Welcome to the 4th instalment of theSpoke Chats! Today, I had the pleasure of chatting up with Carrie Read both on email and in person. Carrie (belongs to the same team as Priya) focuses on international technical hires (SDE/ SDET/ PMs).
A big Thank-You for all who had responded to my earlier post. There were so many questions to answer but I tried to pick the dominant questions. Here is a transcript of our email interview. Please leave a comment behind or email them to bernard.oh at h-o--t-m---a-i-l
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Berno
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Hi Carrie, Welcome to Australia, it is really positive to have a recruiter visiting us from Redmond. Thanks for accepting this informal Q&A interview.
To start off, what drew you to the field of human resources and long have you been involvement in it?
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Carrie
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I have been a recruiter for almost 8 years and love it every day. It’s very rewarding to help match great hires with their ideal jobs and get them started on a long term career. I still keep in touch with many of my hires and take pride in their success at work.
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| Berno |
How does it feel to be working in the hallowed Microsoft Building 19?
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| Carrie |
Hallowed building 19, eh? Interesting adjective choice….but it’s great. There is a ton of energy and excitement with recruiters running around meeting and preparing recruits for their big day. Recruiters in general are a pretty fun bunch, so a whole building full of them = good times. :)
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| Berno |
I have received a many questions from other students and fresh graduates and they are very keen to apply for dev roles in Microsoft. Here are some of them …
My core dev competence is C#, do I need at least another C-based language to be suited for technical roles in Microsoft? |
Carrie |
Many Microsoft products are coded in C# these days, but the core fundamentals of C/C++ language skills are always helpful. They are the building blocks of our software programs and knowing these languages can only make you a better programmer.
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| Berno |
How do I apply to be a MACH hire? What are the skills recruiters be looking out for technical MACH hires?
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| Carrie |
Let’s direct folks to the MACH website for this one, it has the best info.
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| Berno |
Would my previous Microsoft interview notes be reviewed and compared during my current interview process?
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| Carrie |
We do keep a written record of all interviews and often have this feedback available for subsequent interviews, but it doesn’t matter much. If you do better, it shows learning and growth which is positive. Our interviews can be quite intense and many candidates are more successful the second time because they are prepared for the process.
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| Berno |
Would I be considered for another groups if I had previously mentioned a specific group in my resume?
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| Carrie |
At Microsoft you can be considered for any/all groups based on your skills and the needs of the product team.
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| Berno |
Does the recruiter do a background blog check during the review process?
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| Carrie |
Do I have time to read all candidate blogs? No. But occasionally I’ll pull up a blog/website on a candidate. My advice to bloggers is stay true to yourself, but remember it is a matter of public record once you post.
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Thanks for your time, Carrie! Hope to welcome you back to Australia soon.