Microsoft Corporation Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

General Tips: 0. The most important thing. Know your level. Improve yourself by practicing more and be well aware of how smart you are. Wishful thinking can only get you so far.1. Writing fluent and optimized code is an art. I was lucky because I have been coding for a long time. If your coding skills aren't great, practice! I answered one crucial question completely wrong and still got through because of this skill.2. If you know an answer to a question, do not answer it immediately. Try to derive that answer from scratch and understand it before you go about blurting out the answer out of excitement. Let it look like a challenge.3. Learn External Sorting and Kadane's algorithm.4. Learn some basic OS facts like details about a program stack and what not.Make a CV right now! Compress it to one page. No one cares about your extra-curricular activities as much as you do. Include relevant details. Selection Procedure Preparation
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL

General Tips: As I got PPO from the company it was little better-luck for me as I escaped from On-Campus Competition.But yeah for getting intern and then PPO it was well challenging. But you can enjoy in parallel with little continuous hard work and smart preparation/work-out. Better find what will be asked in interview then learn accordingly concepts instead running behind CGPA(its enough 8- 8.5). You might get disappointed some time just try to catch plus from it and move forward. I have seen cases a student got rejected in one company placed in better one. You never know where is your destination. Better fix multiple than one.Now the pattern for Aptitude is changing. You will be given 60-90 min. and you have to code solutions for problems. Many of our batch-mates were not used to it. I was also rejected in more than 2 companies just because of not having good efficiency in handing online test. Be ready well before for such cases. Follow code-chef etc. Your preference for preparation should be DSA>OS>DBMS
Skill Tips: For Data-Structure and Algorithms preparation I followed NPTEL lectures and Corman. Whatever concept you learn from these try to implement using C/C++ or any language you like. It improved my coding as I started writing more Structured/Modular code which makes you more impressive in interviews. For more problems refer Careercup.com and GeekforGeeks.org. It was really luck for me during both intern and PPI interview I was asked questions from these websites. As these are favorites for all interviewers. Its better to write code first on paper than on compiler it reduces bugs/errors like NULL-pointer error. Aptitude C/C++ follow any good book and go through once. For C refer Dennis Ritchie. For DBMS/OS follow ppts or their standard textbooks. Try to learn as many concept as possible. Don't depend on your prof did he teach or not.
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL

Round: Test
Experience: Easy questions on aptitude and output for C/C++.
Tips: Try out questions from GeeksQuiz or -----/
Duration: 30 minutes
Total Questions: 15

Round: Test
Experience: Questions were easy and implementable within the time given. One was on linked list and the other on array/bit-wise arithmetic.
Tips: 2-3 Days of GeeksforGeeks would give you an edge in this round. Make sure you document your code with proper comments and write mnemonic variable names. Also if time permits write the logic or algorithm you've used in comments.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 2

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The overall experience was wonderful. It was my first interview and i was able to answer most of them. On the behavioral questions your opinion should be clear and you should be able to convince the interviewer properly.
Tips: Just be yourself, try to bring topics on which you've worked on earlier into the discussion so that the interviewer takes more time to analyze what you've accomplished. Don't hurry, if you don't know any answer, politely say you don't know it, but you would like to take a try.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: My interview lasted for 1 hr 15 mins and I started well with my Introduction and hobbies. It was behavioral initially. Be open  and honest  to your interviewer. Don't speak random stuffs you haven't done as your interviewer can instantly browse on the internet about what you are saying and verify them. Have a good understanding of DS/Algo and know at least one OOP. you should at least master one language, its not a huge bonus if you know a lot of them.
Tips: Be clear about what you say and write and instantly correct yourself if you've made a mistake. It shows that you are self-critical and you constantly improve yourself. It is good to accept any mistake you've done. Any code you write on paper should properly highlight your logic used. Its better to write a wrong code and debug/modify it on spot to make it correct rather than writing a code with zero error at first shot. It shows how you learn from your mistakes.
The interviewer wants to see how you adapt yourself and learn, he/she is not interested in how much you know.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: This round was the final round for Microsoft Internship. It was an AA( As Appropriate ) Round, where you can expect technical as well as HR questions.
Tips: Feel confident about yourself and the game plan is again just to be yourself. Do some Research on the company you are sitting for and about their products/services, so that you can show that you are as much interested in joining the company as they want to take you in after clearing all these rounds. Always ask your interviewer some relevant questions, whichever round it may be. This is where you can ask about the company's policies, culture etc.

