Road to the Red Pill - Part 1
It all started towards the middle of January 2005 when the SMS&P division purchased the source code for my custom controls. Needless to say, I was awe-struck when I noticed that the man, yes Microsoft, wanted the source to my controls. Of course, following my natural instinct of being nosy, I started a conversation with that person (name shall remain nameless unless he states otherwise) over the whole purchase to validate (to myself I guess) that Microsoft is really purchasing it.
So after a few email's and my slyly joking around about MS being my dream job and he stating there are several openings in their division, he promptly asked me to submit my resume. Sure, I procrastinated for about another week before actually sending off to him because I didn’t actually think he was serious – boy was I wrong. A few more email's from him stating for me to seriously turn in my resume persuaded me to sit down a Saturday afternoon and prepare my first professional resume (those that don’t know, I started at Integrity as an intern, so I never needed a resume aside from the crappy one I put together nearly 5 years ago now). After I sent it off, my contact assured me that he sent it to his hiring manager, who proceeded to send it off to the recruiters – in which they should be contacting me within the next few days for a screening call.
Heh, okay – so at this point I was just proud that I finally did what I had been telling myself to do for quite some time, submit my resume to Microsoft. I was content with just that and really wasn’t expecting a call from the recruiter. Ohh, but that next day, my phone rings and its my (first) recruiter who asked a ton of preliminary questions to gauge my knowledge, passion, and desire to work for Microsoft. About an hour later, my recruiter stated that he would be passing his recommendation on, and will be setting up my first phone interview with the hiring manager. Wow, a phone interview. Thats all I thought for the next few days…and so the wheels started turning on if this could actually become a reality. I started getting excited and the girlfriend (at this time) was starting to scared.
So a few days past and I hadn’t gotten my followup email from my recruiter, so thinking out of the box, I contacted gretchen to ask if she could figure out who my recruiter was and get me his contact information. Much to my surprise, she came through and got me everything I needed (Thanks gretchen!) So I promptly followed up with my recruiter at that point, who responded quickly and stated he was my recruiter. Phew – now that that was settled, I never heard from him again. Rather, I heard from my coordinator from then on (well, until after my Redmond interviews) only to find out later that he had been let go – could I have been his last recruitee?
Okay – getting on with the story…so that next week I was scheduled to talk with the hiring manager for the SMS&P division. I was truly nervous, and took an extended lunch to ensure I had ample time for the interview and actually eating. Overall, my initial phone interview went very well. I was asked about my past experience doing .NET development, discussed my personal business, discussed relocation, and well…I don’t remember much else, but I do remember asking if he knew when a decision would be made to advance further into the interview process. Much to my surprise he quickly responded stating that he did want me to come out Redmond for a days worth of interviews. Needless to say, I was on a high after that. I started getting more excited and my girlfriend started getting even more scared, but this wasn’t the end...
Stay tuned, part 2 of “Road to the Red Pill” will be coming out shortly.