Found job on Microsoft.com. Applied with a referral from a current Microsoft employee (this makes a Big difference in your paper read - referrals generally go direct to the hiring manager; HR/recruiting are basically managing logistics in the hiring process assigned recruiter will screen to confirm info on resume, your confidence and verbal presentation skiills over-the-phone and compensation expectations. If you make initial cut and are invited to interview, your interview loop will be a 1-day event with 4-5 individual meetings of 30 - 60 minutes each. You will hear the result usually within a week. I was pressured to take a lower salary with a hiring bonus to meet my minimum total compensation target. I guess the idea was we want you, but you are going to have to prove you can perform in Microsoft. I was hired, conditional upon a background check which took 6-weeks for some reason. A start date was established. I showed up for employee orientation (all day class) completed all new-hire paperwork. Showed up at my work location the next day. No one was expecting me! No computer, no office, and the manager I had been hired by had been promoted. I was assigned to one of his new direct reports (hired from within while I was waiting for background check to clear). So, I was placed in a shared office, 2 layers lower in the org chart than I had interviewed for. There were many apologies, I was told my role was the same, just new managment structure and that I could choose who I wanted to work for over the next 2-months. I all worked out in the end, but not a good onboarding expereince.