General Tips: Keep yourself motivated and build your resume. Have good working knowledge and make your fundamental concepts clear. Try to work on projects/internship or summer/winter training courses.
Skill Tips: Just give your best if you are willing for the company and never underestimate your abilities. Have some internships/projects/apps on your resume which you've made. Mention all the relevant work you've done, just don't brag about it. Prepare well for the behavioral questions. Be prepared to admit your mistakes and accept others' solutions.
Skills: Debugging, Openness, Technical, Honesty, Attitude
College Name: National Institute of Technology Durgapur
Motivation: Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen with an objective of "A Computer in every Home", since then Microsoft has carried on its effort and changed the way we do things and interact with others. It has achieved more than its primary objective and its one of the leading software companies in the world. Its exciting to be a part of it and take joy in developing solutions which affect billions of people worldwide.

Round: Test
Experience: 30 general aptitude type, 20 pseudo code type. The pseudo code type questions had no coding- just identification of error, correct o/p etc.
Tips: The pseudo code type questionshad no coding- just identification of error, correct o/p etc.
Total Questions: 50

Round: Test
Experience: Pure coding round just write code and submit (no compilation). There were three questions in this  round: Given an array and a number N,find whether there are tuples in the array with difference equal to N. Insert an element into a sorted circular linked list. Given a BST and an element N,output the leftmost node at the same level at that element in the tree.
Tips: 26 people were short listed from the aptitude test, out of which Iwas in the bottom 13.That meant another written test for me (which I latercame to know, was also counted as a round of interview) This test consistedof two questions: Given two linked listsrepresenting two numbers, each node containing the character representation ofa digit in the number,return a new linked lists representing their sum.Implement the strnstr()function in C from scratch. That is, find the nth occurrence of a string insidethe other, without using any library functions.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: This round tried my patience! It was almost exclusively a discussionof my areas of interest. I said network security – so he went into the detailsof cryptography and attacks like buffer overflow. That went on for say 50minutes or so. After that he asked me a coding problem.The problem was to compress a string in place. Having seen thefamous string expansion in place problem many times, I promptly said run lengthencoding (i.e. compress aaaaaabbbbbccc to a6b5c3 for example). He asked me tocode it and write a few test cases for it.
Tips: He asked me a coding problem.The problem was to compress a string in place. Having seen the famous string expansion in place problem many times, I promptly said run length encoding (i.e. compress aaaaaabbbbbccc to a6b5c3 for example). He asked me to code it and write a few test cases for it.This guy caught me on whatever word I uttered, which meant you need to be thoroughly prepared with whatever you say there. He knew literally everything and asked me to give ideas on weird things that he assumed I knew!

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This was a nice, pure problem-solving round.First, he asked me the famous “Tell me about yourself” and “How wereyour earlier rounds” questions. But trust me, they were only ice-breakers. Then he started his session. He asked me to tell him beforehand if Iknew the solution to any problem. The following were his questions:WAP to print a matrix spirally.I told him I knew the problem so he skipped it.Search for an element in arotated sorted array (of course in sublinear time!). I tried a twist to binarysearch using rotations, but he pointed out an infinite loop in my code, which Ifailed to correct! Then he changed the question to find the number of rotationsin such an array in sublinear time. This also I could only solve for distinctelements. So he went to the next question.Really nice DP problem. Givenan amount and an array containing possible coin denominations, determine thesmallest no of coins in which the amount may be formed. Assume you have infinite units of each denomination.
Tips: This guy was a cool one! He focused on only the problem solving skills and was able to catch any damn error,however small, in the code absolutely quickly. He focused on the way the problem is approached, at least as much as on whether one gets the solution.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: This was the hardest and best round. The interviewer was a finalround specialist!First, he asked me about my internship, which I explained to him. Hediscussed it for hardly 10 minutes.Then he started his attack! Even this guy told me that if I knew aquestion, I should ask him to skip it. There were three questions here:Given a linked list, swap itsnodes pair-wise. This is not so simple as it looks, trust me. It has more edgecases than apparent and was a true test of pointer manipulation.Given an array, bring all itsdistinct elements to the top in whatsoever order; the rest of the array is notimportant. First I suggested in O(n) space. Then he asked me to do it withoutextra space. I needed a sorted array for that, which he asked me to assume.Then it is solvable under the required conditions.Given a matrix, find an elementthat is max in its row and min in its col. However, he said in the end, thiswas not the question. The actual question was whether there can be more thanone such element in the matrix, assuming all elements are distinct. Wrote a small proof that there cannot.
Tips: 1.One is expected to really know to code. Must have a good understanding of pointers and the ability to manipulate them quickly.2.These guys focus a lot on data structures, especially the basic ones like linked lists and binary trees. I felt these are the topics with max weightage (just my personal opinion!).3. Again my personal opinion:Rather than study many problems from various sites, one should try to solve them, even if a few, on one’s own.

