CodePath Career Workshops: Belonging at Microsoft

And coast path. CodePath is one of those organizations so I’m. Super excited to hopefully recruit some of you this year.

This recruiting season, and, like I said, My name is Christina Ortiz. I am an engineering recruiter at Microsoft. My pronouns are she her herers.

I sit in Columbus, Ohio, and I support students attending universities in the midwest region, as well as diversity conferences and organizations, including CodePath Alright, Now we will go into the my journey at Microsoft. So we’re really going to pivot today. So you guys can get a a sense of what it’s like to work at Microsoft.

How are Microsoft? Employees came to Microsoft, and how they feel connected with the company So sit on. If you wanna take it away with introducing yourself And you might need to come off me Oh, hello!

Can you hear me on? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, perfect!

Yeah. I was talking to myself for there for a second hey? Everyone I’m Suanne the girl I’m a software engineer presently at Microsoft Atlanta.

I’m actually in Microsoft Atlanta office currently and it’s a little painstaking to you know. Join a zoom call when you are so used to teams. So I moved from India a few years ago, and yeah, Well, I have been in us for the past 5 years.

Wesley, if you would like to introduce yourself. Hi! Hi!

Everybody! My name is Wesley I’m currently in in los angeles I’m a associate consultant with the azure cloud and ai team, and yeah, I’ll get more of an introduction on my my journey slides but that’s a brief intro for now Scott, if you would like to introduce yourself. Hey, friends!

My name is Scott Hanselman I’m here in Portland, Oregon, and I’m in my home office. I’ve worked remotely for microsoft for 14 years, and I’ve been in tech for 30 years in April of this year. So 30 years in 4 months and I’m excited to chat with you all about how I got here, and how I’ve been in tech so long.

Great and Kelly, if you want to wrap us up or Kylie. I’m sorry. Yeah, all good hi!

Everyone my name is Kylie cerama pronouns are she her? I am based out of Brooklyn, New York. Any senior customer, success account manager servicing big 4 customers in the northeast.

Awesome. Thanks, everyone. So now We’ll get into the my journey at Microsoft Section.

Saddam, if you want to let us know how you came to Microsoft. It’s been a interesting journey for me so far. You know.

I was born and brought up in you know, countryside of India, just like in the full of Himalayas. You go to my how’s it rooftop you can very well see the Himalayas, and then I went to military school. Just because I wanted to explore quite a bit.

And you know my very parents were good enough to let our 11 year old decide for themselves. So I ended up being at military school, and then I decided that Oh, I like the military aspects of it, but I want to pivot towards the more peaceful side. So I want to try diplomacy so I prepared for Indian, for instance, for quite a bit in India.

And it’s a little more competitive than you would think they are like 32 vacancies, and they’re like a 1 million applicants in, that so I did not make the cut fair to assume so after that. You know, I started my degree in computer science. It means during the time I saw my degree in computer science.

And in in India itself. And then I realized that I want to. You know, dig deeper into it.

And so I moved to us In 2,017. I went for masters in computer science. I was lucky enough that I was able to get a research relationship with Bmw.

At the time. So with a research, assistancehip I’m not sure if you all are where you get like fee wavers and stuff. So it came in very handy for me to, you know.

Not pick up any debt and kind of go through on masters and explore the Us. Culture. In the meantime this was back in 2,017, and so I did that for 2 years.

And then one of the reasons I chose comes in University was. They had a very good shooting program, and I, you know, at being having that background of military school. I was very much into shooting, so I shot very competitively, for intimidated a rifle went to Nationals, represented Clemson.

It was a lot of fun for sure, and then, as a fully time engineer, I start. I took my first job with a startup in South Carolina, and it was a lot of fun you know. We dealt with like pro how to create pricing engines for automotive loans, And I did that for a couple of years.

Did a lot of product development with my previous company. And then I joined Microsoft last year in August. I actually finished out my first year with Microsoft just last week.

So it has been a very exciting journey so far, And currently I am working as a software engineer on identity team. So identity team. If folks don’t know it’s.

But like, think about getting access. So if you want to get access, you want to get logged in, how is that back? And being managed that’s a lot of it is being managed by identity team and making sure you are who you say you are, and in making sure you know, as a employee of some company who uses azure you have the right accesses to all of those items fun fact when I was in my undergrad back in India.

I applied for Microsoft at the time, and I did not get selected. I’m I can fairly say at this point because I reach the final round. But then I find around I never heard back.

So I’m still waiting on that result I guess but It’s fair to assume that I did not make the cut at the time, so but I I was fairly obsessed with Microsoft I have applied to a lot of positions it’s never you know. It’s not always the easiest tasks to get such position. But you had to, you know, work around.

Do some research kind of lay yourself up to it in making sure that you find the right fit within Microsoft and Microsoft finds the right tip within you and Aside from the tech space, and Microsoft. I am also a member of Asian Employee Resource Group in Microsoft and fi groups here at Microsoft. Thanks for sharing Sudan and it I agree it’s Microsoft is really competitive to get into.

So I’m happy that you are finally able to find your place here. Next we’ll go to Wesley for wesley’s journey to Microsoft. Yeah.

Hi again, everybody. I’m glad to speak and share with you my journey. I have a pretty unique journey coming to microsoft and I’ll be happy to talk about that.

So, as I mentioned I’m from born and raised in Los Angeles, still in Los Angeles today, and for me, I was the first generation, American, and also first generation to 10 college. So for me. It was kind of finding my own path in school and I felt an opportunity gap when I was looking for jobs, so I wasn’t really sure what exactly that I mean.

It was that I wanted to do with anything. I was a competitive swimmer. All my all my life.

So I got a scholarship to 10 Harvard West Lake School, and also, so I’m competitively in in college at Pomona College, and for me I studied economics and finance at Pomona, so I never really touched anything like technical, never coded before. I got to Microsoft didn’t really know what it was that I was interested in. So without like having that kind of guidance, I would say I pursued a bunch of different industries.

