Entries tagged 'janelle'
Barbie votes are in
Thanks to the thousands/millions/billions of you who voted, Barbie’s next career is… drumroll please… a computer engineer!
So many engineers went viral with the campaign that she was the clear first choice in the popular vote - and will be on the shelves by Winter 2010. Computer Engineer Barbie comes equipped with sassy pink glasses, a binary code-patterned tee shirt and, or course, a laptop.
Barbie, you’d better be running Windows 7 on that...
Computer Engineer Barbie
Hello JobsBlog readers! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season filled with good health, family and friends.
Speaking of holiday seasons, there may be another hot toy out there in 2010... so get ready. The Mattel company is currently holding a contest to determine Barbie’s next occupation and computer engineering is one of the options!
Does Microsoft recruit at smaller colleges?
Dear JobsBlog: I have a computer engineering degree and several awards, distinctions, and honors. However, I did not attend a bigger college on the east/west coast. How do I get a Microsoft recruiter to look at my resume?
-Under the Radar
I’ve asked Alicia, a fellow recruiter from our U.S. University Team, to help answer your question.
-JanelleDear Under the Radar: Microsoft has always made it their business to hire the best and brightest students, regardless of what university they attended. We know that students choose universities based on many factors like location, cost, size, urbanization, program standings and, of course, reputation. That means that incredibly smart people are everywhere, not just at the Ivies.
What should I do during a lunch interview?
Dear JobsBlog: I've never done a lunch interview before, but I've heard horror stories about candidates being so nervous they forget basic table manners or get a huge chunk of broccoli stuck in their teeth. How can I enjoy my meal and still impress a hiring manager? Any suggestions on what to order and how to avoid awkwardness?
-Apprehensive AppetiteDear Apprehensive Appetite: You've probably seen us mention on this blog that answers to many questions we receive vary from recruiter to recruiter. That said, we decided to take some bites of advice from several JobsBloggers on this topic. Put your headphones on and get your elbows off the table for podcasts from Matt, Lisa and Janelle that will help improve your lunch interview techniques!
Intern roundtable
Here on JobsBlog we talk a lot about getting a job at Microsoft and provide various tips for jumpstarting a career. But what about internships? For many students, this is the first step to getting on a career path and can give great insight into what lies ahead in the post-graduation world.
Richard Bretschneider, a Program Manager for Office PowerPoint, interviewed a team of five PowerPoint interns who worked at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus for three months this past summer. They came from schools across the country including Stanford, BYU and U-Penn. In this podcast, they speak to their first impressions of MS, what surprised them about the company and the perks of a California summer.
These interns came from all three development disciplines: Software Development Engineering in Test, Software Development Engineering and Program Management – and none were doing the grunt work. They were all involved with important parts of the product, working with responsibility similar to any other team member. Each of them contributed to the PowerPoint team blog as well.Microsoft has internship opportunities for a variety of disciplines – even non-tech areas. For more information about internships at Microsoft, visit our College Careers site. It’s never too early to start making summer plans!
-Janelle
Interview advice from someone who's been there
Preparing for an interview can be daunting -- and James McNaul would know. The University of Miami senior came all the way from Florida to Washington for an internship interview at the Microsoft HQ last spring.
Standing in a career fair line? Need your resume noticed in 20 seconds or less?
Long time, no talk! Hello, readers! I send you my best wishes as I type this email with 2000 resumes on my desk. This is the busiest time of the year for college recruiting, and I love every second of it. I have been doing a lot of travelling to the east coast and will be there for the entire month of October!! I will be in NYC 2x, Pennsylvania, Boston 2x, New Hampshire and everywhere in between. It’s a lot of fun, and I am so excited to meet many of the amazing readers in person.
Since I have been working career fairs lately, I wanted to let you know a couple of quick resume tips. These seem pretty common, but they are ones I can never stress enough …
1. BRAG! This is your time to show off all of your amazing accomplishments. Recruiters want to see all of the great things you have done … Be proud and show it off on a resume.
2. No 6 pt font. Seriously … I already wear glasses, and I understand that you may want to save paper - but it's well worth my eyesight to make it at least 10 point font. And hey, you can give me an early birthday present and make it 11 … :)
If you would like to hear more of my favorite tips and tricks (which share some similarities and differences to Lisa's tips), I recently hosted a webcast of “How to Get Your Resume Noticed." Check it out. It's around 1 hour long but you can look through the slides and hear some great Q&A. And it's appropriate for college as well as industry candidates.
