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Comment by PorterDuff | Hacker News Reader

Lots of fuss and fury about what is basically just another large company. They're not your friends and never will be. Dunno why there's so much surprise here, I guess it's just another youngster hitting the immovable object of the working world.

A friend of mine who went and got a job at Microsoft (a rarity in my circle, they don't seem to be heavyweights in the graphics or video world) and made a smart move. His deal was they he got the job but that he didn't go through any kind of interview rigmarole. The gig didn't last forever but at least someone was spared a bit of craziness.

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The Microsoft interview experience remains awful, Satya or not. I’ve tried a few times but with one exception I was treated like dirt every time by recruiters and interviewers.

(Edit) One interviewer blew cigarette smoke in my face, for example. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of decent people there.

I interviewed with most of the "tech giants" and Microsoft's process was by far the best (professional and down-to-earth). Maybe this was due to the target (language team), maybe due to the location (Redmond), but at least with me they left a great impression.

I think it really depends on the individuals you interview with. I've been through Google's supposedly infamous interview process and had a very positive experience (even tho I didn't get an offer).

One interviewer blew cigarette smoke in my face, for example.

Literally? That sounds like something you'd experience in the first half of the last century, but not with a tech company today.

Literally. It was outside between buildings, as punctuation for declaring that if I wasn’t an expert on X, I couldn’t know anything about Y. X being a common tool in some areas of Y, which I’d done for several years.

"One interviewer blew cigarette smoke in my face, for example"

lol. Usually that costs extra.

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