Windows 7 Home Premium blog your-interview-finance

My last series of postings (see the initial posts right here) had been written to support folks superior put together for his or her interview day at Microsoft. One of the feedback we obtained asked how an interview for any position outside of our core-tech roles may be unique. Since I am primarily a technical recruiter, I decided to sit down with one of my fellow Staffing Consultants, Theresa Larson, who recruits for that finance,Windows 7 Home Premium, income and marketing and advertising teams inside the Microsoft Business Division (MBD). As we were discussing the variations in between the interviews – it seemed the main difference was the absence of technical questions, such as the need to code on the whiteboard. In this posting you’ll obtain a sense of what types of questions you may perhaps encounter. For those of you interviewing for 1 of our core-tech roles, (SDE, SDET, PM, etc.), you are also asked these types of questions, so this could be helpful for you as well.Sample Questions
Here are some questions we often see asked in our sales, marketing and finance roles inside MBD. Note that some of these questions could be asked for a number of roles inside the organization and should give you some idea of what to expect and how to prepare.

Sales
It’s common to receive a organization case scenario, i.e., how would you pitch a client knowing the problem they’re dealing with. They’ll give you some information about the client, and the problem – and some information about the product. Even so – be sure to research the product ahead of time so you can offer the best solution in these cases.

Be prepared to talk about prior wins. Think about times you’ve had a difficult situation/challenge with a customer, i.e., budget constraints, you’re going against a competitor – how did you win the customer? How did you gather the information to superior position your item vs. the competitor?

Finance
Most with the roles within MBD finance are strategy focused and partner with the organization on pricing, go to market plans, competitive research, etc. Some with the questions asked could be: How would you create a finance model? Describe to me your strategy experience? How do you go about setting the financial strategy for item launches?

Marketing
Have you ever heard, “It’s all in the details?” For marketing and advertising questions, and any interview question, be prepared to obtain in to the details. Here’s a sample question and how an interviewer may perhaps drill down to obtain the details:

What was your involvement with the go to market strategy for the product? Who did you work with – i.e., finance? How did you influence the strategy? How big of a launch/how many markets? Why had been the markets chosen? How will it be sold? What kind of collateral was produced? Launch results? I hope that you find these sample questions helpful. A big thanks to Theresa for her time! -Ryan