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That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

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Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#291

Post by pjmlp »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #238
pjmlp wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here a few additional teasers, - How many golf balls fit into the plane - How many gas stations exist in country (or alternative version with city ) - How many turns do you have to go on a gum machine until colour comes out? Naturally they all evaluate properly the skills required for the job, and other professions get asked the same kind of stupid questions. Unless it is for a position I really, really want, or are…

Years ago, I read a book titled How Would You Move Mount Fuji? [0] about the cult of Fermi Questions [1]. These are questions where you're looking for an order of magnitude. The cult of Fermi Questions in Silicon Valley started with William Shockley [2] using them in interviews. Several of his smart dudes quit to start companies you may have heard of like Intel, AMD & Fairchild [3]. Notes: 0 - https://www.amazon.com/…

Not everyone dreams to found the next unicorn, real life for most of us isn't the Silicon Valley TV series.

Just like not every cook wants to be a Michelin star with molecular cuisine, a tiny food drop in the middle of a gigantic plate.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#292

Post by pjmlp »

modeless wrote: post #286
voidfunc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly that may be just the reaction the company was hoping for which is both valuable for you and them. You save time not going through an interview for a place you might dislike and they get to move on quickly.

Yeah I can see people using these as proxies for age discrimination

Seniors are not welcomed by most companies, because we already seen all movies management pulls up employees to trick them "doing more with less".

Ironically the same companies are more than willing to get the same seniors as highly paid external contractors for exactly the same tasks, and without these kind of time wasting interviews.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#293

Post by arjie »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #285
arjie wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I am entirely wrong here, huh? I thought that "demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance" was held to the standard that it had to be proven fair (and consequently documented to have proven job impact). EDIT: Hang on, I decided to just test the idea with the usual suspects and I don't see how you could design this in a way that works. You'd need some kind of non-contaminated testable outcome - lines of…

Your last statement is closer to the real situation, but you make it sound like it's certain that you will be called upon to defend the legality of your actions. But I'm not aware of any evidence showing that is true. And, even if it were true in the past, it seems that the DOJ believes that was based on a misinterpretation of the law. So it is less likely be true since June 2026: https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/14…

Got it, thanks. That's helpful.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#294

Post by nitwit005 »

pjmlp wrote: post #287
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was more elitist than most in its early years. As I recall, candidates had to have graduated from an elite CS program with and provide a transcript when applying showing top grades.

This same Google, > The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt…

A lot of people at Google (and some other companies mentioned here) understood their hiring process didn't function as well as desired.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#295

Post by arjie »

tptacek wrote: post #289
arjie wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I am entirely wrong here, huh? I thought that "demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance" was held to the standard that it had to be proven fair (and consequently documented to have proven job impact). EDIT: Hang on, I decided to just test the idea with the usual suspects and I don't see how you could design this in a way that works. You'd need some kind of non-contaminated testable outcome - lines of…

Several (not many relative to the total industry, but several) large household-name companies publicly do general cognitive testing for white collar roles, and the companies that administer these tests have logo crawls just like any SAAS company of their clients. These companies have enormously deep pockets and would be juicy targets for employment law practices. But nothing happens, because this is mostly not a real…

It seems to be quite accurate that many of these tests are publicly referenced. e.g. (PDF warning) https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/careers/documents/assessment-proce...

and the provider is https://www.shl.com/

I took the practice test to completion that PWC recommends and just to give people an idea of these cognitive tests. It was a series of questions that went:

> Which statement describes you best?

> 1. I usually make decisions only after I have collected all relevant information.

> 2. I usually think of all factors when I am trying to understand a business issue.

> 3. I change my interaction style based on the personality of whom I am speaking to.

With a warning when you "go too fast". The test is supposed to take 16 minutes but finishes quite fast. I must imagine that these cannot be the only category. It also wasn't even clear how someone takes one of these to practice since it's impossible to get 'better' on them. There is no evaluation provided at the end. So one must conclude that 'practice' involves 'gaining familiarity with the testing system'.

