[kettlecorn]

A massive issue with Microsoft's college recruiting pipeline (this may not apply to you) is that college hires are placed pretty much arbitrarily without input from the hire themselves.

People interested in backend work get placed on frontend, people interested in frontend work get placed on backend. As a result, retention for Microsoft college hires is rather poor. Contrast this with Google where once you're selected you're often given a choice of a few teams and you can indicate your preference.

[jrbancel]

I have had the exact opposite experience.

The first thing I was asked when I interviewed with Microsoft was what I wanted to do and what I wanted to avoid. I said, no frontend, something related to distributed systems and they put me up for interviews with an Azure team.

With Google, it was like "interview first, accept the offer before knowing where you are going to be placed, and we will put you in some team".

[kettlecorn]

These are good anecdotes to share. A few years ago when I was a Microsoft college hire I got my impression from gathering anecdotes from others, but maybe it's better now!

Google absolutely has the problem you described and I forgot to mention it in my prior comment. With Google you have no clue what team you'll be on when you're evaluating the offer, but once you've accepted the offer you're given more choice with regards to placement.

[cbanek]

That's a really interesting comparison. I've worked at Microsoft and got an offer from Google and found the opposite to be true. I was first offered by the team I interned with, whom I liked, and accepted, so I knew where I was going.

On the Google case, even being an industry hire, it was like pulling teeth to figure out where the offer actually was, and who I would be working for, and being able to actually speak with them (as your manager is key to success). I was also told during the interview that they just interview you in general at Google, not for a particular team, which was also unsettling.

[kettlecorn]

What you say is completely true. If you were an intern at Microsoft you can be pretty sure you're returning to that team (unless there's a reorganization). With Google you have no idea what team you'll end up on when you're evaluating an offer.

However, once you accept a Google offer you're given more choice as to what team you'll be on. With Microsoft (if you weren't a returning intern) you're given very little to no choice and it can be quite arbitrary where you end up.

Certainly both of these systems have massive flaws, but I think the Microsoft system would lead to far lower retention for non-intern college hires.

[cbHXBY1D]

Sort of true. You get accepted to a division at Microsoft (as a new grad) and if there's headcount on multiple teams for someone of your level you can choose between them. A lot of the time there's only one team that is willing to take on a junior engineer.

[rjbwork]

This is what I was told when I interviewed with Microsoft... Day of they said "you're interviewing with the SQL Server team" and I was like wtf...

[metaobject]

I worked full time as a software engineer before I finished my CS degree, but I wasn't really happy with my situation and wanted to do something else. As I was interviewing with companies through the my university's Career Services department, I recall being complimented by several interviewers on how specific I was regarding my goals and desired position. I wanted to work on a specific OS/platform with specific languages.

I guess I was lucky because I'd already had relevant experience, so I knew exactly what I did and did not want to do. Luckily, the offer I went with was up-front and I ended up doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Playing devils advocate, could it be a lack of experience that is the issue with new hires?