For example, I went to Germany to work for a biotech company. As a business development analyst. I worked with a venture capital firm in San Francisco, and I also was a banker with Wells Fargo.

Another summer, you know, although these sound pretty random, like just different industries, I realized what I liked and didn’t like with every role that I had, and, like some key takeaways, was that I loved working with with customers I love being on top of new technologies. I liked finding the need. And pain points of different customers and using like my skills to address some of these problems, giving value that wasn’t there before.

And so I realized that I might want to go into consulting and also work for industry that’s on top of these different trends So that’s how I became interested in obsessed with joining, joining Microsoft, giving so someone without the most technical background and opportunity to to try out these different programs as part of this fire program. And So when I came back to school at Pomona, decided to hone my interest and learn. Some, some basic coding, and also continue to help Other students interested in breaking into like different fields from what they were studying.

And so I joined Microsoft right after graduation and I’m coming up on a year next week, so I think I joined Microsoft maybe like 2 weeks after Saddam, and now I’m in in a role with the after Cloud ai space as a technical consultant, and I also continue to do other activities at Microsoft, like participating in Hackathons, and also, like Saddam, also a member of Asians at Microsoft and an active member in the spire community. So that’s my background. How I got to Microsoft thanks for sharing Wesley.

We will send it to scott now for scott’s journey to Microsoft, hey? Mine’s a little different, just because I’m old, but I’m the first person in my family to go to college my dad was a firefighter, and my mom was a zookeeper, and my fifth grade teacher got an apple, 2 computer for the the group, and I happen to be the one who was just kind of somehow took to it and was really good at it. And this is really kind of a story about how accessibility and being able to have an opportunity is just so important.

If you don’t have a computer you don’t have access to computers, you you know you there’s some parallel universe where I’m doing totally different stuff. And One day I came home and our van was gone, and they had bought a computer at the recommendation of my teacher. So somebody advocated for me and created created luck I’m a big believer in in luck, and I recognize that the the the equation for luck is being prepared, and opportunity, and there’s so many people who are very very prepared and never get the opportunity.

And it’s our job to lend our privilege and to create luck for people and make opportunities. And those opportunities are things like this zoom call they’re the warm introductions they’re the linkedins that you’re putting into the into the chat. So when my non-technical blue Collar parents took a chance and sold that van and bought that computer that then sent me to Portland Community College for a 2 year degree, And then I spent 11 years working on my four-year degree, and I didn’t actually graduate from college until 2,003 when I was already 11 years into my job.

I did a bunch of side hustles. I create a lot of software. I worked on palm pilots and apple Newtons.

I worked at Nike and Intel I did a lot of outreach blogging, podcasting Youtube and Tiktok all trying to let people know that I knew what I was doing, even though my degrees were from colleges that Didn’t have a name and that got me to microsoft about 14 years ago, and I’m very blessed and very lucky to be here, because that that luck was created by people offering me opportunities, and even though I’ve been in tech now, as I said. For 30 years I still remember being hungry. I still remember 9 kids in a two-bedroom house, and I still talk to my do.

Keep her mom in my firefighter, Dad, every day and tell them that I thank them for letting me letting me do this. And just recently, if you take a look at my tech talk went, and finally last week purchased a commodore 64 in the original box that still has the tape from Sears where my parents bought that computer and I’m rebuilding it and putting it together to show my kids, and then in the in the vein of trying to lend my privilege to others and lift up the next generation. I’m.

Also a board member at Microsoft developer division bam black at Microsoft and also the Disability and Enterprise Resource group, even though I look like an old straight white guy healthy I’m a type one diabetic I have an open source artificial pancreas, and a number of medical implants, and a number of invisible disabilities. So I think it’s really important to to understand the the pie chart of one’s identity, and the you know the kind of the the heuristics of who we are, and make sure that people are given opportunities and accessible opportunities as much as they can. So yeah I’m excited to talk to you all into our new friends during the panel.

But that’s my story, and you can go on Google me and with Bing and and I loved love to chat with all of you. Yeah, Scott, I was going to ask if you wanted to share your tick to if you post well. So my last name is Hanselman.

So s as in Scott. Hanselman is my name everywhere. So You’ll find me on Tiktok Youtube Twitter.

Instagram. But if you just go to hanselman com you’ll be able to find me and all of my links are up there, and that’s someone actually in the in the chat commented, that that’s my Youtube 100,000 subscriber flack on the wall. There, that was sweet, that you all found that.

And thank you, Nikki, for putting my links in the in the chat. There. You already have some fans, thanks for sharing Scott and then we’ll wrap it up with Kylie to share her journey at Microsoft.

Scott. I don’t know how I’m going to follow this but I’m gonna try I’m a little bit older, and maybe not as aged as you Scott or we’ll say experiences you Scott but I have been in the field for about 15 years now, so my story is a little bit like Scots, but not exactly. I was born and raised in Minneapolis and Minnesota, and quite frankly, I was just from a poor family, was raised in public housing and on welfare by a single mother.

But you know, I think that teachers started to really take to me early on. I found that I got the attention and gratification from being good at school that helped continue me to to pursue anything that was education related. So once it came time for me to go to high school my mother said, Hey, let’s try to get you into this private high school, which at the time cost more than the university that ended up going to and I didn’t think there was any chance that I was gonna get in, let alone have someone come up with the financial resources for me to go there.

Luckily for me, my test scores, I think my preparedness, Scott, and the opportunity arose where there was a private donor who took a chance on me, and they covered my 4 years at this private high school, and I really think a lot, or think that high school a lot for changing the course of my life. I think there’s a lot of things that have come from it. From there I earned a full academic scholarship to the Miniap University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis.

So it’s also the first to go to school in my family. I’m also the first to get a passport and leave the United States, which which is pretty pretty interesting all things considered. And then I was the first to actually go to business school as well.

So I was able to again do quite well throughout University and and get good test scores that I was able to get a nice scholarship to go to Florida International University in Miami, Florida, after Winters in Minnesota was time for me to move on. What I found after grad school is that even though it was really easy for me to get good grades and to get you know, the attention and the good marks at school it was also challenging to to find a job, and I think like you Scott said maybe a little bit to opportunities. I’m sorry.

