I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Nov 2011
Interview
The interview process took a full morning. There were 4 interviews, each of them focuses on one aspect. Examples include basic programming questions. Things on the resume.
One question is that how to determine if two rectangles overlap or not on a plane.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe one of the challenges that you face in your past project.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2011
Interview
Did one interview at my university. Went to Seattle and had 4 on-site interviews.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Consider a game of nxn tic tac toe. Given a move and the player who made the move, return whether it was a winning move or not. There is an O(1) answer.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Dec 2010
Interview
Went to an on campus screening section, then got an offer to fly down to Redmond for the interview. Since it's a big recruiting event for the on site interview, we had a big party (hosted and paid for by MS) the night before the interview at a bowling place with unlimited free food and (alcoholic) drinks. Did 4-5 back-to-back 1:1 interviews with the hiring managers and met with the recruiter that afternoon and was told that I received an offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A lot of questions are pulled directly from "Programming Interviews Exposed", so read that book. One example is the telephone keypad to words question mentioned by others.