Just completed a Virtual Onsite round at Microsoft and would like to share my experience.
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn a while ago encouraging me to apply (about 3/4 weeks prior to the onsite).
The first step was to complete a 1 hr online assesement. I can't remember the specifics on this, but it was not particularly difficult. There were 1-2 leetcode easy/medium questions followed by about 10 mulitple choice questions on CS fundamentals (very reminiscent of college-type questions).
Shortly after the recruiter said I'm moving on to the virtual onsite, on a fixed date, which is a company wide hiring event. Pretty interesting and different from my previous experiences with large tech companies.
So now onto the the big day!
(Note: Due to the NDA and overall paranoia I won't post specific questions but I'll try be as helpful as possible!)
Onsite:
Round 1: This round went very well, the interviewer was extremely personable and easy to talk to. Felt like I was doing a mock interview with a close friend (I wish every interview ever was like this.) He asked a very easy array coding question, followed by some definition and CS fundamental questions.
Round 2: This round I struggled with. The interviewer was nice but not as friendly/chatty as the previous person. Asked a very common leetcode medium question, but I hadn't done that problem in a while and struggled with what should've been a very easy implementation. Dissapointed in myself, but I was able to code a working solution to the problem by the end.
Round 3: This was probably my worst round, not a direct leetcode question but still very simple straight forward solution. I messed up on this round by making an assumption at the beginning and not asking enough clarifying questions at the beginning (rookie mistake). The interviewer was also looking for a very specific implementation of the algorithm and it took me a while to get there.
Round 4: This (or the first one) was probably my best round, asked a very popular leetcode question that I've done a thousand times. Was able to give the solution extremely quickly, leaving a lot of time at the end for just a casual discussion on what the interviewer works on at MSFT.
Within a day I received a really weird message from the recruiter, saying I had very strong feedback but they were not able to find a team that has an open role for me. So it's not a full on rejection, but not an offer either, it's some middle ground. The recruiter said my profile will be floating around for 30 days and if a match is found for my skillset HR will reach out for next steps.
Has anyone else dealt with this at MSFT or another large tech company? Does this usually translate into an offer or no? I'm convinced that I'm not getting an offer, but was surprised at the quick turn around from HR, especially from such a large company like MSFT, who I assumed would take at least week to return a firm yes/no.
I'm a little frustrated because I don't like these inbetween responses, cause some closure on this would be nice, especially since everything else about the process with MSFT went so smoothly! Also not sure what the point of inviting me to an onsite was in the first place if there are not any teams interested in me.
Should I be reaching out to connections I have at microsoft to expedite this process? Honestly not sure what to do besides treating this as a rejection and moving on to the next company.
TLDR: Got a maybe (?) from MSFT saying that there are no current openings for my skillset, but they'll be looking around for the next 30 days for an opening.
UPDATE: My recruiter was not able to find a team for me, and thus no offer was extended. I am a little dissapointed with my recruiter as I did not have even a single hiring manager call/interview. I tried to be in constant contact with my recruiter, even finding managers on LinkedIn that were hiring for various teams across MSFT but no calls were ever setup with my recruiter.