it is better like as soon as it opens just apply for it but do not wait for the last one no no don't waste for the last day because many times what happened on the last day the survive got crashed or anything so be very attentive and apply as soon as it comes live right definitely so yes these were all the questions from my side mohsen thank you so much for coming to geeksforgeeks and sharing your experience i hope it helps a lot of students who are watching this and you know people who are applying to fix-a-thon this year thank you so much thank you thank you so much thank you guys for joining and watching this webinar and if you have any other doubts you can connect with awesome on linkedin as well so yes you can ask your questions there as well thank you with this will end the webinar bye bye i will see you in the next webinar bye