As this was my first big interview, the experience felt like a whirlwind.

I was notified a week to the day before my interview at Microsoft's Redmond Campus. I had made it past the first on-campus interview two weeks prior. I was asked to implement a C function that searches a string within a source string ("strstr() "). I didn't have much time to review, needless to say.

I flew into Seattle a day before the interview. That night, there was a networking event where we got to meet with our recruiters and even talk with some of the interviewers.

The interview process was quite extensive. I had four interviews, each 45 minutes long, with 15-minute breaks between them. The questions ranged from implementing basic data structures on a whiteboard (I was asked to make a Linked List) to some logic problems in my last interview. They even asked me to implement the classic Fizz Buzz function (Google it, or Bing it).

I was also asked some basic relational database questions regarding foreign keys and primary keys. I felt unprepared and consequently psyched myself out somewhat.

After the interview, a reviewer will notify you if you have a job offer or not. They will also go over how you did and what you could improve on your resume or skill set. They did a wonderful job and were incredibly professional throughout the process.

Here are some tips:

• Get some sleep.
• Try to relax during the interview.
• Don't over-optimize your code until after you're done. I did this on at least two occasions and overlooked some obvious things in my code because I was nervous.
• Be comfortable with writing on a whiteboard in at least two languages: one system language (C) and one object-oriented language (Java, C++, C#).
• Review your database concepts too if you are familiar with them.
• Finally, and most importantly, be yourself. They are more interested in how you think and approach a problem.

Hope this helped some soon-to-be college graduates out there! Good luck.

Implement a Linked List in (Java, C#, C++)