Presumably the psychometric tests are wordsum, shape rotation, something numeric, but I couldn't find one for free to look at without applying so I'm content to just accept that it exists and move on with my life.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#296

Post by IsTom »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #258
IsTom wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But won't your boat displace more water by lowering a bit if you've got additional mass on board?

That's what they meant by "in boat displaces its weight in water". While it's in the boat, the amount of water it displaces weighs as much as the bowling ball. While it's in the water, it displaces the volume of the bowling ball, and its weight doesn't matter. The ball is denser than water (since it sinks), so the amount of water it displaces based on its weight is bigger than the amount of water it based on its volu…

Ah, that makes sense, thanks.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#297

Post by inigyou »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #288
inigyou wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might alternatively prefer the ones about how health insurance never denies care, Luigi Mangione was a bad guy, or Democrats have made it profitable to be a victim.

From your descriptions they don't seem relevant to this discussion.

It identifies a certain type of person.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#298

Post by otterley »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #101

A friend told me about his AWS interview experience. It was a case study describing a potential client, their needs, limitations, etc - trying to be “realistic”. In the end it came down to either pressuring the client to embark on a complex cloud transition in time for a major sports event (that was a make or break event for the customer) or, as my friend recommended, start with a PoC but do the risky transition afte…

> He didn’t get the job because even though the technical attributes were all good, he should have pressured the customer.

This is hearsay, and smells like bullshit to me. I've given dozens of interviews during my tenure at AWS (in which I had a sales-adjacent role) and we never made a decision based on that. Plus, we'd never give that kind of feedback to a candidate.

Interviews at Amazon are highly structured and there's a Bar Raiser assigned to oversee every one of them to make sure they follow the rules during the debrief. The BR, who is usually not even on the same team or organization that's hiring, would not have allowed this to be the cause for rejection. It's far more likely the candidate was reported weak on one or more of the Leadership Principles evaluation sessions.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#299

Post by WorldMaker »

unkeptbarista wrote: post #220
alexjplant wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've too many wacky interview stories to list here, but the first time I came to this same conclusion was when I had an interviewer interrupt me mid-answer to correct my pronunciation of "idempotent" (because I said it in what is apparently a more British fashion). I asked him to repeat himself to see if he'd apologize or brush it off as a tic and he repeated himself with an elevated level of contempt. I declined the…

I had an interviewer once interrupt me and say that there was no way I could remember the techincal details of a 10 year old project I was the architect for, thus any details I did offer would likely be lies. Needless to say, I didn't get an offer nor would I have accepted it.

I had an interviewer once interrupt me and say there was no way I would have studied gray codes in college. I still don't know if that was some bias that I went to a "provincial school" in their mind or that they hadn't noticed my Master's degree or that my degree program also involved a lot of hardware and electronics work or just that they didn't study it in college and were secretly telling me how useless their fancy "West Coast Ivy" degree program was for them.

I made the mistake of letting that company bring me back for a second "less technical" round of interviews, but I shouldn't have.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#300

Post by keeda »

LoganDark wrote: post #84
keeda wrote: post #79

> Microsoft, of all places, might sound like a weird company to target in 2026. Heh, Microsoft might actually have been weird to target in 2015, especially in SV / startup circles, given that pg had declared it dead in 2007 ( https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html ) I guess the Netherlands didn't get that particular memo. In 2026 Microsoft might actually be interesting again, given it's up there in the Mag 7 jockeying…

Not super young but I've felt like Microsoft has been really sloppy. Not like, AI sloppy, but like, not good at their jobs. They've always just seemed stupid to me. Windows feels so basic and primitive compared to other operating systems.

> Windows feels so basic and primitive compared to other operating systems.

That's interesting, the complaints I hear most often are about bloat and lag. I'm on Mac as a daily driver but whenever I use Windows I don't find much lacking, just maybe it's more optimized for different workflows. Do you mean in terms of features, or polish, or capability?

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