INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

The following sample interview questions are organized by the original Microsoft competency to which they relate,
and will remain available for use until new interview questions are developed. New Career Model competencies
have been developed for all professions and career paths at Microsoft and the original Microsoft competencies have
been retired.

Action Oriented
Pursues work with energy, drive, and a strong accomplishment orientation.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time that you saw an opportunity that required immediate action or the opportunity would be
lost. What did you do?
Tell me about the most exciting breakthroughs that you ever achieved on a project or assignment. What was
involved, and why do you consider it a breakthrough?
Tell me about a project that you worked on that had an aggressive timeline. How did you proceed? What did
you do to ensure project objectives were met?
Note: Look for a high level of excitement and pride in his or her accomplishments.
Note: Look for an indication that the person did not over plan, has a good sense of timing and a bias for action,
and so on.

Building Team Spirit

Develops and maintains productive, effective, high morale teams.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the best team you've worked on. What was your contribution that helped make it a good team?
Tell me about the worst team you've worked on. What did you do to try to turn the situation around?
Tell me about a time you were responsible for getting two teams to work together. What did you do to
facilitate this? Was it effective? Why?
When has the morale of your team been the highest? Why? What did you do to create a feeling of belonging in
the team?
Note: Look for an indication that the person respected team members, pitched in, encouraged accomplishment of
goals, and so on.

Communication Skills
Writes, speaks, and presents information effectively and persuasively across communication settings.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a project in which you needed to keep others informed. How did you do this? Was it effective?
How did you know your communication was effective?
Who is the most senior and/or challenging audience that you have ever faced? What did you speak about? How
did you prepare for it? What was the outcome?
Note: Throughout the interview you will have an opportunity to evaluate the person's communication skills; the
entire interview is a behavioral sample.

Composure
Maintains a constructive and composed focus in facing and overcoming tough situations.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the last time you were extremely frustrated. Did you let others know you were frustrated? How
did you work through this frustrating situation?
Tell me about a time when you observed others getting frustrated. Were you able to do anything to get them
moving forward?
Tell me about the most serious disagreement you have ever had with a co-worker. How did you handle this?
What was the resolution?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 1 of 9

Conviction and Courage
Shows a strong sense of certainty and stands firm when appropriate.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the most adverse situation that you've ever had at work, one in which your basic beliefs about
what's right were challenged. What was the outcome?
What is the most unpopular stand you’ve ever taken at work? What was the situation? How did you handle it?
What was the outcome?
Tell me about a situation in which you took control of a project or task that was in trouble. Did you encounter
resistance? How did you handle it? What did you do to achieve a successful solution?

Creativity
Develops original ideas, approaches, and solutions to typical, unusual, or difficult situations or problems.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the most unusual or creative idea you've come up with.
What do you do to enhance your own creative thinking? How do you foster creativity in your staff? How do you
get other people to think outside the box?
Tell me about one of the most exciting breakthroughs that you recently achieved on a project or assignment.
What was involved, and why do you consider it a breakthrough?
Note: Evaluate the person's explanation for why something constituted a breakthrough (such as, was it a long-
standing problem for a client? Did the solution represent a major, creative improvement or value-add to the
client?)
What do you do to keep your ideas fresh?

Cross-Group Collaboration
Demonstrates ability to work across groups by setting mutual goals, ensuring clarity of roles, and working together
in ways which enhance business effectiveness.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when you worked with a group outside your organization to achieve a mutual goal. How
did you identify the group? What specifically did you do to enable the collaboration? What were the issues in
getting that group to cooperate? What things could have been done differently?
Tell me about a time that groups outside your organization looked to you or your team to partner on a
common goal. How did you respond? How was the idea to collaborate supported or not supported?
Tell me about a time when a partnership between groups did not work well. What were the issues that
prevented collaboration? How might better collaboration have been achieved?
Give me an example of a time when you were able to build a long-term relationship with another team that
was mutually beneficial? Specifically, what was your role in making this happen? Why was this relationship
beneficial to your team? To the other team? To the larger organization or company?

Customer Focus
Investigates and takes action to meet customers' current and future needs.

