10 Mistakes to Avoid in Microsoft Interviews

so 10 mistakes you'd want to avoid in a non-technical microsoft interview the first one is also a pretty standard one but not using the star method to answer these uh tell me about the time when types of questions the behavioral types of questions the challenge here is that you must understand these interviewers are wired in this way they prefer to listen to the star answer even if you know you maybe find it an even better way to answer these questions but because they prefer to receive this information a standardized format and take notes and you know eventually share these notes in a standardized format with other interviewers the star method is a must-have for for these interviews the second mistake you'd want to avoid in a interview at microsoft is not spotting and not knowing exactly what's a behavioral question or when a behavioral question gets asked so the definition of behavioral behavioral interviewing is that they look at your past experience to predict your future performance on the job and these questions can be framed you know not only tell me about the time when you failed you know so that's obvious but also tell me about one of your projects there there's many variations of these behavioral interviews in the sense that you could even use the star method to answer tell me about yourself if you really wanted to it's it's not mandatory but you should in my opinion spot the opportunity wherever possible to uh interview behaviorally within this uh within these occasions because this is the the best way to structure your communication of course here you know probably director leverose will not necessarily agree with me that templates will always sound best but for uh for the most part i would say for more than 90 percent of job interviews structuring your communication will is actually good advice number three here uh a mistake uh especially in the case of microsoft interviews where behavioral interviewing is not the main thing let's admit it is that some people unfortunately do not prepare for them at all and when you don't prepare for them at all it means you will you are likely not to have an answer or not to have a story for the question that you're getting asked simple example do you have a failure that you can feel comfortable talking about right now is it quantifiable is it the true one is the recent one is the significant one and i know from experience people tend to struggle with these things especially if they're just getting started so long story short do prepare for the behavioral part of the interview even if you know you only prepare a couple of i don't know five or ten stores depending on seniority of the role but um yes preparation is something that will make a difference in a behavioral interview and the difference in behavioral interviews is ideally made between the quality of your answers not on whether you have or you don't have an answer so that's where you want to be that's where you want to make a difference in the quality of your answers which of course you must have the stories first for number four it's a little bit linked with number three here in the sense that some of you will not have a story for the question you're getting asked and then you'll lie you'll make something up now from experience and i'm doing this for quite some time um it's not that straightforward to lie in a behavioral interview as you might think and uh to give a little bit of background here as far as i'm i know these behavioral interviews were primarily used in investment banking so people you know are supposed to be great speakers so um if it's been used successfully there and now it's being extended to let's say even software development engineers if you want to to a certain extent not lying in this behavioral interviews is not necessarily a very efficient technique so i would very much uh make have you to consider this if even if you roleplay with someone to see hey am i lying the right way if you want there are people who can lie should be said but that's a that's primarily for senior sales role and people who are really really good at communicating and people you know who understand how to lie about these things not to lie with the whole story but maybe you know selling yourself uh a bit more on your strengths here and there every now and then yes that's normal number five overthinking a behavioral intervention of course you know i'm not expecting many of you to be overthinking these things but there are people who actually run into these problems too what do i mean by overthinking um first example you prepare too many cheat sheets now very few candidates know how to manage teachers effectively and i've coached quite a few hundred people so i i know about these things so if you prefer cheat sheets understand that they expect you to prepare churches and it's actually they will they might as well appreciate that you prepare for the behavior part of the interview because not many people do prepare for these things so if you do prepare prepare you know something concise to the point another common way to overthink this behavioral interview is to prepare answers for all possible questions now i do not recommend this because what i what i noticed here is that if you start with such an approach especially if you start with such an approach your preparation will be uh more geared versus quantity rather than quality so i'd rather have 10 high quality stories on which i'll brainstorm two or three days then having you know all possible answers questions just you know to test the water to see if i can have an answer for them remember what i earlier said the difference is made in the quality of the answers not on whether you have an answer or not um and last but not least on overthinking these things overdressing so don't over dress for a interview with microsoft they even say on their jobs website that where whatever makes you feel comfortable especially for the virtual onsites number five uh memorizing answers memorizing answers is something that simply again does not really fly more likely that beginners will will feel tempted to do this but understand two things here first of all they might sound scripted and you can test it by role-playing with someone or the second one is that you if you have the 20 most commonly asked behavioral questions and you memorize an answer for each what happens if you get a question you haven't prepared for during that interview well i tell you what your chances are your block so this is what happens this is another side effect of memorizing things so memorizing things is not flying usually with these things number seven um complicated answers so this is a microsoft specific one and especially because the uh one of the leadership principles one of the things that they really scan everyone in this interview is whether you generate clarity so whenever you're giving an answer make sure it's clear make sure you're making yourself understood i'm not saying you know you should be concise i'm not saying you should be 10 minutes long but um make sure you're you're sending clarity as a message here uh number eight uh with respect to this virtual onsite so what's more important what's in an important thing that you might not be aware of is that the quality of your sound because even if the video crashes every now and then that's normal you know the connection is not that strong but the sound if the sound crashes then you have no no interview um you could even consider using dialing numbers as opposed to your digital connection if you want but the sound is really really important in this virtual is the main thing if you want number nine rapport building so rapport being what i mean by this i mean those first awkward two or three minutes in the conversation where you get to know each other someone you haven't met before and as well as you know at the end of the conversation when you when you're after the conversation ends when you're supposed to send a thank you note so i wouldn't uh underestimate the importance of these things especially for my junior roles don't just answer with hi you know you could introduce yourself you could use other you can refer to other videos i have on this channel if you want more advice but rapport building is something you would want to take seriously because it's often you know the starting point of conversation and if you send the thank you note wherever you feel appropriate that might also uh you know you could also include with that i think you know more clarifications of how the interview uh went or more details if you wanted this is also something acceptable in many cases number 10 mistake you want to avoid in an interview at microsoft is to forget to prepare questions for them and it's as simple as that you know you must spend some time to invest to find a couple of questions you would want to ask them here are some examples if you want but keep in mind that also the best questions will be a combination of these lists of what do you think could be interesting to ask as well as how the conversation evolves during that interview so this has been my 10 mistakes to avoid the in microsoft interviews hopefully you found this useful

Channel: Dan Croitor

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Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2020