The first step to getting a job at Microsoft – or anywhere for that matter – is to figure out where you fit. Start by asking yourself these questions:

Where do I want to work? While we’re headquartered in the Seattle area, Microsoft is a global company, and our career opportunities span the globe. Begin your search by visiting our Careers Site and selecting the region or country where you want to work (not necessarily where you live now). In the US alone, we have offices in almost every major city – with major development and support centers in Seattle, Silicon Valley, Fargo, Boston, Dallas, and Charlotte.

What do I want to do? We’ve got lots of career paths to choose from, and once you’re here, we invite you to explore as many as possible. But the hard part is choosing where you want to start. If you’re currently a software developer, you might be a program manager, developer, tester, or architect here. And that’s just one example! Great places to meet employees and learn about their jobs – especially in technical careers –are Microspotting and View<myWorld> - and, of course, JobsBlog's Job Hunting posts.

What do I want to create? Systems, servers, hardware, home entertainment, online services, business software, developer & designer tools … These are just a few technologies and products we create. Whether you work in development, sales, marketing, or finance, you directly affect our products and customers – and it’s important to have passion around what you create. To get an overview of a few of major business divisions, check out View<myWorld> and find out what the acronyms Corp R&D, E&D, MBD, PSD, and STB mean to us. 

Get started with a few of our favorite posts:

Can I get a job at MS without a degree?

How do I get a recruiter?

Get your name out there

How much does GPA matter?

'Softie in Question: Jeremy Tillman

Job title: SDE, Home & Small Business Server

How did you come to arrive at Microsoft?
I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana. Back in ‘99, when I was in about 8th grade, my brother brought home a Gateway computer in that black & white “cow box.” It had a whole 7 gigs of storage and that nice little AOL Internet package. I was the first person on my street with a personal computer.

Everybody on the block started coming to me for computer advice. If you needed t-shirts made, business cards, tickets – I did it all. When Yahoo! Chat was hot, everybody used to come to the house and try to play around on it.

My sister worked at a medical office and soon I was helping to set up their network. After high school graduation, I worked for the school board and created a database to organize all of their building blue prints.

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This is a cross-post from Bing Search Blog.

Starting today, Bing will be participating in full force at what’s shaping up to be another stellar SMX West (March 2-4, Santa Clara CA). Every SMX show is a special one for Bing. But this one is super special for one reason – we’re bringing Steve Ballmer! 

This is Steve’s first ever conversation with the search community at an industry event. Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land and co-chair of SMX, sits down with Steve to discuss Microsoft’s commitment to search and how Bing is working to evolve the search experience. 

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About to graduate or just out of school? Poor job prospects and national economic woes got you down?

Never fear... help is on the way. Call it a bailout for recent college grads.

Today, Microsoft joined 15 other companies in the Invest In America Alliance, a national commitment to increase recent college grad hires. This shot in the arm for recent grad employment levels will result in 10,000 new college grad hires among the 15 participating companies and aims to push grad employment back over 2009 levels.

Have we piqued your interest?

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It’s no secret that there are a lot of people out of work these days. What you may not have known is that the national unemployment rate has a direct effect on everyone looking for a job.

Companies are inundated with resumes, many from people who aren’t necessarily qualified for—or even interested in—the position for which they’re applying. This has been not only my personal experience, but I’ve also heard similar reports from many of my peers regarding the sheer volume of resumes landing in our inboxes.

So how do you highlight the right skills on your resume to stand out, especially given the current quantity of resumes recruiters are sifting through? 

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This post is courtesy of Bing Jobs Blog:

I’m a big Top Chef fan and I love to cook, but I don’t really consider myself a “Foodie.” There are too many concepts I'm totally ignorant of that are old news to most Foodies. For instance, the whole concept of deconstructed cooking was foreign to me until started watching the show.

Given the large number of ingredients Microsoft uses to create our online services, I thought it would be fun to look at some of the main groups that combine to deliver Bing, courtesy of our OSD Career Site:

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Dear JobsBlog: I have a computer engineering degree and several awards, distinctions, and honors. However, I did not attend a bigger college on the east/west coast. How do I get a Microsoft recruiter to look at my resume?

-Under the Radar

I’ve asked Alicia, a fellow recruiter from our U.S. University Team, to help answer your question.
-Janelle

Dear Under the Radar: Microsoft has always made it their business to hire the best and brightest students, regardless of what university they attended. We know that students choose universities based on many factors like location, cost, size, urbanization, program standings and, of course, reputation. That means that incredibly smart people are everywhere, not just at the Ivies.

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Hi everyone - It's been a while since I've given you an update about our international recruiting efforts so I wanted to let you know the latest.

For candidates interested in positions outside of the US, we have offices, development centers, product groups, and innovation centers around the world working on exciting projects. This includes internships for university students and entry level sales, marketing, and development roles for recent graduates, all the way up to senior level opportunities in many different roles. 

Right now, I’m recruiting for or will be recruiting very soon for Development Managers, Test Managers, Developers, Developers in Test, and Program Manager positions across Europe in locations such as Copenhagen, London, Oslo, Dublin, and Paris.  My counterparts on the International Recruiting team are also looking for top talent from around the world.