See you all soon on my east coast travels!
Janelle
Intern Puzzle Challenge— A Meeting of the Minds of the Future
Hello Readers! Greetings from the middle of intern season. It's been really busy around the office this summer with a ton of fun and technical events going on. The weather has been a dream and the interns are having a wonderful time. Who could ask for anything more?
A couple Saturdays ago, several hundred Microsoft Interns met in one of the buildings on campus to solve a variety of puzzles and coding challenges. The all-day event pitted teams of interns from all different locations around the country in a super tough competition with puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty.
Brandon Unger, a Penn State May 2009 graduate, was kind enough to take these pictures of the future CEOs of Microsoft concentrating hard on winning first prize.
One of the puzzles was so hard that no team could solve it! It was a version of the old school video game Asteroids. You had to shoot the asteroids, and when you did a number flashed. Everyone thought that the number was code for something... but upon second look when the asteroids broke apart it displayed Braille letters. From those Braille letters it spelled out a clue to look at the spaceship on the game. When you looked closely at the spaceship it left a trail in Morse code which was the answer to the puzzle. WOW!
I would be lucky to get through that game without losing all my turns… let alone looking for those intense puzzle answers. I think it would be great to get a puzzle challenge going on the jobsblog soon… any takers?
- Janelle
Microsoft stops traffic for its interns
If I hadn’t been there I never would have believed it. This past Friday the Microsoft intern program hosted a "Zoo-n Fest" Intern Picnic, which was sponsored by the Zune Team and held at the Woodland Park Zoo (cute name, huh?).
Approximately 1000 interns were invited to the event along with 200 Microsoft employees and senior executives. Interns were treated to a catered dinner and an empty zoo (other than the animals!). The musical performances by Vampire Weekend and Ben Folds were an amazing entertainment. Prizes, great food, great music, networking with execs and a beautiful 75 degree Seattle day!
But if you ask this recruiter, the picnic wasn’t even the true highlight. Interns (as well as recruiters) were informed that to get to the Zoo no one was allowed to drive. Insert complaining (as Redmond on a Friday night can be at least a 45 minute drive from the Zoo)—and we didn’t want to leave our cars at work. I complained along with the rest of the full time employees, but my manager Jeremy said "it will be worth the bus trip over."
So I begrudgingly got on one of the 30+ tour-size buses and waited as the other buses filled up and got into a line. The buses were ready to go at about 5:30 pm on Friday.
Enter the police escorts.
Motorcycle cops cruised around the buses and led us in a police escort convoy for the 15 miles to the Zoo – all while closing down traffic on the 520 bridge and 1-5 North. That’s right - traffic was shut down.
We had a view of Friday night rush hour I had never seen. Interns cheered with glee and took photo after photo of the empty freeway. A trip that normally would have taken close to an hour took around 15 minutes. It was VIP treatment all the way!
Apologies to those who were travelling on that stretch of road Friday evening but it was something I will never forget (and luckily I was on the bus, not watching them drive by). So there you have it... Microsoft will stop traffic for its hires. Totally cool.
- Janelle
Summer in the City: Bring on the Interns
Hello friends! It’s been a while since my last post, it feels good to be back! The college recruiting cycle is quickly coming to an end, the sun is starting to pop out (yay!) and we just had our first few batches of interns come out to the Redmond offices to start their 12 week internships. Our intern program is open to anyone who attends any college or university within the US, and on average we have about 1000 interns during our peak season. Interns are great. They're a reminder of all the things that I love about Microsoft. They are super enthusiastic, they are passionate, they are full of ideas and they are here to make an impact. They are also critical, incredibly smart, not fooled easily and are always making us look at our business and products in a new way (which is the real fun part).
Over the next few weeks I will be inviting some of my interns to share some of their great moments and their tough times with the jobsblog. I always find college students to be incredibly honest. They keep recruiters on our toes! Every Tuesday from May through July a large group of interns start, and as their school recruiter we meet them for lunch during their orientation break. It’s their first day, and some are incredibly nervous, some have heard it all before, but they all share one thing - they are the future of Microsoft. They are the future CEOs, the future Architects, the next Ballmer and Gates of the company. Some come in loving Microsoft already, some come in with a more critical view. We welcome all types!
It really is my favorite time of year. I always try to make a great impression and see to it that they have a wonderful time. Who knows, they may be signing my paycheck in a few years. :-)
- Janelle