Interview Questions
Who are your customers? How do you determine their needs? How do you meet their needs?
Tell me about the last time you had an unhappy customer or set of customers. How did you handle this?
Tell me about your most difficult customer. What made the customer difficult? What did you do?
How have you anticipated changes in your customer's needs and expectations? How have you gotten data
when your customer's needs were changing?
If I were to tell you that your customer isn't happy, what specific evidence and/or data would you give me to
prove otherwise?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 2 of 9

Dealing with Ambiguity
Works effectively in situations involving uncertainty or lack of information, and responds flexibly to change.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time that you started working one way, but events dictated a change. What was the change?
What did you do? What was the outcome or result?
Describe a time when you changed your mind on an important issue, problem, or situation. What made you
decide to change? Was it difficult for you to change your position? What did you learn?
Note: Look for the person's ability to see other, sometimes opposing perspectives and use them to re-evaluate
his or her own position.
Tell me about a time that you were assigned a project that you had to complete very quickly without all the
information you needed. What did you do? What was the outcome?

Decision Making
Makes timely, practical, and cost-effective decisions, and facilitates others in doing so.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the toughest decision you've made in the last 6 months. Why was it tough? What did you
consider when making this decision? What was the outcome?
Tell me about the worst decision you've made in the last 2 years. Why do you think the decision was poor?
How would you handle it differently now?
Tell me about the best decision you've made in the last 2 years. What did you consider when making this
decision (such as relevant data)?
Tell me about the riskiest decision you've ever made. Why was it risky? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a decision that you didn't make and/or delayed or avoided making?

Developing People
Provides job-relevant learning, developmental experiences, and feedback to enhance individual performance.

Interview Questions
Tell me about one of the most high-potential people you've had an opportunity to work with. What did you do
to support the person's development?
Tell me about a time that you had to discipline an employee. What was your approach to the conversation?
What was your strategy? What was the outcome?
Note: Look for an indication that the person turned this into a learning experience.
Tell me how you have identified and developed high-potential people within your organization.
How often and how do you give feedback to your direct reports (such as, in person, e-mail, phone, and so on)?
How often do you meet with your direct reports 1:1? Who determines the content for the meeting?
Note: This question can also be asked of an employee about their manager (such as, how do you communicate
with your manager? How often? At what point do you seek out feedback?).
Tell me about a time when you had to diagnose a performance issue. What steps did you take?
Describe a time when you had to deliver tough feedback. How did you plan for it? What did you do? What was
the result?

Drive for Results

Continually focuses on achieving positive, concrete results contributing to Microsoft's business success.

Interview Questions
What results are you trying to achieve in your current position?
Note: Look for an indication that the person is clear about what his or her goals and priorities are and takes
responsibility for achieving them. Also, look for information indicating that the person defines his or her work
assignments or projects in terms of results to be achieved.
Tell me about the last time that one of your projects fell off track. How did you identify that it was off track?
What did you do to get it back on track?
How do you decide what to work on each day? How do you decide what your priorities are?
Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 3 of 9
 Tell me about an important deadline and the steps that you took to meet it.
Tell me about a complex assignment or project that you accomplished on your own. Did you initiate it? How did
you get started on it?

Fostering Diversity
Seeks out and leverages individual strengths and provides the environment to enable inclusiveness, productivity
and development.

Interview Questions
At Microsoft, it is important for managers to foster diversity. Tell me about an opportunity that you may have
had in the past to do so.
Tell me what you currently do to create an environment that’s inclusive (one that fosters diversity of opinions
and perspectives)?
Note: Listen for things that ensure dignity and respect.
Tell me about a major change that affected your organization’s culture. What did you do to help your team
understand the change? What was the impact on productivity? What did you do to facilitate the change
process?

Hiring and Staffing

Is a good judge of talent, and seeks out, sizes up, and selects the most effective people.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a bad hire that you made. Why was the person a bad hire? What did you learn?
Tell me about the last key position that you had open. How did you go about filling the position? What were
you looking for in a candidate? How long did it take you to fill it?
How do you decide when to hire for potential versus immediate results?
When you are interviewing for your group, what types of attributes would screen out a candidate immediately?
Why?

Innovation Management
Thrives on leading groups to advance technology and products.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time that you spotted a creative idea. How did you go about supporting and nurturing this
idea?
Tell me about a time that you saw that a project needed a new direction. How did you spot the need for
change? What did you do? What was the outcome?
Tell me about the last time that you were involved in bringing a new product or service to market.
Tell me how you keep your employees from getting stagnant—from getting caught up in the daily routine?
What do you do to encourage them to think outside the box?

