i have described my internship interview experience below, but its highly subjective and varies from college to college also depends on the team which came to interview you, so be prepared for the worst!
until 2014 only MS-IDC(Mircrosoft India Developement Center) used to visit our campus, but this year to our surprise we had both MS-IDC and MS-IT. Google to find the difference between them but pay package is same for both.
Round 1:
As usual this round was hosted on cocubes.com and comprised of 15 questions. Time alloted was 30 minutes
Topics covered: Datastructures,GeneralAptitude,C,C++,Java,OS
You must be lucky to get easy ques set, i got a somewhat difficult set thought i wouldnt clear but fortunately i cleared this round.
out of some 250 students nearly 70-80 were selected
Round 2:
This was an online coding round. Time alloted was 1 hour. Just 2 questions
- Find the sum of all nodes that are K distant away from given node in a binary tree
- Given two arrays, both are arrays of digits, replace the digits in first array with second array (optional) so that when you view the first array as a number it is the largest possible
ex: a[] = {7,5,3,1} b[]={1,9,2}
answer : a[] = {9,5,3,2} which is 9532
word of advice:
- Performing well in this round is very important. You will be ranked high based on this round and since i performed well i had chance to choose MS-IDC or MS-IT.
- Microsoft considers cumulative score of all rounds so each and every round matters
- Beleive me, the questions that my friends got was exactly the same posted recently in Geeksforgeeks Microsoft Internship Interview experience. we even discussed about it but were lethargic that we wont get the same. So check all the questions recently posted before your coding round.
Totally 25 students got selected.
Round 3: MS-IT
Since i solved both questions in coding round, myself and a few were allowed to appear for both IDC and IT. They first conducted the round for MS-IT
It was a group fly round. Question was unexpected and boring, here is it
Q: Design a railway reservation system that is futuristic and handles the disadvantages of IRCTC
They expected design, features, implementation faesibility etc.. always question your mentors what they expect from your answer. It matters a lot as they are the ones who validate your answers
Time alloted: 30 mintues
I was selected along with other 9 students.
I gave my priority as MS-IDC. So they asked me to continue further rounds in MS-IT if am not selected in MS-IDC
Round 3: MS-IDC
Group Fly round
Time alloted:30 minutes
Q: Print all the palindromes present in a string
Note:
- All those who gave DP solution were rejected.
- Optimize ur code.
- Talk to your mentors and share you solution before you write.(I could have gone wrong with my solution if i hadnt questioned him , i actually trimmed white spaces, but he said he wanted to preserve it)
- Write neat, clear code
- Dont strike and name the variables and functions properly
Around 10 were seletecd from this round
Round 4: MS-IDC
It was actually a personal interview, but since my interviewer was a higher level guy he interviewed me along with 3 others. He conducted it similar to group fly round.
Q: find an element in a row wise and column wise sorted matrix.
Once i told my approach in 5 minutes he asked me to code it. It was O(n) solution. I knew better solution exists but since he asked to code after hearing my approach i proceeded.
He kept on increasing conditions each time. Like duplicate values. etc..
I managed to answer all his questions.
Q2: Suggest a better way to ensure security during read, write, execute operations for file.
I had no idea what he was talking about :P . So i kept on asking him questions and finally he leaked the solution unknowingly :). I used that as clue and wrote my idea. It was something like blocking the process and distinguishing users.
Around 6 were selected
Round 5:MS-IDC
This was worst round i ever faced. The interviewer seemed strict. Scanned my resume. Asked some questions and finally proceeded to the question
Q: Given a sentence validate it.
He wantedly gave a vague question. As usual i kept on asking the interviewer for constraints. I realized the more I ask , the more complicated the question began. But fortunately he limited the conditions.
I told my approach and he asked me to code.
He saw my code and his reaction totally made me flabbergasted. He whined that my code was bad. Lots of if-else, etc..
i suggested improvements to whatever he said. But he seemed unsatisfied. I thought i am done, but i dont want to give up , I asked for a clue, He gave me a clue. I tried to build my solution with that. I could reach to a partial solution. He asked me to sketch my idea. It actually came in the form of automata. He asked me to map it in the form of table. I started thinking but the interviewer left the room. Tough guy!
With no effing expectation waited for results. To my surprise myself and 4 other got intern offer at MS-IDC.
so anything can happen in an interview, never lose your cool even if the interviewer acts tough. I heard that was a stress interview. In the end it only matters whether you impressed your interviewer.
All the Best.
