Microsoft's Personnel Puzzle

theodp writes "CNET reports on Microsoft's reputation for arrogance in its personnel practices, citing the experience of Arthur Sorkin, who responded to an unsolicited invitation to interview with MS back in 2000. But instead of trying to sell him on the company or the job, interviewers challenged him with a technical 'pop quiz.' Sorkin, who holds a PhD in CS, withdrew his application. During the past year, Microsoft called Sorkin to say it had scheduled a phone interview with him for another job, although Sorkin hadn't applied for it and no one had asked if he was interested."

That's why!

[Anonymous Coward]

They found his comments on Slashdot.

Spam

[m85476585]

"unsolicited invitation to interview"

Sounds like Spam!

Well...

[oo7tushar]

When was the last time the Borg asked if they could assimilate you?

Counter Stike Degree?

[mesmartyoudumb]

Must be one hell of a player!

Re:Spam

[`Sean]

I wonder how many unsolicited invitations to interview he'll get now that his resume has been Slashdotted. ;)

Re:Why is this news?

[savagedome]

"How Would You Move Mount Fuji?"

mv /mnt/fuji /dev/null

Best Interview Question Ever

[incast]

I had an interview for a co-op marketing position with Microsoft. The interview went well, I was getting along with the interviewers and we were have a good conversation, and then they asked me the last question......

"How on earth could you ever work for Microsoft, the big evil company??"

Probably the best question I've ever been asked in an interview.

Re:Why is this news?

[the_2nd_coming]

How would you move Mount Fugi?

I would use a static warp shell to lower its mass in this inertial frame of reference and then pick it up.

Re:PhD in CS is WAY overrated

[rbarreira]

Write a subroutine that takes three 32 bit integers and produces a result where each bit is "voted on" by the corresponding bit in the three inputs

Answer = xor, right?

Maybe they're desperate?

[RainbowSix]

A friend of mine went to the Microsoft job fair booth with a hand-scribbled resume on notebook paper. In the "objectives" section he wrote "to get free stuff." As a joke, he gave it to them and took the available booth swag.

He got an email asking for an interview.

Re:Best Interview Question Ever

[Radres]

...because you work in marketing, therefore you are already evil?

Re:Why is this news?

[Rylz]

mv /mnt/fuji /dev/null

If you wanted to get the job with MS, you would have to change that to:

move "C:\Mount Fuji" C:\RECYCLED

And your answer was...

[Locke2005]

"Ever since the Phoenicians invented money, there has only been one answer to that question!"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Spam

[MightyMartian]

I've got Karma to burn, so what the hell!

----

Hey hey, Microsoft's great,
They forcefeed bullshit onto your plate.
You'll be working for Gates, that iconic dude,
Crooked marketer through and through!

Oh oh, you better watch out,
Someone installed IE, so don't you pout.
You've got a job with this mega-firm,
We're spyware enablers from stem to stern!

Hey ho, heed our call,
And then we'll have you by the balls.
Write some shit, there's no remorse,
So long as you attack Open Source!

Yay yah, Microsoft's great!
Come on in, let's have a taste,
Now's the time, no time to wait,
Time to bend over and take it for Gates!

Re:Why is this news?

[einhverfr]

mv /mnt/fuji /dev/null

Would you like to overwrite device file /dev/null?

Re:Well...

[buckhead_buddy]

oo7tushar wrote:

When was the last time the Borg asked if they could assimilate you?

Obvioulsy... it was the last time we were both in Soviet Russia.

Re:Here I Ain't

[Rude Turnip]

Most asses have 2 partitions. However, I once saw a monkey with 4 partitions.

Re:Why is this news?

[Angostura]

Wait a second and it would have moved several hundreds of miles courtesy of the earth's orbit. Do I win?

Re:Why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd use PhotoShop.

Re:Why is this news?

[Drachemorder]

They're all poisoned. You should have spent the last few years building up an immunity to the poison.

Re:Why is this news?

[eln]

...but I wanted it moved to Redmond.

The original answer is still correct in that case.

Re:Why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

On windows, you'd get something like

Not enough free space on /dev/null
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?

Re:Why is this news?

[winkydink]

tar cvf - /mnt/fuji |(cd redmond; tar xvpf -)

You can do it with dump/restore if you're worried about holey files and such.

