The MSP Interview - A Thrilling Experience

Since the time I attended the Windows 10 launch event at Microsoft Indian Ocean Island I wanted to become a Microsoft Student Partner. While being at the event, I could feel the bond that makes them a family, one sharing common goals, interest, passion and the will to promote Microsoft’s services. It overwhelmed me so much so that I went forward and applied to be one of them. Then last week an e-mail from MSP Mauritius surprised me,  I was invited for an interview at Microsoft IOI premises. Needless to say I was elated at peek and I began instantly to ponder and think about the interview. Oh and the e-mail also mentioned that I’ll be required to participate in small activities.

Thinking that they might test my programming skills during the interview and activities, I started revising the main programming concepts and terminologies especially those of C# since its Microsoft’s flagship language. I did this for two days and then came the day of the interview.

The interview was scheduled for 9:00 A.M and having the regular religious activities I usually have on Saturdays I had to wake up at 6, left home at 6;45 to do those activities and hop in bus at around 8:20.

I arrived in-front of Dias Pier building at around 8:35 and waited outside. Then some minutes later, two girls came waiting by my side but it’s until some time later that I realised that they too were waiting for the same reason as I am. A bit uneasily, I asked them about it and the answer was yes.

The Clock ticked 8:50 and I started toward the building entrance where it’s labelled “bureau” hoping that the others, the two girls and two other boys which came later would follow me. They did and shortly we found ourselves surrounded by other other people in the entrance hall. We were a total of 9. We had to wait for around 10 minutes in the hall until one MSP came to guide us through the elevator to Microsoft’s premises on the 7th floor. After a little while other students came in so we were around 20 in the conference room in total.

The event started when another MSP came to introduce today’s programme. Five minutes for an individual interview, ten minutes for preparing a topic about a recently announced or launched tech product and five minutes for presenting the topic before everyone.

We went for the interview turn-by-turn. While waiting for mine I took the opportunity to talk to the students beside and in-front of me and then there is this girl sitting to my left, whom I met in the entrance hall. We became very friendly since compared to the others who came along with their friends we both came all alone. We had a quick talk about recent Microsoft products such as the newly launched Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 XL and Microsoft Surface book.

The first Microsoft Student Partner candidate which came before us was a girl and presented the Lumia 950. “Ah I wish I had got this topic” though I. My turn for the interview finally came when the fourth or fifth candidate was presenting. Adrenaline rose through me as I stand on my feet and feel them moving as I exit the conference room and enter a small one with a funny label on its door.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I realised that my interviewers are two other MSPs not some high officials from Microsoft. They began by asking me about my carrier how I started and I began narrating to them the story of a 8 years old boy who hated computing until he got his first computer and how that boy grew up to become me, a computer science passionate. I felt happy for my responses after the interview and went back to the conference room.

About 45 minutes later, another MSP called me from the room to hand me the topics which I will have to present which was about Blocks, a modular smartwatch. “Heck! someone just did that a while ago. They must be out of topic” I thought. Anyway, Keeping aside my frustration I sat down and began preparing some notes about the topic using my Microsoft labelled pen.

My 10 minutes time went so fast, fortunately I did finished in time and was ready for the presentation. I found myself standing in front of everyone, stressed a little bit so I took a deep breath and started: “Do we have anyone wearing a watch? Please raise your hand.” Some did and I continued “Imagine if your watch could do more…”

Regards,

Cédric