Maybe it was U. Sly opportunities worked out is there? And I think what I realize now that I didn’t in the past was that I didn’t have enough of a professional network.

I was so focused at school or I was so focused at working my full-time job to pay for my living expenses that I didn’t necessarily create the network or the community that I now know is super important to building one’s career. So as for my career, I am not a technologist. I am not an engineer, but I am a woman in tech.

I have spent the last 14 years within the greater Microsoft Partner ecosystem. I actually first started at a small marketing agency where Microsoft was my client. So I really just fell into the world of Microsoft in in 2,008.

After that I moved on to Sloan, consulting which is another Microsoft partner. Based out of Chicago, Illinois, and there I help them lead their entire marketing organization. They had not done any marketing in the 5 years they were open at that time, so I created a marketing function, and after that I moved on to Avenue, which is Microsoft’s largest partner, the Joint Venture between Accenture and Microsoft.

So they are consultants that only consult on Microsoft technology at Avenot. I did a variety of things. I am obsessed with learning and trying new things.

So I spent several years in a variety of global H. Roles which included time in Chicago as well as New York City. In addition to a short term assignment it’s Sydney Australia, and after my time in Hr.

I decided that I wanted to work with our customers. I wanted to have a greater impact on people outside of the organization. So I became client, facing where I worked in a Pre sales role.

Actually strategically advising our customers on how to best implement their Microsoft technology to impact their employee experience. During all this time. 7 Years is a long time for work.

With one organization. I unexpectedly lost my mother in 2,019. I then met my partner, who’s in the photo here.

Maxine, and we’ve been married and gave birth to our little baby boy, Jul, who’s in the photo there. He just turned one year old last week, and while I was on the maternity leave I had a friend who had worked with me at Avonah. Give me a call, and just say, Hey, you’ve got to come to Microsoft.

Now, and I think that having this big life of event happened last year with with becoming a mother, really helped me refocus. What I wanted to do with my career made me question what type of organization I wanted to work for in the values that were there, and Microsoft just became a calling for me. And so I started the interview process, and I landed here in may as mentioned I’m.

A customer success account manager. So what I do is I take care of our customers after the sale to make sure that we are meeting all their needs in our contract applications. So it’s really about taking care of people and personal relationships.

I have love, that everyone is super helpful. Here I have felt really, really welcomed into the community. I am part of our women’s rg also part of the first generation, low income and group as the rest of my peers are here.

A part of the parents group, and I’m also part of the race. All I ship ring in the northeast. I also have some other fun facts on screen.

If you want to ask me about those later. Nice to meet everyone. Thanks for sharing Kylie, and thanks for all of our panelists for giving a quick introduction about themselves.

Now she will take it away with our round table discussion to Give everyone a little bit of insight on what it’s like to actually work at Microsoft. And what opportunities that we have available for our employees. Awesome.

Thank you, Christina, and thank you so much to our panelists for sharing your amazing journeys to Microsoft. I learned so much about each of you and I’m excited to ask you some more questions to learn, even more. And I’m sure everyone on the call really appreciated hearing everyone’s stories I think it’s super important to hear all the different ways that you can show up at Microsoft so yeah Let’s let’s get started with our panel roundtable.

And yes, this is the side just showing our speakers once again. I did put a note in the chat that if you want to see just the speaker as opposed to seeing a grid of everyone’s videos feel free to adjust your view. If you click view in the top right, and then click side by side.

Speaker. That might be helpful for this but yeah so let’s get started with our first question. So the question is gonna go to Scott.

And kylie we’ll start with you, Scott. Why do you feel Microsoft is a great place to work for you personally? I think I have gained some experience working, you know, in companies like Bmw.

And a startup that I have I did in the past. And one thing that I really really love about Microsoft is the Peers. The connections that you get at Microsoft.

Because the connections that you get at Microsoft you, you know, and in a daily basis you get to work with some very amazing people. They can make you feel dumb at times you know you’re like oh, man! You know.

How am I ever going to get this done? People around me are so smart, and everything and get there can be those days I’ve had plenty of those days. But in the end I’m just very thankful that I’m contributing to such a big goal, and I know exactly where my contribution goes in that bigger picture, and that is one of the most beautiful things about it where you know feeling that you are always learning something new, and that is one of the most satisfying feelings I get at Microsoft Awesome, thank you, said and Scott I’d love to hear why you feel Microsoft is a great place for you to work as well.

So without disrespecting any of our lovely competitor companies. You know the the the Google and the Facebook and all the other companies. One of the things that I like about microsoft is that we don’t have just one thing that we sell and we know about the netflixes in the airbnb’s, and then we know what they sell they sell that one thing feel like.

If I got tired of working on developer tools I could go work on Xbox, and if I got tired of working on xbox I could go work on Ai. And I could work on being, and I could work on games like work on surface hardware, and I could work on keyboard controllers like Microsoft is from a product perspective. One of the most diverse companies in its portfolio of stuff.

Well, if I feel like I was working for somewhere else I would work on selling that thing that that company makes, and then I would get tired of that. So the reason that I’ve stuck around here so long and the reason that I like Microsoft so much is that there’s so many different things to work on, and that’s that’s why I’m here and currently right now I work on developer tools, which is cool. Because if you think about how interesting, it is to be a programmer right now to be a developer.

There’s 8 billion people on the planet. There’s about 65 million, coders 65 million coders are creating the stuff for the other 8 billion, and that sense of power of creation and the empowerment of making something is and sharing it with the entire planet is why I keep sticking around at Microsoft. I love that.

Thank you, Scott. And then Kylie yeah, I’d love to hear from you, too like, Why do you so? Microsoft is a great place for you to work aside from all the benefits that sit and Scott already mentioned.

Yeah, I won’t double up on too much of what they said, but I feel like the opportunities are endless here. One thing that I have found truly helpful. Okay, 2 things I found truly helpful since starting, and just a few months ago was the ability to connect with people.

