I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft in Nov 2015
Interview
The recruiter noticed my resume on Piazza and then scheduled an interview 3 weeks later. Microsoft held an "interview day" at my school. The interview was 25 minutes in duration and one on one, which I was not expecting. She told me that this was basically a phone screen but in person. The interviewer was very friendly and helped me with the problem, especially when I talked it through with her.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked me about one of my hackathons. Given two sorted arrays, merge them into one sorted array.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (London, England)
Interview
I contacted recruiter directly via email. Process took approximately 3 weeks. I interviewed in London. They asked some behavioural questions (team experience) and a single coding question. Interview was 30 minutes long
I applied through college or university. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Oct 2015
Interview
At the career fair, I talked with a recruiter at the Microsoft booth and dropped off my resume. About two days later, I was invited to interview on campus. I had a two week advance notice. The day after the on campus interview, I was notified that I was advancing to final round interviews. My interview was scheduled to be in Redmond, WA, about three weeks after my on campus interview.
I went to Washington for three days on an all expense paid trip. On the Microsoft campus, I arrived in the morning and my interview peers in I waited in the recruiting office. We would be called out for interviews hourly. The total number of interviews I was scheduled for was 4; however, one of my interviewers couldn't make it so I waited in the recruiting office playing fruit ninja to spend the time. It is not uncommon for an interview to be cancelled.
I was interviewed by the hiring manager and two members from the team I interviewed on. All the interviews were pretty standard; however, the interview with the hiring manager discusses your interests more so than the other interviews. They all followed the same pattern of having behavioral questions first, then a coding problem, then they allocated time afterwards for any questions I had. After interviews, we had a small tour of the campus all the interviewers had lunch together with a few employees. After lunch, we were given some swag and taxi vouchers to explore Seattle and told that we'd be reimbursed to sight see. We all left together as well in a shuttle. I received the results of my interview two days after the interview date.
Overall, the process took about a month and a week.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
How would you find the median in a sorted circularly linked list given a random node.