General Tips: These guys focus a lot on data structures, especially the basic ones like linked lists and binary trees. I felt these are the topics with max weightage (just my personal opinion!).
Skill Tips: 1.One is expected to really know to code. Must have a good understanding of pointers and the ability to manipulate them quickly.     2.Again my personal opinion: Rather than study many problems from various sites, one should try to solve them, even if a few, on one’s own.
Skills: Technical Skills
College Name: VJTI

Round: Test
Experience: Round 1: Online test with 70 questions for 75 minutes with sections – questions in TechTalks, Basic computer science,verbal and communication skills.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Round 2: Group discussion for 10-12 minutes based on TechTalks.Understand and analyze the scenario.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Round 3: Technical Interview (1 hour) Following questions were asked a. Tell about yourself. b. What is Networks? c. Explain the seven layers in networks? d. Tell about network layer working? e. What is tcp and udp? f. As a user I will give you data and as a application layer what you will do with the data ? g. Tell me about ip address and their classificstion? h. Name some private ip address? i. What is os? j. Tell me how memory management done by os? k. What is logical address and physical address?? l. Explain http smtp ftp snmp?? m. What is dhcp how and where it is used? n. Name the os you are familiar with? o. What is para virtualization? (For the above questions, I was continuously talking on that topic till he said stop) p. You have learnt c java ..then why you want to join as support engineer ?any idea about working as developer? q. What you think you can do as a support person? r. Are you ready to work even during night shifts? s. Assume a scenario-you are working in gtsc and am your client calling you saying mam I couldn’t access xyz website how will you help me? t. If Microsoft gtsc and Microsoft developer ..both coming to your college which you will prefer?(note:answer carefully) u. Do you have any questions? Talk continuously about the topic without stopping and with the confidence.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Round 4: HR Interview (30 minutes) a. How are you doing? b. How are you feeling now? c. Tell about your parents and siblings. d. Tell about your friends. e. Where do you stand in your class? f. Which is the toughest situation you faced in your college life? g. What is the moment you had felt that you cud have done better? h. If I ask your achievements in college what will be there ? i. Tell me your experience for the four years in this college? j. Tell me some more achievements of yours. k. Do you have any questions for me? Be Confident and answer the questions in casual manner without hesitation

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: Round 5: Manager Round (30 minutes) a. Tell about yourself (till he says stop). b. Tell me about your mom dad and brothers? c. What all the tech talks you have attended??was it useful? d. How you prefer to learn if I give you something to learn?? e. Tell about the support engineer video we showed in the preplacement and your view about the video? f. Tell me your favorite tech talk ?? why is it your favorite? g. How will you explain your favorite techtak topic to a layman? h. Do you aware of the shifts in the company? i. What is roll of the post which you are to be hired? j. Are you ok with the night shifts? k. Will your parents allow you for it? l. You got a very good cgpa,y don’t you go for higher studies(tricky question)! m. Will your parents trust you and allow you to Bangalore? n. Do you have any questions and me? Be confident with your answers.

General Tips: All subject basics must be known in detail.• Should be clear in what they have learnt in these semesters.• General Troubleshooting problems in networks and operating systems.• All should be aware of their own system configuration and how, why it is.• Basic tech talks topic to be covered properly .
College Name: CMR

General Tips: The interviews take up almost your complete day. Each round lasts for 45 min .The level of difficulty keeps increasing with each round. It is a bit exhausting and by the time you get to final round but trust me guys it's worth it.
Skill Tips: For Microsoft your code should be perfect and written in perfect programming style
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL