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Microsoft Hiring Puzzle

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7 pointsrokhayakebe14 comments

Has the systemic use of these puzzles in the hiring process backfired horribly for MS?

I ask because, rather than filtering for smart people in general, these puzzles seem to filter for a specific subset of puzzle-oriented smart people.

There seem to be definite blind spots in MS software when it comes to design, usability, and what you might call developer-to-user empathy. I've wondered for a while whether they might be unintentionally weeding out the employees that could help them with those issues.

It's the organization & bureaucracy, not the (smart) people they hire.

In my experience, MS does not seem filled with puzzle-oriented smart people.

Have you had much experience with Microsoft employees?

Yes... getting dangerously close to two years' worth.

If you've taken part before, you will realize that the goal of CPC was never to hire the winners. There are puzzlers at Microsoft, and people who like solving puzzles at schools, and the event brought such people together. It's really meant to be a day of fun, doing something intellectually challenging, that gosh isn't like your all the homework you have due the next week.

As quoted from their FAQ, "While this is not quite a recruiting event, we will be accepting résumés, so feel free to bring one along! And of course, we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have about working at Microsoft." I also vaguely remember a previous version of their website crediting the fact they the CPC was inspired by the MIT Mystery Hunt.

The technical interviews that they conduct on campus and on site are wildly different. In fact, from my recruiting experience, it was more the finance companies that had brainteasers for interview questions.

To be clear, these are not the puzzles Microsoft uses in their actual hiring interviews. The submitted title is terribly misleading.

I don't think it's terribly misleading - it's a puzzle from one of Microsoft's recruiting programs.

If I pass it do I get my choice of joining the Excel Macro or Visual Studio maintainence team? Because I do have a clear preference.

I absolutely hate puzzles and I absolutely love programming.

When I look at a puzzle like the (non-programming) one posted on the page, I have no idea where to start. When I'm given a programming challenge, I have a huge bag of experience and tools I can draw from and I can immediately start banging away at the problem.

These are so lame. I would filter people based on what they have made in the past, not how good they are at school or solving stupid puzzles.

You wouldn't filter people based on how good they are at school? I'd definitely weigh that when interviewing a candidate. I agree about the puzzles though. If they're relevant to the job, then sure, it makes sense to ask them. Otherwise, drop them.

The answer has very little to do with both programming skills and abstract thinking:

<quote>

To solve this puzzle, you need to rearrange the stock symbols in an order that when read down, yields a useful phrase. There is no indication at how to order them, but through trial and error (there are only 120 possible orderings) you can arrive at this:

  HCRE
  UATN
  RNHA
  REEC
  IOME

Reading this down the columns gives the phrase "Hurricane or the Menace." The word that goes with both "Hurricane" and "The Menace" is DENNIS.

</quote>

Good luck with making a hiring decision based on the ability to solve this puzzle.

too difficult

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