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Securing a job in a tech giant like Microsoft is a dream for many aspiring professionals. However, the Microsoft interview process can be pretty challenging, with technical and behavioural questions designed to assess your skills and fit for the company culture. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve deep into some common Microsoft interview questions and provide sample answers to help you prepare for your next Microsoft interview.
This Blog Includes:
- List of Top 7 Microsoft Interview Questions with Sample Answers
- Q1: Tell me about yourself and your background.
- Q 2: Why do you want to work at Microsoft?
- Q 3: How would you approach solving a complex technical problem that you have never encountered before?
- Q 4: How would you handle a situation where a customer is dissatisfied with a Microsoft product or service?
- Q 5: How do you handle errors and exceptions in your code?
- Q 6: Explain the difference between an array and a linked list.
- Q 7: Share an example of a complex problem you encountered and how you approached solving it.
- FAQs
Also Read: 7 Tips to Answer “What makes you unique?”
List of Top 7 Microsoft Interview Questions with Sample Answers
Read through to get your hands on the top 7 Microsoft Interview Questions with Sample Answers.
Q1: Tell me about yourself and your background.
The interviewer asks this question to understand your professional and educational history in your own words. This is an effective approach to learning about any career or educational gaps that you might have taken. Along with this, if your interviewer could not go through your resume before the interview, then, this gives him the opportunity to know about your profile effectively. To introduce yourself, you may go like this:
| “I have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from XYZ University and have worked for five years as a software engineer at ABC Inc. During my tenure, I specialized in building scalable web applications and honed my skills in Java and JavaScript.” |
Also Read: Importance of Soft Skills for Career Growth
Q 2: Why do you want to work at Microsoft?
This question aims to understand your interest in the company and whether your career goals and aspirations align with the company’s long-term goals. Speak of the company’s values that you like the most and how it will help you get a desired pathway in your career. You may answer this question like this:
| “I’m drawn to Microsoft’s commitment to innovation and its impact on the tech industry. I want to contribute to its mission of empowering individuals and organizations worldwide.” |
Also Read: Top Technical Skills to Enhance Your Resume
Q 3: How would you approach solving a complex technical problem that you have never encountered before?
Demonstrate your approach to solving the technical problems presented to you. Here, the interviewer is seeking your personal as well as professional elements of approaching a critical problem. You may answer this question like this:
| “My first step towards solving a never-before-asked problem is to understand the problem to the core. I understand all the elements of the problems and methods that can be used to target them. After that, I proceed to solve the given problem in a very systematic way. Once I decompose a problem in the right manner, I research and brainstorm to find solutions for it.” |
Also Read: How to Answer, “What Can you Bring to the Company?”
Q 4: How would you handle a situation where a customer is dissatisfied with a Microsoft product or service?
Explain your approach to empathizing with the customer, actively listening to their concerns, and proposing solutions. Highlight your commitment to ensuring customer satisfaction. You may go like this:
| “I aim to deliver user-friendly products which can potentially serve specific user needs. However, in case a customer is dissatisfied with the service, I would want to know what is it that hampered their overall user journey and work to smoothen that graph to enable a good customer-company relation.” |
Also Read: Strength and Weakness in Job Interviews 2023
Q 5: How do you handle errors and exceptions in your code?
To answer this Microsoft interview question, you must have a clear understanding of where you commit mistakes often. Understanding your own mistakes will give you a chance to improve on key areas in which you are weak. Here, to answer this, you can discuss your approach to using try-catch blocks or other error-handling mechanisms to gracefully handle exceptions, log errors, and maintain code reliability. You may go like this:
| “I handle errors and exceptions in my code by using try-catch blocks, specific exception handling, logging, providing clear error messages, designing for graceful degradation, thorough testing, proper resource management, custom exceptions when needed, documentation, and continuous self-improvement. I realize that practice is the key to success, so I keep on practising coding in my free time as it is also my favourite pastime activity.” |
Also Read: How to Answer “Do You Prefer Working Independently or in a Team” in an Interview?
Q 6: Explain the difference between an array and a linked list.
What an interview if you do not get asked a technical question! Use your technical knowledge to answer this question. Remember to be as specific as possible while answering this question and do not beat around the bush. To answer this question, you may go like this:
| “Arrays are contiguous blocks of memory, while linked lists consist of nodes connected by pointers. I would choose an array for fast random access and a linked list for efficient insertions and deletions. The array takes more time than the linked lists to perform any operation such as “deletion” and “insertion”. While elements can be accessed in an array faster than the linked lists. This is because the array accesses certain elements using the index.” |
Also Read: Top Negotiation Skills for Professionals
Share any real-life experience from your professional experience and share your tactics for solving it. You may go like this:
| “I once encountered a critical bug in our production system. I followed a structured approach by identifying the root cause, proposing a fix, and rigorously testing it to ensure it didn’t introduce new issues.” |
Also Read: How to Answer, ‘Do You Consider Yourself Successful” in an Interview?
FAQs
Ans: As per the review from seasoned professionals and Microsoft interview participants, the Microsoft interview is considered to be one of the toughest interviews in the technical domain. Candidates need to hold a strong ground in their theoretical and practical concepts to be able to answer the questions in the Microsoft interview.
Ans: The Microsoft interview questions, like any other interview, begin with a question on the self-introduction about the candidate. The interviewer may also ask a few personality-based questions to understand the interviewee’s take on dealing with stress and challenges. However, the most dreaded part among the interviewees remains the technical question part of the Microsoft interview. The interviewer may ask about anything from theoretical concepts to writing codes for a new product or a recent trend.
Ans: To prepare well for the Microsoft interview, you may strengthen your knowledge of concepts like data structures, algorithms, and coding. You may also practice from the real questions asked in the Microsoft interview. You can look for such questions on the relevant job posting sites. On these sites, interviewees share their real experiences and if you are lucky, you may also find some direct questions asked in the Microsoft interview so you can prepare similar questions before your interview.
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This was all about the top 7 Microsoft interview questions with sample answers and tips on answering each question. For more such interesting content and some of the best tips on interview preparation, visit our career counselling and follow Leverage Edu.
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