I have reached out to people on different teams in different countries and different time zones, and no one has said no to a 15 min conversation. The organization is so big and the opportunities are endless. But everyone is really open to sharing and talking about their their role.

What they do on their team, and how they fit into the organization. I think, understanding that similar to Scott, saying, You know you he could go see somewhere else. The people here really want to help you figure out What’s best for you, as also mentioned it’s hard to get into Microsoft not gonna lie right.

The the interview process is tough they’re looking for really really high quality top talent, and people who want to push themselves, and one of the things that I’ve been able to take advantage of. Is, we have learning days for Microsoft us depending on what subsidiary you’re in, and I’ve been able to already receive my first Microsoft certification. Now I haven’t studied, in 10 years right and to have that dedicated time to study for a technical certificate was really important to me.

I think at other employers not to shame anyone I would have had to take that from my personal time, and now that I’m in New mom, my time is even more sacred outside of work. So having that opportunity to actually find dedicated. Time.

During my work day to improve myself has been really really important, and makes me feel like it was the right choice to come here. That’s amazing. Thank you, kylie and yeah as we say like in recruiting.

We love to hire and recruit learners versus Knowers. So learning is very, very much encouraged at Microsoft and Of course it’s very supported clearly, so thank you for sharing that the next question will go to Wesley Lastly, what would you say are some of the non advertised. Benefits of working for Microsoft.

Yeah, and I guess a lot of what I’m Scott and Kylie also mentioned. There’s I would say 3 main things that microsoft offers that are non advertised, but are huge benefits for me. The first is encouragement, of learning there’s so many times my manager has sent me off to like take a 3 day worth like workload of classes, and like put aside like the current projects I’m on to just encourage my learning, and these are like expensive classes that I’m attending that my manager is willing to pay for because she thinks learning is really important for my development, and 2 is like the feeling of of community so in a role like consulting oftentimes there’s a lot of competitiveness, trying to get on a project with your with your colleagues, your coworkers.

But at Microsoft I have never had this kind of feeling everyone’s willing to work together with you. They’re sharing resources. Sharing on different engagement opportunities So just the community that Microsoft has built it kind of feels like a college campus.

It’s so big there’s so many people to meet they’re all willing to help each other out. And finally, the work is really is really cool. I I think you probably know Microsoft has a lot of different technology that they sell.

But the projects that we work on with customers is really meaningful. Getting to work on getting to work with nonprofits, even if that isn’t the most like profitable for Microsoft just having these kinds of opportunities like interfaces very Really, cool that’s not always advertised to everyone awesome. Thank you, Wesley and I wanted to ask all of the panelists a question.

And the question is, how do you stay involved in Microsoft outside of your core group? Are you involved in any ergies? I know that many of you touched on this?

But I’d love to hear all of you expand a little bit on your involvement outside of your core business group and your energies that you’re involved with so I’ll pass that question first to Sid Hey? So I think One of the biggest ways where I have been able to contribute is The Asian chapter for Microsoft in Atlanta, Atlanta is fairly a very new office for Microsoft, and I think the new office is opened a little over 3 months ago. Now.

So it’s been hard you know with covid with a new office still coming in place to organize events, but still providing that sense of belongingness to all the employees, making sure that the diversity and inclusivity is respected within the company. You know. I have been very actively involved in the Asians chapter in organizing events ranging from organizing the valley festival.

You know in in Atlanta for Microsoft employees and during Asian American passive calendar month. We did. Another series of events, like breaking the bamboo ceiling and inviting other successful Asians.

In Atlanta to you know, to share their stories to see. How you know. There is diversity and in that diversity.

There’s unity I love that, and I love to hear on how involved you are in that employee resource group, which yes, thank you, Christina, for clarifying here, and she stands for employee resource group and Microsoft has many of them, and many. Communities outside of the official employee resource groups, too. So I will pass the question off to Scott.

We had a We had a barbecue. We had the bam black at Microsoft Barbecue, and I got to get invited to the cookout, which is always nice, and that was really cool, just to have, like so many people that had a shared identity in one place, and feeling excited to be represented and presented at Microsoft. But I also want to turn the question upside down a little bit and answer it in an unusual way, because the question was, How do we stay connected to Microsoft when we’re not Microsoft?

I like to also be explicitly disconnected from Microsoft. So things that I do to not think about Microsoft are not installing teams on my phone. I have a really cool boss who texts me and off hours to test.

If I’m paying attention to work or not I was on vacation Recently my boss texted me, and I replied, and he said, I’m shutting off your badge and I was like, why and he’s like because it only took you 30 s to reply to me and you’re on vacation. Stop talking to me, and I was like that was cool like I have a boss who, like aggressively makes us vacate, and I like It’s as important to stay connected to Microsoft as it is just a deeply disconnected from my Microsoft. So like when you’re on break you break and and I think that’s important I love that.

And yeah, that that should be how everyone is. So everyone be like Scott. Awesome.

Thank you and I’ll pass it off to Kylie. Yeah, in terms of my ability to to get involved one thing that I personally do. In addition to any of the ergs I’m in, I could connect with the Rgs whether it’s via yammer or any of the smaller groups that aren’t yet official ergs via their teams group.

Just being involved in the conversation, is important for me. But what I have found to be even more valuable is I force myself to go into office. I’m going to use the word force because I have been working remotely for 7 years, and I think the pandemic really did me in right.

I miss working with people, and so I go into the New York City office, which is just outside of Times Square. I live in brooklyn for those who aren’t familiar. It only takes me 30 min.

But that’s a commute right and that’s time for my day that I’m willing to give because I want to be a part of the community. But then, like you Scott, If it’s time it’s time for vacation. Nothing is on my phone.

I delete outlook. I delete teams, and I completely shut off so I think there’s a balance of finding how you can integrate with either the people in person or virtually that works best for you right there. Are people on my team that I don’t think I will ever mean person.

They’re never, gonna come in because they don’t have to and that’s okay, and that’s their choice. But we can connect in other ways by simply turning on our camera, sharing a little bit about our personal salary. You know, in the beginning of calls or or when we get connected because that’s where we can really drive value.

