How I landed a Microsoft internship

An in-depth analysis of how I went from landing the first interview to accepting the return offer.

Hello! Note that I am a student just wanting to help others. This is just my experience and I hope it helps you in your career journey! :)

Context of my previous experience:

• 3 years of leadership experience in student organizations

• Just ended my 3rd year of college as a Computer Engineering student with no prior internships

• Started learning Web development at the start of 2020 and have developed 2 projects I used to solve a problem

If you are reading this. I’m assuming you already know what PM is all about. You want to be a PM and want to learn what I did to land my PM internship.

Network

I sent over 500+ personalized requests to Product Managers, Software Engineers, Program Managers, Project Managers at companies I want to work at on Linkedin. I got in a call with over 70 professionals. I did this all summer.

The purpose of these calls is to learn more about the role, learn about the person’s journey, and build a strong network.

What I gained from these calls:

• More insight and clarity on what I want to do

• Learn career strategies and improved my resume

• Met some really cool people and created some new relationships along the way

• A few referrals to help get my foot in the door

I attended an online engineering leadership conference and met a Design Researcher from Microsoft. I added him on Linkedin and after chatting he was generous enough to give me a referral.

First-Round Interview Preparation

I got an email saying I got a first-round interview with Microsoft! I had 2 weeks to prepare.

Context: At this point, I was able to land a fall PM internship at a startup. I’ve watched tons of Youtube videos from:

• Product School

• Exponent PM Mock Interviews

• Marty Cagen

• Michael Seibel and other YCombinator videos

• Other popular PM videos

I’ve read The Product Diploma and Cracking the PM Interview. Currently was reading Inspired by Marty Cagen at the time.

What I did to prepare?

• I set up many mock interviews with others in the Product Buds community Slack channel

• I contacted as many people I knew that interned as a PM at Microsoft or already went through the interview process to gain insights on the types of questions they will ask and take any advice they have

• I reread certain parts of Cracking the PM interview especially the Behavioral and Product Design section

• I contacted those PMs that I called in the beginning, to see if they had time to do a Mock interview with me

• Prepared the most common Microsoft first-round interview questions and common behavioral questions

• Master the “Tell me about yourself” question

• I mostly focused on Product design questions in my mock interviews because I was fairly confident with behavioral questions.

What did I learn?

• The first-round interview will mostly be behavioral and maybe Product Design

• Understand the culture at Microsoft which focuses on empathy and a growth mindset.

• Absolutely know your resume and be ready to explain anything on there

The First-Round Interview

Most people said it will be with a recruiter. I had a Product Manager for my first round. Here are the questions he asked:

• Tell me about yourself

• What is a challenge you had in your current PM experience?

• What is a challenge you faced?

• Asked me about a specific bullet point in my resume

• Any questions for me?

It’s funny because I prepared so many stories from my student leadership experience and used none of it. I followed up with a thank-you note.

When he asked if you have any questions this is another opportunity to shine and stand out from other interviewers. I am naturally a curious person so I am able to ask insightful questions that you couldn’t just search online. I asked specifically about his work and interactions with others at Microsoft. Remember what they said when they introduce themself in the beginning.

Final Round Preparation

5 days later, I got an email about getting into the final round. I had 2 weeks to prepare.

What I did to prepare

• I read Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella and continued to read Inspired

• I did company research and looked at Diversity reports

• I did more mock interviews with PMs and Microsoft PM interviewers

• I mastered common behavioral questions and stories that show leadership, teamwork, successes, failures/mistakes, challenges, empathy, customer obsession, and communication.

• Contacted more students who got their offer and ask about final round advice and the kind of questions they got from Product Buds and Linkedin

What I learned

• It will mostly be behavioral and product design questions. There are some rare cases of estimation, coding, system design questions.

• Some organizations will let you know who your first interviewer is a few days before the interview, my org didn’t. If they do let you know, try to find out what team or organization they are on and do research on it

Final Round

I had four 45 minute interviews, 15-minute break between each of them.

The schedule was 7:30am to 11:45pm. It first started with recruiter presentations for all the candidates that day and introductions.

General Advice

• Try to get a good icebreaker in the beginning to set a good mood. Don’t just say “I’m good” when they ask “How are you”. Share something small and personal.

• Master tell me about yourself, be a great storyteller for behavioral ones.

• Many of my mock interviews didn’t accurately reflect what I faced during the final round. Learn how to be a good PM, not a good interviewer, that will help and go a long way.

• Learn about success metrics

• Ask clarifying questions for product questions

• Ask good questions at the end of the interview. Be curious.

Thank you for reading!

I hope you found it useful, keep me updated on your PM journey on LinkedIn! I wish you the best of luck on your internship search :)