Entries tagged 'twitter'
Missed the #LifeatMS Twitter chat? Read the full transcript now
Thanks to all who participated in our #LifeatMS tweet-a-thon this morning.
If you weren’t able to join us then, please take a look at the complete transcript below. There are some great conversations and insights in there. And make sure to keep an eye out for our next Twitter chat (details to come on Microsoft Careers Facebook and @MSFTcareers on Twitter).
And special thanks to Jubal @jubal_ince, Megan @megansmcdonald, Lorrin @lorrinm & Gretchen @gledgard for fielding the questions today! Make sure to follow all of them on Twitter.
The questions and answers in the chat are as follows (all answers were reprinted verbatim):Missed the #DearJobsBlog Twitter chat? Read the full transcript now
Thanks to all who participated in our #DearJobsBlog Twitter chat on Tuesday, April 12th.If you weren’t able to join us then, please take a look at the complete transcript below. There are some great insights in there. And make sure to keep an eye out for our next Twitter chat (details to come on Microsoft Careers Facebook and @MSFTcareers on Twitter).
Participating Microsoft recruiters were: Kenji Yamaguchi @snoobic, Gretchen Ledgard @gledgard, Eugenia Sawa @eugenia_online, Heather McGough @HeatherMcGough, Jason Pankow @jpankow/@xboxjobs, Anne Cheng (AC), Sandeep Sood @sansoo, & Heather Tinguely @heathertinguely. Make sure to follow all of them on Twitter.
#DearJobsBlog transcript:
Three insider tips to becoming a social media rockstar
Matt Bernardy graduated from the University of Washington in 2007 and quickly ascended to the role of Social Media Marketing Manager at Microsoft. Today, he posted an article on The Huffington Post that details his three tips to becoming a social media rockstar.Matt writes:
"As the Social Media Marketing Manager for Windows Digital and Interactive Marketing, my job is to help our marketing and PR teams think about new ways of engaging customers. We do that by integrating elements of social media into nearly every campaign we develop… Microsoft takes social media engagement seriously, and I have a real voice in developing multi-million dollar campaigns. Here are three tips I've learned (sometimes the hard way) that can help give you a leg up:"
Social media: everyone's doing it!
I am not a proponent of fads. I do not believe you do something because everyone's doing it. That said, sometimes we must join in a trend—particularly if you are looking for a job. Sometimes just because "everyone's doing it," it can be a perfect job search strategy.In a previous post, I suggested that because Microsoft is one of the most social companies, integrating a social medial strategy into your job search would make sense. To further emphasize this point; please notice below the Percentage of Recruiters Using Specific Social Networking Sites for Recruiting. Clearly, every recruiter is using LinkedIn; nearly every recruiter has a Facebook account; and the majority of recruiters are on Twitter. While The Web 2.0 Recruiting Trends Report covered a broader audience, I suspect the findings would be similar at Microsoft.
Percentage of Recruiters Using Specific Social Networking Sites for Recruiting
2009 Versus 2010- The Corporate Executive Board Company, CLC RECRUITING™
Web 2.0 Recruiting Trends Report April 2010
Note: The height of the bars in the chart indicate the percentage of recruiters that use the tool for either sourcing, branding, or conversion activities.Also, Twitter was not rated in 2009.
The Sound of Silence
Simon & Garfunkel's epic lyrics were an anthem for my generation. Who can forget a young Dustin Hoffman staring thoughtfully into a fish tank with the words saying…"Hello darkness, my old friend; I have come to talk to you again.” Today, the "sounds of silence" seems to be what job seekers experience when they apply for jobs. As one waits impatiently for some communication, the stillness is stifling. Dustin Hoffman's character (Benjamin Braddock) in The Graduate, was drawn to the silence because of uncertainties about the course his career direction. Today's graduates (as well as most job seekers) are forced into a silent mode because of uncertainties generated by a lack of feedback from their position inquiries.