And that’s how we can provide input and impact to others who are different than us. Thank you so much, Kylie. And lastly, Wesley: Yeah.

So. My My job is like a full time, remote position. I have almost matt my co-workers a few times when we’ve decided to meet up at a local office together.

But I’m part of a few other groups that have created this kind of community. For example, part of the Asian Microsoft Employee Resource Group, where we recently were meeting up at a local beach in Los Angeles to join like the heel the Bay organization to clean up the beaches and just hang out with each other, and also I’m part of the aspire community where it’s mostly new hires right out of undergraduate or graduate schools where we can create events and host different, like kinds, like virtual parties or things like that, to just meet a variety of different people, even people outside of our organizations. Awesome love that thank you Esley and then I’m gonna go back to Kylie actually for this next question, which is, Do you feel that you can be yourself at Microsoft?

And what does that mean to you? I do feel like it could be myself a Microsoft. But I will be the first to admit that throughout the interview process I felt very very strong.

Imposter syndrome. I kept asking, You know, why would microsoft wanna hire me I’m not technical, even though I’ve been in the ecosystem. I am not a technologist.

I do not know how to code. I never will. I don’t think learn how to code but what I found is that the second I started on the team I could be myself.

I was actually very much welcome for bringing a new perspective to the conversation. And my people skills. My soft skills are what matter most in my role, and it wasn’t necessarily the technical skills that that they were looking for for me.

Second to that, but maybe not second to that. But another point is is that as a new mom, I have my calendar block every single morning from 8 am. To 8 30.

Now, that might be very well considered working hours for most of my team as well as my customer. But that’s the time that I need order to get my son to daycare, and I also value that 30 min of time with him as a working woman like I need to send my child to daycare So someone else’s hands or 10 h. A day, but I give that 30 min to myself, and I feel like it has never been questioned by anyone on my team nor my customer.

Now, if my customer came to me and ask for a certain day at an adm call, I would make things work with my with my husband. But I have found that you know, being a new mom I’ve been able to find that flexibility work later hours, if I need to, while still being able to to find that balance for myself at home, that’s amazing Yeah, and I feel like everyone at Microsoft understands no matter what situation you’re in whether you’re a mom, whether you have anything else going on in your life. Work will always be here when you come back.

So do what you gotta do. And I like that. That includes cats and dogs as well.

Parents, siblings. We all have lives outside of work. So yeah, Yeah, if You’re having a rough day if you’re, you know, experiencing anxiety like you can do what you need to do, and Microsoft will always be here.

Briefly sorry yeah, please, just adding on to that there were 2 things that happened that were cool during the pandemic one. They gave us like actual mental health days. So like we call them like I can’t even days.

So like if it’s like a random franchise like I can’t even it’s like okay I’m gonna just go for a walk today that’s a cool thing that happened. And another thing. Was really cool was that we’re seeing leadership in Vps model behavior, and by that I mean, they’re like actual freaking humans.

So like I was in a meeting with our Vp. And we were doing this big presentation, and this called an what’s the word e A. R.

What’s the engineering area review big deal and then her daughter comes in. He’s like 5 years old, and we’re thinking it’s gonna be one of those Bbc. Moments where, like she shoves the kid in the face and knocks them over right.

She put her daughter on her lap. And she sat there and the daughter watched the whole engineering review, and it was like, Wow, you Okay, like It’s not awful. It’s, not a crisis.

It’s not a scandal that a five-year-old human being came in and hung out with us, and by the Vp. Doing that. It showed us that it was like okay to be human and have lives, And that was really cool.

Sorry to I don’t know don’t apologize I love that addition. And while I have you actually the next question is for you and it’s switching gears a little bit but it also has to do I mean I guess with feeling like you belong in the not only at Microsoft. But also when you’re interviewing at Microsoft, so as a hiring manager and an interviewer, what do you typically look for in a candidate that might indicate that Microsoft and the candidate are a good match, I hope this analogy works I’m interested in the chat to see if people get this.

But when you’re putting together a basketball team you hire for height, I don’t care about your ball handling skills, I can teach you that I’m interested in can you deal with other humans are you pleasant can you work in a team. But are you tall right here’s 7 feet tall. I want you my basketball team Well, I’m not coordinated.

It’s Okay, we’ll work it out so when I interview someone. I want tall people, and by that I mean someone who I’m not interested in whether you do a for a loop in C sharp, or whether you can do LeetCode as much as you have a sense of systems thinking and you understand how computer systems fit together. Programming languages come and go I mentioned that I’ve been in tech for a long time, and I’ve got these degrees.

All the languages I learned in college are dead. Every operating system I learned in school is dead. Everything you learned in school, every program, every computer that you worked on will not exist in 20 years, and that’s okay because you learned how to learn.

So I want to interview people who know how to learn who have good energy, have good vibes, and can solve a problem, not by me giving them tests of trivia, but by me saying, let’s think about how the system fits together and how you can fit. Into that system Hope that analogy worked I don’t want to disrespect our petite friends because it’s not about. No, I think that was perfect and I’ve never heard that analogy before, but I think I’m gonna start using it.

So thank you, Scott, for sharing that and on the topic of interviewing and recruiting. We’ll share a little bit more after the panel discussion on Microsoft University recruiting, too. But Wesley, I have a question for you and the question is what’s the difference about working for Microsoft as compared to some of the other places that you worked.

Yeah, So I I think a huge difference is that I’ve worked at big companies before in the past. But Microsoft, like other companies, is also very big with so many different departments. But it’s really encouraged here that we actually interact with different organizations.

For example, when I was working in in the banking there was like a a great wall, they would call it where there’s a lot of policies where you can’t interact with the traders or the salespeople but a Microsoft we are encouraged to talk to people so even though I’m in in the tech space here as a consultant, I oftentimes reach out to different product teams. I’m reaching out the managers that I’m interested in their products are reaching up to the finance organizations, because that’s still an interest in mind and just chatting the seat what kind of skills they look for when they hire because even though I’m happy in the role I’m in now, I’m always keeping my eyes open and understanding that there’s people I can speak to they’ll respond to me right away that’s awesome thanks for sharing Leslie. And I’m glad you found that here at Microsoft.