A better answer for the interview

[einhverfr]

Since your command won't work as you think it will... Try something like

mv /mnt/fuji /home/microsoft/building8/

Wonder what happens when you move Mnt Fuji into Bill's Office....

Now that's something to boast about

[craXORjack]

Microsoft boasts that about 90 percent of those offered jobs these days accept them--a higher rate than in past years.

It's easy when Microsoft offers them exorbitant wages of 40 Rupees an hour!

Re:Former Microsoftie here

[localman]

pretend to satisfy the first demand while really satisfying the former

I think you meant "latter". Typical sloppineess for a Microsoft employee.

( just kidding, I worked there too in 98/99 ;)

Cheers.

Re:Counter Stike Degree?

[Anonymous Coward]

Objective: To gain employment in the area of bomb defusal, terrorist elimination, VIP Escorting or time-limited hostage rescue.

Work History: Employed at several CTU locations, including, but not limited to: Dust, AZ (USA), Cobble, England, and an oilrig of the pacific coast.

Qualifications: I pride myself in being very detail oriented and accurate in my daily work, as well as very effective. I also tend to be God-like on occasion.

My worst quality [interview question]: It tends to be very messy to clean up after me, as I'm constantly shooting people in the face. [Note the turning negative into a positive... GUARANTEED employment.]

Re:Move Mt. Fugi?

[CmdrGravy]

I think the answer is "with a fuckin great bomb"

Re:Why is this news?

[bzipitidoo]

How would you move Mount Fuji?

1. Open the refrigerator door
2. Put Mt. Fuji in the refrigerator
3. Close the refrigerator door
4. Move the refrigerator

Re:Best Interview Question Ever

[Schnapple]

So instead of taking a gig with Microsoft you took a RIM Job instead?

Re:Microsoft hirers: weird.

[HuffMeister]

Or not so anonymously. What an Idiot I am.

B5

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have triple redundant storage of certain critical data. Write a subroutine that takes three 32 bit integers and produces a result where each bit is "voted on" by the corresponding bit in the three inputs."

The BlueScreen has already started, it is too late for the bits to vote.

Re:Not that I'd ever side with MS...

[Inthewire]

Mmm...grilled Cod sounds good.

Re:Why is this news?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I would hire 20,000 temporary staff for a period of 5-15 years, without ever offering to hire them on permanently. Then, I would issue each of them a teaspoon and canoe. These would be deducted from their first paycheck of course, at full retail price. The teaspoon serves 2 functions, as a paddle for the canoe, and when they arrive at Mt Fuji, as their shovel. It is true that Mt. Fuji is made more of rock than anything resembling soil, but I expect my employees to not need a babysitter, I hired them to figure these things out. Once they have their teaspoon filled with 0.0000000000001% of Mt. Fuji, then they have to canoe back to where ever, and deliver the teaspoonful. There would then be paperwork to fill out.

On second thought, Mt. Fuji is still somewhat active, might be best to have them sign a disclaimer, in case they are lavanated.

Re:Spam

[spruce]

I've got Karma to burn, so what the hell!

Oh yea man, you're in for a real karma spanking posting something like that on Slashdot.

Whats wrong with these people

[jbplou]

Whats wrong with these people! Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job?

The correct answer is

[Anonymous Coward]

"How would you design an in car coffee maker?"
Well.

Re:Why is this news?

[Renegrade]

It's not delayed, it's fashionably ahead of the fallback schedule!

Re:Why is this news?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Actually, I think the slashdot message of the day at the bottom is the funniest thing I have read here:

QOTD: "Do you smell something burning or is it me?" -- Joan of Arc

Re:Not that I'd ever side with MS...

[swit]

Extracted quote: .....Still, I did a decent job - it took me too long, and I had a memory leak.....

God - I'm stunned that he did NOT get the job at Microsoft (!!!),
since that is *SO* perfectly the Microsoft Way!!!

Re:Why is this news?

[dreamchaser]

No no no, from my PC, the night before. When I decide what time I'm going to head to the office.

To: Car Coffee Maker
From: Me
Subject: Work

Dear Coffee Machine,
I plan on leaving for work at 6:15AM tomorrow. Please have 4 cups of Breakfast Blend prepared just prior to my departure.

