Recruiting for temporary employees: how Microsoft did not become a dream job

2.21.2020

We found an interesting story describing the experience of finding an IT employee at Microsoft. We give you a brief translation as an argument for live it-recruiting and against self-adaptation in the early days.

Some time ago, a guy named Robert Parks attended a career event at Microsoft, where he met a full-time recruiter and gave his resume. It was a good idea, because in other large companies, for example, on Google, information about yourself needs to be transmitted exclusively in an online format, where it is lost among a million similar ones.

A couple of days later, Robert conducted a telephone interview with a non-technical character, although his interlocutor repeatedly tried to ask questions about hard skills. It turned out later that hr tried to persuade him to work in the position of Software Development Engineer in Test, although the guy was only interested in Software Development Engineer because he did not see himself in QA. However, both posts were soon abolished prior to Software Engineer.
The best experience at Microsoft, according to Robert, is his personal interview in Seattle, where he was given a car rental, paid a round-trip flight, provided a hotel room in the city center, and was taken for an interview in a limousine. Not bad, huh? 🙂 In addition, he was paid lunch and given a $ 75 voucher for small expenses. The only negative, already at the interview, it turned out that the meeting concerned Operating Systems Group, although the applicant was not warned about this. However, the very next day he received an offer, which greatly smoothed out this nuance. By the way, by that time there was no feedback from Google for 3 weeks after the interview.

In the early days, Microsoft held the New Employee Orientation (NEO) – this is an obligatory acquaintance event after the selection of new staff, where they talk about the philosophy of the company, introduce it to its structure and each other. About 100 new employees are present there, and sometimes more! However, Robert and his colleagues were not explained what they would do, sending all the questions to the manager. As it turned out, the manager of Robert was absent for some time, because for another week and a half the guy had to look for classes on his own: attend webinars, read books in the local library, get acquainted with the team.

When the manager returned from vacation, they had a brief acquaintance, after which Robert was waiting for an invitation letter to discuss the work plan. Only a few days later he met with the manager, who turned out to be an unpleasant guy who constantly accused Robert of lacking initiative, of finding opportunities to communicate with him or the team. All this ended with a second meeting, where an absolutely perplexed and disoriented newcomer began to be pushed to the idea of ​​accepting that “the team does not suit him” and he did not understand the philosophy of Microsoft. All this was a little like the promised goodwill and caring coaching.

Our hero became even more unpleasant after the manager, with a huge animation, introduced the team to another newcomer. Moreover, he prepared a place for him in advance and upon arrival devoted a lot of personal time to his integration. When Robert decided to discuss the difference in approaches to him and another guy with the team, it turned out that only he had an unpleasant aftertaste. Each of the workers was warmly received and received his share of attention. At that moment, it became clear that Rob just didn’t like the manager and he did his best to “get him out of the game”.

Then everything was predictable: the author wrote a letter of resignation, a couple of days later received a redirect to the personnel department and was dismissed. Although after a while he realized that it was just necessary to change the manager, which is quite real. After leaving, Robert opened his startup with which he was very successful, because he does not regret anything.

This story teaches us that hiring is not so important as the ability to take care of a new employee and introducing him into work processes. Even the most enterprising guys can lose interest, noting that no one cares about him.