Bing: searching trending topics in social media to bring you breaking news
Have you ever searched for information on something that is happening right now, only to find out that there’s nothing matching what you’re looking for? Details on an earthquake that just happened, shocking celebrity news or the announcement of the Kin phone from Microsoft may not show up until hours after the actual event occurred. One of the cool features that we have recently released will give you better relevance with real-time social results from the Twitter community.Bing now pulls in social content generated on Twitter to surface the most relevant updates within seconds of a breaking news event.
Omar Shahine on growing up with Microsoft
Geek in question: Omar Shahine Job title: Lead Program Manager in Hotmail, based in Microsoft's Silicon Valley Campus (SVC)
How is working for Microsoft in Silicon Valley different from working in Redmond?
Working for Microsoft down here humbles you a bit. Being in the Valley gives you a different perception of Microsoft's role in the industry … Google's less than a mile over that way. Yahoo's a mile over there. We all have friends and spouses who work both places.Proximity gives you a different perspective than what you have in Redmond, where you're surrounded tens of thousands of Microsoft employees. There are what -- 80,000 people who work for Microsoft? But with 1500 people at the Silicon Valley Campus, I feel like I work for an average-sized Valley company – granted, one with significant resources.
How long have you been with the company?
I started as an intern in 1999.That's a long–ass time, especially in the tech world of job hopping! What's made you stick around?
I love working here. I'm continuously challenged -- every year I have an opportunity to do something I've never done before. It almost feels like being in a University. You have smart people around you to help you, mentors to teach you, and opportunities to stretch yourself.If I look at my career over the last 10 years, I can break it down into distinct phases. There was the phase right after college, where I was so excited that I worked like a dog and I was here every day of the week. Then I went through the phase of getting married, and my relationship with my job changed a bit. Then I became a manager and started managing people and learning how to deal with that. And then having a kid, and buying a house, and growing up and all that stuff…
Microsoft has been very good to me and has given me the flexibility to adjust my work to match my life. The company will always have a special place in my heart. It's been a big part of me growing up.
Awww! So, which teams have you worked with during your decade with the company?
I spent five or six years working on Mac products with the Mac Business Unit, and then I joined the Hotmail team in 2004 -- two months after Gmail launched.That must have been a, uh, exciting time for Hotmail!
My first six months with Hotmail were the most terrifying months of my life. I didn't have a lot of ramp up time. There just weren't enough hours in the day! I came to work crazy early and left late, and it was a lot of fun, actually.You're one of thousands of Microsoft employee bloggers. What motivates you?
I read Jeff Atwood's blog Coding Horror, and he wrote an interesting post about the intrinsic value in blogging. He feels like, if he's figured something out, he's not satisfied until other people know about it. I'm hugely curious about technology, and I like figuring things out -- and I don't feel satisfied until I've told someone else. A blog is a great output for that kind of itch.I do blog a little less now that I use Twitter. Writing something short is like a little pressure release valve. I don't need to blog as much. But it's just one of those things -- I have to get it out somehow! But there's certainly a lot of responsibility. Any time you open your mouth outside Microsoft, you're speaking on behalf of the company. This was even true before blogging! Whether you like it or not, people are going to interpret your words as Microsoft's.
Right! That freaks me out sometimes.
Blogging is such an amazing opportunity, though. Your ability to influence Microsoft through a blog is a real thing these days. There are MSFT bloggers that account for tens of thousands of readers.. Blogging is a lot of responsibility. I like that I have the freedom to write down my thoughts as a Microsoft blogger. I mean, I've definitely gotten myself into trouble. I've said things I shouldn't have. I've never retracted anything, but there were situations where I probably should have waited a couple days before post something. Thankfully, Microsoft is very forgiving.Links, please?
• Omar's blog: shahine.com/omar • Omar's Twitter • Omar's FriendFeed • Hotmail Team BlogMatthew Baldwin: writer, blogger, pretty okay guy
The geek in question: Matthew Baldwin The job title: Programmer/Writer on the protocol documentation team.