Okay, this is the last question for the panel and It’ll go to all of you. The question is, what is one thing you wish you knew before you started working for Microsoft, and I will have Sid answer that first. Well, let’s see I think one of the biggest things I felt, you know that I could have known is it’s Okay, to not know everything.

I remember when I got my offer from Microsoft. I was so curious to know. What team would I be working on?

What will my work look like? So then I can already start picking on those things? Because I want to make sure that all going in it doesn’t come across that I don’t know the stuff that the team is trying to develop you cannot possibly know everything, and it’s completely okay, it’s completely acceptable to not know everything, because, as Scott mentioned earlier, you know, those things can be taught, and you just have to go buy it, th those things can be taught those things can be learned and the company accepts that there’s this learning curve you know.

But you should always be willing to learn Awesome. Thank you, and I’ll go to kylie next festivalously. I will say that I wish I knew how happy I would be here, and I would have applied years ago.

No offense to the other organizations I I’ve been at like Wesley mentioned, coming from a consulting background. At the last 2 partners that I work with consulting It can be a different beast there’s just a lot of competition, and that’s fine and I was able to thrive in that. But what I have found here, and what I do didn’t really believe is how team oriented everyone is here.

Everyone works together truly, and that goes, you know, reaching out to someone for help, asking a question. There are no dumb questions asking a question about the 8 hundredth acronym. You’ve heard that day it’s all okay to not know the answers.

And I really think, coming in with that perspective, would have been something that would have even helped me ease into my role in the transition to a new career. Even more easily than Microsoft made it for me Thank you, Kylie. And then lastly we will go to Scott.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before you started working at Microsoft? I think, for the first 7 or 8 years of being a programmer have kind of a dick, and I spent a lot of time trying to know all the answers like said mentioned, and I think I needed to learn to shut up and listen and be comfortable, not being the smartest person in the room and in the remaining 22 years since I figured that out I have been much more successful and much happier. It’s much less about you grinding LeetCode problems and trying to be the smartest and it’s much more about you being a pleasant, kind, joyful collaborator, and moving the ball forward as a team.

I’m sad it took me a 7 or 8 years to Figure that out, and I would encourage you as you start your careers coming out of university. If you just take a breath, be present and listen to people, including your interviewers. Even a breath in an interview, and a pause, and a thought tells me that you heard me as opposed to you.

Were just waiting for your turn to speak that’s something that I learned and I needed to learn earlier in my career. That’s really good advice. So everyone write that down and I apologize, I said lastly, but we I do want to ask the same question to Wesley.

What’s one thing that you wish you knew before you started working for Microsoft? Yeah, So the biggest thing is that you’ll learn everything you need on the job like I mentioned I didn’t know what a code before coming into this technical consulting role I didn’t know anything about azure but I kind of force myself in undergrad to take classes, I thought would be helpful to get me to that next level at Microsoft, where I took classes. I knew that could get good grades, and to maximize my Gpa.

But just like a few months into like my first job I realized no one really hears about your gpa, or like the knowledge you had before coming to work so really important to just enjoy your time in undergrad take things that you’re interested in, because at the end of the day you’ll learn everything you need on the job, and no one’s gonna judge you for not knowing something. If you’re a new employee awesome thank you so much, Wesley, and thank you, Kylie Scott, and Sid, for all of your answers to our panel questions today. I think those are really good discussion, and I hope everyone saw that as insightful.

But we’re not quite done I know We have a few minutes left, and we definitely want to address university recruiting opportunities, and how you can potentially get your foot in the door at Microsoft just like all of our panelists have today. So I will pass it over to Christina to share a little bit more about our roles. Our opportunities, and how to apply.

Thank you chi so like she said. Now you’ve kind of learned a little bit about positions at Microsoft. So now you’re probably looking to see how you can fit in, or how you can apply.

So first we will go over kind of what a recruiter looks for in a resume or a LinkedIn profile. First we’re we’re looking for your contact info so preferred. Name email best contact phone number, and then any links that you may have to like a LinkedIn, a GitHub or type of portfolio.

Next up we’ll look for your school info so I have Major in Gpa. Listed at the top we’re we’re pretty much open to any major. We just wanna make sure that you list that on your resume, and as far as Gpa like, you can feel free to list it.

If you want you don’t have to list it but it just is a good thing to potentially have on your resume. Then we’re also looking for your graduation date including the month and the year, and we look at this, so we can figure out what role you are eligible for. So, whether you’re eligible for a summer internship or a full-time role, we’ll be able to figure that out based on what your graduation date is next.

If you want to list any relevant course work that you’ve taken such as data structures and algorithms or anything else that you think would be applicable to the job that you’re applying for finally any class projects individual or group, or any projects that you may have done on the side that show interest into the role that you’re applying for the next section in the probably the bulk of the section of your resume. Will be the experience section here We want you to list. Any internships research work, experience any of those like personal projects that you have.

If you’ve participated in the hackathons or competitions, or if you’ve if you’ve received any awards or certifications, and then finally to wrap it all up the section that we call skills and more is really to have us learn a little bit more about you outside of the classroom. So if you have leadership experience, whether you’re a ta or tutor, if you’re involved in any organizations, including CodePath, any type of volunteering or personal interests, you can include that in your resume again we look at resumes and LinkedIn profiles. So what I say is, whatever you have in your resume, just pace everything into your LinkedIn profile, because a recruiter may be looking for you on LinkedIn versus in their applicant tracking system.

Next we’ll talk about our open roles. If you want to go to the next slide, Jordan. So like, she said.

Our roles are open and they’ll stay open on a rolling basis. Right Now we’re hiring for summer internship and full-time opportunities. You can use the Qr.

