03/13/2017
Reading: 微软面试心得(On Microsoft Technical Interview)
Time: 30minutes
Total time: 16hr 20min
Reflection:
Reading through the hard-core microsoft technical interview process, from written assessment, to phone interviews and in-person-interviews. There are so many things that I can learn from the process. 
First, the written assessments are aimed for general applicants, trying to avoid edge-programming cases and using difficult words that Chinese applicants may have hard time understanding. 
Secondly, they penalize wrong answers. I think this is a very interesting and better design. I have been thinking about this grading scheme since my Linear Algebra teacher does that for the True-or-False questions. When I do those in the midterm or quiz, I have to weigh my confidence on my understanding which is something I seldom consciously think of. In addition, it is a good filter of the normies and 10x. 
Third, there is a huge score difference between getting 75% right and 90% right. Mediocrity is severely penalized. 
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In the interviews, the hard-core interviewers do take many things into consideration(obviously technical expertise is a major major one). For instance, if you know an interview question beforehand and “fake” thinking about it. It is very bad. A good approach will be trying to dive deeper into the problem or at least tell the interviewer. 
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I am so surprised by the level of intelligence and competition in the hiring process, at least at the hard-core level(I do assume there are bad interview processes in MS). I have learned quite a lot from this and feel motivated to push myself to be a better person.