So, what are you working on right now?
We have been creating technical specifications for the protocols used by Microsoft applications to communicate … okay, this is the moment where the eyes of the person who asked that question typically glaze over, so I’ve never actually come up with an ending for this sentence.Is it awesome?
I’m a bit of a purist in regards to the word “awesome,” preferring to only apply it to such things as knife-wielding sharks and the movies of Jean-Claude Van Damme. But, yeah, the stuff I do is pretty cool. In a nutshell, we are providing third-parties with the ability to create applications that interoperate with Windows. As someone who worked exclusively in open source environments prior to joining MS, I appreciate that my efforts are helping to bridge the divide between these two communities.And Microsoft recently took the extraordinary step of posting all of these specifications to MSDN, available to anyone with a browser and a hankering for deathless prose. Print one out, take it to the beach this summer!
I know you’ve written a popular humor blog called Defective Yeti for years – how does the writing you do on defectiveyeti.com color the documentation you do for Microsoft?
Not in the least. The documents we create are technical specifications written to conform to strict legal guidelines and internal standards; inserting jokes about Amy Winehouse is therefore discouraged. We aren’t even allowed to use emoticons or LOLCAT captions for the diagrams, if you can believe it.
Why “defective yeti” anyway?
“defective yeti’ was just a random combination of words that tumbled out of my mouth about a week before I started my site. When Blogger demanded that I give my newly created weblog a name, I just stuck them in there as a placeholder, intending to rechristen the site as soon as possible. That was in 2002, so I s’pose I ought to get on that.I understand your coworkers don’t know you blog … UNTIL NOW. Why so closeted? Why are you outting yourself now?
Well, it’s not like I’ve been keeping it a secret. But blogs are so ubiquitous these days that announcing you write one is like announcing you have a liver. And droning on about your blog to friends and colleagues is the 21st century equivalent of regaling the guy next to you on the eight-hour plane with stories about your grandchildren.A couple weeks ago I noticed you tweeted about writing your annual review:
…How’d the whole “Foxy Grandma” thing work out for you?
Good gravy, you’re determined to get me in trouble, aren’t you.I was cheating a little bit on those Tweets—I’d actually knocked out my performance review the week before. I attended the Evergreen State College, where, in lieu of grades, students underwent performance reviews, so I’m an old hand at the whole self-evaluation thing. Microsoft obviously values a different skill set than Evergreen did, though. I didn’t tout my ability to keep a Hacky Sack in the air, for instance, or cite “veganism” as an accomplishment.
How long have you worked for Microsoft?
It was two years in April.What made you want to work at Microsoft?
The benefits, initially. My son was diagnosed with autism at the age of eighteen months, and my previous position did not cover treatment. We quickly learned, however, that Microsoft did, and that its coverage of Applied Behavioral Analysis — the autism therapy now generally regarded as the most effective — was nearly unparalleled in the nation.I doubt I would have explored opportunities with MS, were it not for that impetus. But when I did so, I found my current position, which perfectly aligned with my skills and ambitions. The whole thing was remarkably serendipitous, in retrospect.
What’s surprised you about working here?
It’s not the big, faceless corporation I’d always envisioned. I work in a small group, have plenty of interaction with my peers and supervisors, and my input is both sought and considered. I’d imagined the interior of a Microsoft building as, like, a Dickensian cotter pin factory, but here I am having my weekly 1:1 meeting with my manager over racquetball and playing cards games with my coworkers during lunch.I understand that in addition to being hilarious, you’re also a boardgame geek. What are the similarities between working at The Soft and playing a good boardgame?
Um, that at any given time I'm likely to be the least smart person at the table?Links, please
- Matthew’s blog: defectiveyeti.com
- Matthew’s twitter: twitter.com/matthewbaldwin
- About Microsoft’s autism benefits: bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2002/05/13/focus6.html
- About protocol documentation: microsoft.com/about/legal/intellectualproperty/protocols