Integrity and Trustworthiness

Behaves according to high ethical business principles and values.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when you knew, or had access to, sensitive information, and people were pressuring you
to reveal it. What would the consequences have been of divulging it? How did you handle the situation?
Tell me about a situation when it was necessary for you to have the trust of others. How did you know that
others perceived you as trustworthy?
Tell me about a time when you needed to take action or make a decision, and consideration of fairness was
important. What did you do? What was the outcome?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 4 of 9

Intellectual Horsepower
Is bright, intellectually sharp, and learns quickly.

Interview Questions
Tell me about your most intellectually challenging or difficult problem. Why was it difficult? How did you work
through it? How did it turn out?
Tell me about a time that you found someone else's program, idea, or service to be wrong or flawed. How did
you figure out that it was flawed?
Note: Get the person to clarify their thinking processes.
Tell me how you went about learning the business at your last job. What would you do to learn the business at
Microsoft?

Interpersonal Skills
Develops and maintains good working relationships with others.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when you worked with someone who had a different working style than you. Describe
your styles and how they were different. How did you handle the situation?
Tell me about a job in which working relationships were key to your success. How did you build the
relationships that you needed?

Managing Change
Recognizes the need for change and works to move people, processes and systems in the new direction.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when you had an idea that required significant change. Were you successful in driving this
change? What were the elements of your strategy that made this change successful? How did you identify
stakeholders? What was your communication plan?
Give me an example of when you had to react to a change. What did you do to manage yourself through this
change? What did you do to help others through the change?
Not all change is easily understood. Tell me about a time when you were involved in a change that was difficult
to understand. What was your role? What did you do to clarify the need for change? For yourself? For others?
Tell me about a time when you ran into resistance to change. What did you do? Were you able to overcome the
resistance? What did you learn from the experience?

Managing Systems and Processes

Effectively uses systems and processes to measure, monitor, manage, or impact performance.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a recent project that you worked on or managed and the systems and processes that you put in
place to ensure the project delivered on its objectives.
Tell me about a complex work process that you re-engineered. How was this received? How did the change
affect the overall process?
Tell me about a time that you had to manage remotely or indirectly and couldn't have hands-on interaction.
How did you accomplish this? Was it effective? Why or why not?
Tell me what you think are the most important metrics for measuring the success of your work. How do you
measure these? How do you take corrective action? How do you make adjustments?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 5 of 9

Negotiation and Conflict Management
Negotiates or mediates sound agreements in business or organizational situations where there is disagreement or
differences in interests.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time that you and an outside partner had to work together on a project and you disagreed on
what to do. How did you handle this situation? What was the outcome?
Tell me about the toughest negotiation you've been in. Why was it so tough? How did you deal with it? What
was the outcome?
Tell me about the last significant conflict that you needed to deal with. How long did the conflict continue? How
was it resolved?

Open Communications
Engages others in active, open, and productive dialogue.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a job experience that you've had when people weren't open or speaking up. Why weren't they
being open? How did you handle with this?
Tell me about an emotionally charged meeting or other situation that you have been involved in where people
had different perspectives or ideas. What did you do? What was the outcome?
Note: Look for an indication that the person encouraged everyone to express their viewpoints, showed respect for
differing viewpoints, and so on.
Note: Use the interview as a behavioral sample. Observe whether the person listens to your questions and is open
and candid in his or her responses. Also ensure that the person answers the specific question you asked and allows
you to finish the question before answering.

Organizational Agility
Understands how to get things done and achieve objectives working with others in an organizational context.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the last time that you needed to gain support for an idea or program. How did you go about
doing this?
Tell me about the last time that you had to get people in different groups to work together. How did you go
about doing this? Was it effective?
Tell me about the most difficult situation that you have experienced with a senior manager or executive. Why
was it difficult? What did you do? What was the outcome?

Planning, Organizing, and Coordinating

Efficiently develops and implements plans to accomplish goals.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a project that you had to plan, organize, and coordinate from beginning to end. Was it
successful? Give me an overview of how you planned, organized, and coordinated it. If you had it to do over,
what would you do differently?
Tell me about a project that you owned that crossed group or divisional boundaries. How did you keep the
important parties informed? What problems did you encounter (such as, in organizing resources, coordinating
schedules, and so on)? What were your solutions?
Describe your methodology for project estimation and scheduling. What strategy do you have to meet
deadlines? How do you measure progress of a project?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 6 of 9

Problem Solving
Gathers and analyzes information and uses it to develop effective solutions to difficult problems or situations.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the most difficult problem that you had to solve in the past year. Did you make this decision
alone, or did you engage others in the decision? Why did you approach it this way? What was the outcome?
Tell me about the last time that you had to escalate a problem to a higher level. What was the situation? What
actions did you take before escalating it? What was the outcome? In retrospect, how would you handle this
differently, if at all?
Tell me about a situation where your analysis of a problem crossed organizational boundaries. How did you
approach this? What was the outcome?