Regards,
Me

Re:Not that I'd ever side with MS...

[sfjoe]

He would ask me a question, and sit and roll his eyes as I was answering and check his email - basically communicating clearly to me that he didn't like me, want me there or want to be talking to me.

I had an interview like that once. The guy asked me of my degree was from a "real school or one of those diploma-by-mail outfits".
Many years later I got to sit on a committee that was going to evaluate a purchase of a product his company had built. This was a major purchase and I made damn sure he knew who I was and I made him sweat blood.
Damn - that felt good!!!!!

Re:PhD in CS is WAY overrated

[SlimFastForYou]

For those who were wondering what a solution might be (I saw some attempts but didn't care much for them)..

#include <cmath>
using namespace std;

DWORD Vote (DWORD storedvalue[3])
{
DWORD result = 0;

for (int i = 31; i >= 0; i--)
{
// if this ends up as 2 or 3, we will turn place value bit on
int votes = 0;

for (int j = 0; j < 3; j++)
{
DWORD temp = storedvalue[j];

// throw out lower place values
temp = temp / pwr(2,i);

// throw out higher place values
temp = temp % pwr(2,i);

// see if remaining bit is equal, if so increase vote count
if (temp == pwr(2,i))
votes++;
}
if (votes >= 2)
result = result + pwr(2,i);
}
return result;
}

Re:Not that I'd ever side with MS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, or else they might swipe his sweet graph traversing algorithm. I'm sure no one else has discovered it before.

Re:Why is this news?

[killjoe]

1) Announce that you will move mount fuji any day now.
2) Announce that the competition will never be able move mount fuji and that once you move mount fuji there is a real chance they will go out of business.
3) Announce that since you will move mount fuji any day now it makes no sense to buy anything from a competitor. .....wait four years.

4) Announce that you will not be moving all of mount fuji just "the important parts" .... Wait two years.

5) Announce that you have already moved part of mount fuji and show the press a bucket of dirt.

6) Get a truckload of dirt from mount fuji, dump it in redmond and proudly announce that you have successfully moved mount fuji.
7) Keep claiming that MS has moved mount fuji and that it's the most innovative and amazing thing ever done by anybody anywhere. Pay ZDNET lots of money to repeat that announcement five times a day for six months.

8) Voila! MS has moved mount fuji, anybody who claims otherwise is a communist, hippie, terrorist.

Re:MS vs. Google

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"In any case, arrogance breeds downfall, soon enough. Most of the Microserfs I met were not terribly arrogant, not moreso than your average techie at least."

Sounds about right.

I find it funny that slashdotters, of all people, are making harsh judgments regarding arrogance, as the average slashdot poster believes that he's God's gift to programming. LOL

Every day slashdot is filled with posts from posters that know so much better how do to things than this or that company. And a slashdotter's proposed solution are always so easily implentable and obvious, that the company that didn't use the solution must *clearly* employ a workforce of utter morons, right? It couldn't be that the company thought of the slashdotter's solution, examined it and maybe even tried it, but then rejected it for various reasons. Nope, that just couldn't be! :-)

Re:Spam

[Master of Transhuman]

But that's EXACTLY the kind of person Microsoft wants.

A "whiz kid" who can do something clever without thinking about the overall consequences - such as security or even simple common sense.

Somebody who can't threaten Bill's ego or raise issues about system design or corporate behavior they don't want to have to deal with.

None of those tests is really relevant to turning out a well-designed, well-coded and documented system. Maybe if you're doing embedded work in 16K on some microcontroller - or Tiny BASIC back in the 1970's when Bill learned his trade. I'd look for something a lot more conceptual such as how would one handle the documentation of such-and-such a code module.

It's like I've always suspected. Microsoft wants inexperienced whiz kids right out of school or experienced guys who can't think about anything but code.

And it shows in their systems.

Re:Why is this news?

[dehuit]

mount --move /mnt/fuji /mnt/everest

But how do you exchange the Fuji and the Everest, without creating an intermediary mountain?

(Hint: use xor)

Re:Why is this news?

[PhraudulentOne]

How Would You Move Mount Fuji

The power of Christ! ;p