Codes here if you want to scan with your phone and just be brought to the application right. Then One thing to know is, remember to include CodePath on your resume, and if you know you’ve done any projects with CodePath, or anything like that, be sure to include that on your resume as well. Next we will talk about the application, and interview process so again you can scan those Q Bar codes, or you can go on to Microsoft Com Slash University.

Here’s where you’ll submit your application following that a recruiter will review your resume, and if you are selected for first route interviews. You’ll get a notification from that recruiter 4 h internship roles. We do a 30 min phone screen, and then for full time roles, we do an online assessment.

If you pass that I’m online assessment you’ll go to the final round interviews there, you’ll have between 2 to 4 virtual interviews. Their video interviews, and you’ll meet with some people that could potentially be on your team if you were offered a role. If you do well in the final round interview you could potentially receive a full-time offer.

We try to get those offers out fairly quickly within a week or 2 of your final round interview. And then we ask that you reply to the offer within 2 weeks, if you’re going to accept your decline. So that was a pretty quick rendition of how your resume should be, and how you can apply to roles at Microsoft.

If you have any questions you can feel free to put those in the chat, and she and I will try to get to them. When we can. I think we have a couple of good questions so far.

I answered one in the chat that you then asked about applicant tracking system, and if it filters through before recruiters. Crc. Your application?

No. All applications are viewed by a recruiters. So long as you meet the required callifications that are listed on the application. So when you apply to a role, and you answer those like required questions.

As long as you answer those and meet the requirements, you will, your application will be viewed by a recruiter. And then There was a question about how you should include CodePath on your resume. I think it’s really great to include it like when you put your education at the top of your resume, which I recommend.

If you are a university or college student, I recommend putting your education at the top As that, you know, is the most relevant at the at this period in your career. So I recommend putting any organizations that you’re involved with kind of underneath that education section, and you can include, if you’re in a leadership role for a particular organization, I’m not sure if that’s applicable for CodePath. But I think that’s a really good place to put CodePath is your is right under the education portion on your resume, and then you can also include it on your LinkedIn under organizations under your education or even under the work experience portion on a LinkedIn profile I’m also going.

I see that some people said that the qr code didn’t work, so I’m going to put the links right in the chat for you guys to apply there. I think you might just have to copy and paste it into your browser. Thank you, Christina.

And then Olivia asked. Is it possible that we can get recruiter and panelist contact information after this event? I will leave that up to the panelists If you want to share your LinkedIn profile in the chat, feel free so that The CodePath members can add you on LinkedIn As far as recruiter contact information, we will be refraining from sharing our emails.

Just because of the very, very, very, high volume as you can imagine in boxes like, I think I’ve received, and a 1 million LinkedIn messages and emails just in the span of this last hour. So we will be refraining from sharing that. But I promise you that as long as you apply, that is the best way to get your eyes in front of her, or recruiters eyes on your profile.

So and joining events like this, like of course. We will be taking a look at the registration list to see who attended the event. So attending events like these, applying to our roles.

That is truly the best way to get notice, and you know, get your foot in the door at Microsoft. So even if you don’t have a recruiters contact information I promise you that actually probably won’t help you as much as attending an event, or applying and I know we’re at time I know there’s so many good questions, though, so we’ll try to stay on and answer a couple of the questions in the chat. But I wanna make sure that we are being conscious of the time of everyone who is joined today.

So my cheese said, Thank you all for joining and feel free to drop. She and I will stay on a little bit longer, just to answer any additional questions in the chat, and I believe that this session is recorded, and you should receive the recording shortly. Yep exactly so what I’ll do I’ll tell the students.

I will drop this in the Vcf Career Center slack channel. Probably the next 20 min, so you’ll be able to access it there! So please let your friends know who, we’re not able to attend that they can actually view this recording there, and I’ll, of course, stay on with you all in in case you have any questions.

Thank you, Anthony, and thank you so much. Everyone for joining have a great day. Everyone who is was that a question I’m sorry we’ll go.

Can’t really understand what you’re saying do you mind dropping you a question in the chat. I think it’s a I think he said it was just an accidental on mute Maybe someone else said that I’m not sure. Well, I’m gonna scroll up and see if I can answer, like, at least one more question while some people are stolen.

Sam, if you have your hand raise, if you want to come off mute. Yeah, hey? Thank you.

So I was just wondering I know you guys were speaking about You don’t have to know LeetCode problem or this and that. But how How much do you think? Focusing on LeetCode is like super important versus like, you know, another part of getting prepared to be interviewed, or for the interview?

I should say that’s a really good question and I don’t know. Is Scott still on this call? I feel like you would probably have a really good answer for that.

But my recruiting answer for that is, I do think, that LeetCode practicing those problems is super helpful. For just like the technical portion of the interview process, when you are actually using our third party. Coding environment called codility.

So I do think that’s really important. But I also think more so, as many of our panelists mentioned is preparing for those behavioral questions of like sharing examples of how what it’s like to work with. You essentially.

And while you are doing those problems showing that you’re a learner versus a know at all and showing that you are really listening to your interviewer asking for feedback as you go along talking through your thought process all of that I Think that’s more important than like actually being like Oh, yeah I’ve done this problem before on late code. If that helps. And I’ll let any panelists answer.

If anyone is still on. Yeah, I think a lot of the interview is about making sure that you’re a fit for the team that you you know that you’ll be working with, and and then they can teach you those languages or processes after you join right? Cool.

Thanks so much. Thanks, Sam. Please send in the chat, please.

The Qr code is not working for Okay, yep I can I’ll put the link in the chat again, and another thing. Anthony. I’m not sure if this is a possibility when you communicate this recording, and the deck to the code past students.

But we can also send the links to all of our job opportunities and interview tips and resources. So that may be. Is it possible for you to include those yes, yes, yes, that’ll be perfect.

So if you can get those over to me, I would literally post everything essentially as a package. So you get that I mean I’ll post everything you know when I can. Okay, Okay, I’ll send that to you today.

Anthony Awesome. Thank you. Sherry.