Representing Microsoft
Projects a positive and professional image of Microsoft in all contacts.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when someone outside your company made derogatory comments about your employer
to you. How did you handle this situation?
Tell me about a situation in which you represented your company to the public. How were you representing the
company? Was it successful? How do you know it was successful?

Self Confidence
Feels successful in past undertakings and expects to succeed in future activities.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the most assertive or dominant person that you've worked with. What was the person like? How
did you go about working with them?
What do you think you are good at? What do you wish you were better at? How are you working to improve it?
Tell me about a time when you took on what was for you a significant risk. What was the situation? How did
you determine that it was worth taking the risk? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time that you found yourself avoiding dealing with a problem or situation because you knew it
was going to be tough. What was the situation? How did you deal with it? What was the outcome?
Note: This question assesses avoidance, which is a negative predictor of self confidence.

Self Development
Actively seeks to understand his/her own strengths and weaknesses, and works continuously to improve.

Interview Questions
Tell me about a time when you received constructive negative feedback from someone. How did you handle it?
What was the outcome?
What have you done in the past year to develop your skills and abilities?
Tell me about a time you failed at something. What was the outcome?
Note: Evaluate the extent to which the person learned from the failure.

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 7 of 9

Setting Goals
Sets clear goals for self or others and assigns responsibility appropriately.

Interview Questions
Tell me about your most recent performance review. Were you successful in meeting your goals and
objectives? How do you know that you were successful?
Note: Look for an indication that the person had specific, measurable goals and objectives, regardless of who
set them.
How do you hold your employees accountable for results? How do your employees know they have succeeded
in meeting those results?
Describe a time when you had to make trade-offs to determine priorities. How did you do so? What was the
result?
Tell me about a time that you had to renegotiate your goals. What was the situation? How did you engage in
the process? What was the result?
Tell me about a time when you had to delegate an important assignment. How did you determine who received
the assignment? What steps did you take to set up the assignment?
Describe a time when a dependency on another person’s work made it difficult to achieve a goal. How did you
handle it? What was the result?

Strategic Leadership
Creates a shared purpose, vision, or direction for his/her group or organization, and inspires others to work toward
it.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the last time that you had to get a group of people energized or on-board to achieve a common
purpose or goal. What was the situation? What did you do? Was it effective?
Describe a time that you had to adjust your leadership style in order to be effective. What was the situation?
What did you do? Was it effective?
Tell me what the mission of your group or organization is. How did you communicate the mission to your
organization? How do you know that others have aligned behind the mission and are working to this end? Did
you engage others to help communicate the mission? If so, who?

Strategic Thinking
Understands the business and anticipates and develops business priorities for future action.

Interview Questions
Tell me about one of the most important business problems that you are currently facing. Why is it important?
Why is it a problem? What are you doing about it?
Note: Look for an indication that the person has a good understanding of the business of his or her group and
is thinking about what needs to be done about the problem.
What is the key business issue facing your group in the next ___ months?
Note: The timeframe here will vary by the person's level.
Tell me about a time that you, or your group, thought you had a problem but came to believe that the problem
was merely a symptom. How did you determine this? What did you do?
Note: Get the person to describe his or her thought process.
Tell me about a time that someone suggested a solution, but you believed it was only a ”quick fix”. Why did
you think this? What did you do? What was the outcome?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 8 of 9

Technical Passion and Drive
Seeks out and becomes immersed in the challenge of creating great software products that stretch technology and
empower customers.

Interview Questions
Tell me about the most interesting or exciting technical problem that you've tried to solve in the past year.
Why was it interesting or exciting to you?
Note: Look for things like drive to solve technical puzzles, willingness to break the rules of past technical
solutions, and so on.
How do you keep yourself current and abreast of technology?
Tell me about a technical project you believed in, and for which you received resistance from others. What did
you do? What was the outcome?

Sample Interview Questions Microsoft Confidential page 9 of 9