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We have a new JobsBlogger! Alison is the morning concierge in our “Experience Microsoft” candidate lobby at our headquarters in Redmond, WA, greeting candidates before their interviews and helping them plan their local itineraries while visiting the area.  She also manages several communications, including JobsBlog, the monthly U.S. Careers newsletter, and the weekly intern and new hire newsletter. Alison plans to use her on-the-job experiences to share information on JobsBlog ... like info about Seattle, the Microsoft campus and interesting interviewee questions.

And now, in her own words:

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Today's guest post is from Microsoft's Student Audience Marketing digital team, a group who reaches out to all students who use and are interested in Microsoft products and technologies - not just those who want to work here. The team manages our student digital outreach efforts such as the Microsoft Student Experience site,  Microsoft Student Lounge site, Microsoft Student Facebook and Twitter sites, and Mobile Student Experience site. They engage students through social causes, videos, and content that spans from career to learning to fun stuff to software and technology.

Hi all,
I’m Amy – I've been with Microsoft over 10 years but have a unique work history here.  About 4 years ago, I left to be a “bigger fish in a smaller pond” (so to speak) but realized that my heart and passion is with Microsoft.  So, after 6 months of being away, I interviewed with Microsoft and was re-hired.  

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You may have heard about our plans to open Microsoft retail stores in cities around the world. Well, I know a lot of you have heard because the JobsBloggers have been getting peppered with questions. :)

We’ve recently announced our first two stores in Scottsdale, AZ and Mission Viejo, CA. And we’re now hiring!

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You may be wondering where Gretchen, Angela and I have been the last few months. We know it's been awfully quiet around here.

Well, we’ve been immersed with a few large recruiting projects that we can proudly say have successfully shipped!  One of the projects is Microsoft’s new global careers site.

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In a phone interview during my last job hunt, an interviewer (not at Microsoft) asked me if I had a Facebook account. Since we weren’t meeting in person, he wanted to put a face with the name.

It made sense that he would want a visual, but my heart sunk when I thought about what he might see: “Am I holding a martini glass in my profile picture? Did I set my birthday party photos to private? Will he be able to access the outlandish comments friends post on my wall?”

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As most of you know by now, there are thousands of job postings on the Microsoft Careers site. It can be more than overwhelming to look through all of them and find just the right one.

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All the hubbub lately about Twitter (Google acquisition? No acquisition? – Originally read through Scoble) has made me a bit curious about the new trends in social media.

Heck, even Mini-Microsoft (the mystery Microsoft blogger) started Twittering, so you know it’s time to start paying attention!

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People interested in working at Microsoft often contact me (and other recruiters, I’m sure) through LinkedIn. For me, this and other social networking sites are a great way for recruiters and candidates to connect, and I’ve made some great hires for Microsoft by using LinkedIn.

But when you reach out to recruiters online, it’s not the same as adding old high school friends on Facebook. Here are some tips for contacting recruiters on social networking sites:

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Dear JobsBlog: After working for 9+ years as a technical lead, I am now considering a change in career path and am seriously considering the Program Manager role. I work at a start-up and wear multiple hats like meeting customers, working with development teams, managing schedules, resource planning and risk analysis. I read the Zen of PM article, and I think I do some of it.

 I can see it is quite possible for someone from within Microsoft to change gears from SDE or SDET roles to a PM role. Do you see that happening to someone from outside? Do you have any specific advice for me in this regard -- like to get my resume noticed, given that I am coming from a dev background?

-Pondering PM

Dear Pondering PM:  Program Management isn’t a consistent discipline across the technical industry, and as Steven Sinofsky blogged, “PM is unique to Microsoft and I think it is fair to say this is a role that is often copied but never duplicated.” The good news is, when hiring from outside Microsoft, we rarely interview people who have already been PMs because, well, there just aren’t many!

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Looking for a new job can be overwhelming – especially if you haven't been in the job market, or even updated your resume, in years. With more folks looking and opportunities seemingly shrinking, I thought it was a good time to list the places where I start my search for candidates in the hopes of giving you a few ideas. Of course, the most important factors remain a well-written resume and effective leveraging of your networking opportunities. But as for where you want to start, here's where I look:

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As you know from a previous blog post, we are currently revamping our careers site, and we asked what you would change about the site. Those suggestions will be an integral part of the improvements we make, and we’ve since come up with another topic we’d like your opinion on: Job titles on careers site postings!

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Dear JobsBlog: If I take a job where I get unrelated experience will it make me a less-desirable candidate?

-Tangent Torn

Dear Tangent Torn: My advice in your case -- as it often is -- is subjective based on the situation. In an ideal world, taking a position with unrelated experience shouldn’t affect the experience you’ve previously obtained, or a recruiter’s perception of that experience. But, like anything, it all depends on the eye of the beholder.

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Dear JobsBlog: I am having trouble defining whether I am a college candidate or an experienced candidate, as I only have 18 months of experience. I am not sure if I should be considered "experienced” when the pool of experienced candidates may have experience ranging from 13 months to 10+ years.

-In-Between Experience

Dear In-Between Experience: Yes, you are an experienced candidate. At Microsoft in the United States, we break out our candidate types into two categories: college or experienced. A college candidate is anyone currently enrolled in a university program regardless of professional experience or anyone who has received a degree within the last year. This not only includes full-time students pursuing their bachelor’s but also candidates who are pursuing their master’s or doctorate. An experienced candidate is anyone with one or more years of experience and is not currently enrolled in a full-time university program. 

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