We do have roles that are open in Canada. If you go on Microsoft dot com slash university you’ll be able to see the roles based in Canada posted there, and I saw a good question in the chat about editing your resume, after applying which is such a good question, and I actually I’m so glad you asked that because I highly recommend, if you have updates here as may, which I feel like when you’re in school, and you’re doing internships you always have things to add to your resume. If you took a new class, add that to your resume, you can absolutely edit your resume.

If you go into your action center on the Microsoft Global Career site, you can edit your resume, just upload a new one so that the recruiter can see your most recently updated one. Definitely. Do that when you apply, or after you apply depot.

Would you like to come off me out? Yeah. So I my question was, well applying for full time software roles.

How effective are reference. And what do you suggest, like guys? Should we reach out to people for reference or if you’re applying through the code part the the diversity conference and organizations link.

Would we need a retail, or would we not leave direction? I would say, if you have a person, that you know that works at Microsoft, that you’re close with having a referral, you know, will be a benefit to your application, and we still review all applications whether or not there’s a referral, but I wouldn’t try to solicit referrals from people you don’t know. Okay.

Good question. Thank you. Menville.

Yeah. Hey? First of all I just want to say thank you.

Whoever organized this event and the panelists, I think it was a great look inside Microsoft’s world culture My question is was more about the world culture rather than a recruiting and it’s how often do teams within Microsoft collaborate within each other. So as a new recruit, how often would you get to work with other teams versus, you know, spending most of your time in your own team. That’s a really good question and I can’t speak from personal experience.

But I can kind of speak to like what I’ve heard from others. I’m actually I’m a part of bam as Scott mentioned. He’s also a part of and we add this summer intern experience team where I got the opportunity to work with other members of bam to put on events for our bam interns.

And I worked with a software engineer. I forget what work she was in. But she talked about this huge project that she did with Another team at Microsoft that wasn’t her own and how she had to kind of basically build this new I don’t know.

She was talking all these software engineering things that I didn’t understand but she basically worked with another Microsoft team in order to get that done. And so I think there is a lot of cross collaboration and as Kylie mentioned, there’s connection across multiple teams to just if you initiate it as well. So if you are interested in talking to other people from other teams it’s everyone’s always open to it.

So while you might not be working on projects with other teams all the time, there is collaboration, and just like connection across teams. If you seek it out alright. Perfect thanks for the explanation.

Yeah, Thanks for the question Go ahead. Yeah. Hi: So actually, my question was that on Microsoft Portal I can see 2 openings.

One is related with the CodePath and one is the general full-time position for software engineering. So if I’ve applied for both the position so will I be reviewed differently for both the positions, or it’s still like the same that’s a really good question. It is the same exact role.

So it is a software engineering role. So you’ll be reviewed and qualified the same your qualifications are the qualifications for both roles are the same. It will just be a different recruiter.

Re reviewing your resume for just the generals. We opportunity versus Christina. And I would be reviewing the one that has CodePath on it.

Okay, Okay, okay. And one more question like if I applied right. If I applied in this is starting a focus so like when I can expect, like, when can, when can I expect another process like either an assessment, or when can I expect?

Is there a timeline for it? Yeah. So I rarely recommend leveraging the action center on the career site.

It gives you like real time updates as soon as there’s something that happened to your application. I would say, give recruiters a few weeks to review your resume and make a decision on whether or not they’d like to move forward with an interview, or if you’re application was not accepted I I would say a few weeks is typically the timeline of when you’ll get an answer. And then, if you are selected for an interview you’ll see that update in your action center, but you’ll also receive an email from Microsoft recruiters, letting you know interview prop materials and and just scheduling things.

Okay and sorry. Just this final question. So just just wanted to know just by one final thing that like, Today right now.

The the the era of layoffs like every every company’s doing layoffs or or hiring fees, just wanted to know that if it’s Microsoft also doing something like that for new grades like if A. Whether it has reduced the hiding this time or or so. Is there some scenario like that?

Whether the microsoft has reduced the hiring for new grs as compared to previous years? That’s a really good question and I know that that’s a big topic right now, because there’s just been a lot of uncertainty just with geopolitical events supply chain obstacles inflation all of that. So?

I totally think that’s a valid question we are just reevaluating our hiring needs. That’s not to say that we are freezing or pausing. We are just making sure that we’re aligning all future hires with emerging needs of the business.

So. We still have a lot of open roles for university students in recent graduates, so don’t fret We are still hiring a ton of candidates and a ton of people to Microsoft this year, given even despite the situation that’s happening. Thank you so much.

We’ll be able to take maybe 2 more questions, and then we have to let our Microsoft friends go. Yeah, I think care. Carol and Juan are going to be our final 2.

And then any additional questions. You can direct those to Anthony and Geneva, and they can connect with Gni. Hello!

Thank you so much for the panel. I just have a question about The referral. So I for example, if I have a person who I know at Microsoft, and I would ask them, for if I should, I do it before I apply it to the position, and then ask or before I think It’s a good idea to do it before actually cause then once they refute, refer you, you’ll get an email to go submit your application, but it can go either way if you’ve already applied, they can still refer you after you apply, but I recommend doing it getting your referral before.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I think you’re gonna wrap us up.

Hello! Can you hear me? Yes, Yep.

Okay. My question was mortar. So I was looking at the links that you should share.

Thank you for the panel by the way I don’t see any? Is there like a specific dates that you recommend like applying like I don’t see any expiration date is what I’m trying to say So Do you recommend applying after like the CodePath? Career?

Fair or before. Yeah. So we keep our applications open on a rolling basis.

So we just started accepting applications a few weeks ago, and it will be open until all of our roles are filled. We definitely recommend applying early. So if you have your resume updated now, we recommend applying now and then apple future like CodePath events, or any other school projects.

You can feel free to update your resume in your Canada Action Center. Okay, thank you. You’re welcome.

Well, again, if you guys have any additional questions. You can reach out to Anthony or Geneva from cold path, and they will connect with Gni Awesome. Thank you all so much for joining us today.

We really appreciate it. Again. You all have a great day.

Thanks. Thank you. Bye.