Everything you need to know about the Microsoft Explore internship

hi everyone welcome to or welcome back

to my channel i'm laura and today's

video will be all about the microsoft

explorer internship

i know a lot of underclassmen are really

interested in getting internships but

they have a really difficult time

because they're compared against juniors

and seniors for the exact same positions

however there are a handful of companies

out there that do have underclassmen

civic internships

for you freshmen and sophomores and

microsoft is one of them

the explore program is intended for

first and secondary students to explore

both the software engineering path

and the product management path so go

ahead and keep watching if you want to

learn more about the explore program and

also my experience a disclaimer that i

want to put out though is i don't claim

to represent all of microsoft

nor any of its subsidiaries and i don't

claim to be a part of the official

microsoft recruiting program or the

official internship program

so some background i was an explorer

intern this summer

2020 at microsoft and i had a really

good time

specifically i was under azure data as

my org or organization

and the general umbrella of cloud and ai

is where my team falls

generally if you're looking at a role in

azure you're going to be looking at

cloud and ai

i had a great time despite everything

that was going on due to kovid

so i applied on a whim early september

2019 and i never really thought anything

more of it

microsoft was just one of those

companies my ever growing list of places

to apply for

shout out to all the github repos out

there that link together tons and tons

of internship applications

i applied for both the explore program

and the general software engineering

role

you can apply for multiple roles at

microsoft so you can apply for explore

product management and software

engineering internships

and your local recruiter or your

university recruiter will go ahead and

look at your applications

and decide which one to move you forward

with this means though that once you've

gotten into the interview process for

one of these programs

you can actually re-interview for a

different role during that same

application cycle

so with my application i was moved

forward in the explore program pool

because i was a sophomore

and i had my first run interview the

first week of october

i was probably asked to schedule an

interview around three weeks after i

applied

and i scheduled my first my interview

for the next week so the first week of

october

this also happened to be a week where i

was at the grace hopper conference

though

and my interview specifically was right

after we'd gone to the hotel so i was

partaking in this interview sitting on

the couch

in the dark dim hotel light while

everyone else around me was unpacking

and chatting it up about grace hopper

and the conference

so my first time interview which is a 30

minute phone call but the interview

actually caught me a little bit off

guard despite doing some online research

prior to the interview it wasn't

incredibly technical and i won't divulge

exactly what goes on these interviews

because again it is supposed to be

secret

and no candidate should have any prior

information or advantage going to these

interviews

but the one thing i do want to highlight

is that it really required clear

communication

and knowledge about technical things for

my interview i didn't have to do any

actual programming

but i did have to start explaining

technical concepts and know how to break

these things down

fortunately despite all my nerves i

received a notice only two hours later

that i was moving on to the second and

final round

and that i was going to be thrown out to

redmond washington where the microsoft

headquarters is

typically if you're in the final round

stages companies like to invite you on

site if they have the funds to do so

just so you can interact with different

teams and members of the company

but some companies also just may not

have the bandwidth to do that if you

aren't graduating soon though

i'd highly recommend partaking in these

kinds of interviews it actually helps

you see what the campus is like and if

you like working in the surrounding city

living there full time et cetera so

there are a lot of hidden benefits about

being flown out to a company

besides the perks of actually being

flown out taking time off school

stuff like that i scheduled my interview

for the third week of november i heard

that explorer positions particularly

fill up pretty fast because they only

have a few hundred spots

so i wanted to schedule my interview as

soon as possible and the only next

available spot was that week of november

i was pretty nervous for this interview

because it was only my second ever final

one interview

and i didn't really know what to expect

also who was i some

random student coming from a state

school that never had any background in

computer science doing interviewing at a

place like microsoft

if this sounds like you then welcome to

the world of imposter syndrome more on

that later though

i was flown out to redmond and placed a

nearby hotel and i think i stayed there

for maybe two nights

i was really nervous leading up to the

interview and i did some light

programming practice

just going through some easy questions

to help build my confidence so once i

got to the interview site i was actually

pretty shocked about the representation

of students

from different schools compared to

another fine art interview that i had

done earlier that month

there was actually people from different

schools from across the country

not just a handful of cherry pick

schools

so i only had two interviews during my

final round and there were 45 minutes

back to back

one of them was a traditional technical

interview and one of them was more

product focused so asking us to design

and implement something

and describe the underlying structures

we'd use to implement that feature

i believe in earlier years there were

three to four interviews but starting

the recruiting year of 2020 they cut the

interviews down to two so if you're

recruiting online you'll just have two

45-minute interviews back-to-back

one of the great things about

interviewing on campus though and

on-site is that you get to meet tons of

other people

that are in the same situation as you in

interviewing after my interviews i

actually went out to dinner with some of

the other interviewees that i met and we

kind of just discussed everything that

happened

the interview process and any mistakes

or qualms that we had with our

interviewers

and with that that was kind of the end

of my interview experience and i was

thrown back to

my school i spent the next weeks kind of

sitting around doing

nothing honestly after my interviews i

spent the next couple weeks thinking

there's absolutely no way i'm getting an

offer i haven't heard back yet etc etc

kind of all the traditional doom and

gloom that you would expect however one

fateful day

i got an email saying that i was

accepted to the program and i was

ecstatic

so once you've been given an offer from

a company like microsoft you

traditionally have two weeks

to accept and sign your offer this is

not a hard and fast rule though because

sometimes schools have these deadline

restrictions where a company can't force

you to actually sign an offer before a

given date for some schools it's

october 1st others november 1st you'll

have to check in with your school's

career center to see if your school has

one of these policies

and also what the specific date is with

all that said i ended up accepting my

offer

around the second week of december

little did i know

covered was going to happen and the

world was going to go to but let's

think about the positive all right let's

talk about onboarding

so every intern's favorite time is the

time between accepting your offer

and the weirdly long time between you

actually get to start interning

traditionally when it's just a status

quo and there's nothing interesting

happening like a pandemic going on

onboarding will be pretty quiet for you

you'll receive maybe a few documents

here and there to sign and also setting

your start date

but until you get maybe a month or two

out you actually

really won't hear anything from the

recruiting team so just sit tight

you honestly won't even find out about

your team until maybe a month or even

the day of

as some interns have reported so again

don't panic and don't stress

you will receive a background check

about eight to twelve weeks before you

start and you'll also get contacted by

what's called a business

admin you set up an address for where to

ship your equipment again

due to it being remote right now so in

terms of what equipment i actually

received from my

business admin i received one thinkpad

laptop one lenovo monitor that had a

nice stand so it could be used as a

vertical monitor

or horizontal monitor and i believe this

monitor was around 27

inches wide i also received a docking

station so i could connect my laptop and

all these external peripherals

to that docking station instead of

having a mess of cables and wires coming

from my laptop

and then i also received a keyboard a

mouse

and a pretty simple headset but if you

also need anything additional or if

those can suit your needs for whatever

reason

you can always ask your business admin

for more equipment

if needed again you'll be put back into

radio silence after these action items

have been completed

maybe until a month or even a week

before your internship

for me my manager reached out about a

month before the internship started to

introduce me to my mentors and also the

explorer podmates that i'd be working

with i'll go into a little bit more

depth about the explorer pod mates in

the next section about during the

internship

i also found out about my team at this

point that i was going to be on the sql

server tools and experiences team which

really didn't mean anything to me

but it helped set up a reference point

of oh sql

databases stuff like that so i didn't

have to actually learn anything

prior to my internship i was definitely

eager to

try and start learning and i asked my

manager hey is there anything that you

want us to learn

she suggested some things that might be

nice but they weren't really necessary

at all

and i also didn't really end up learning

much of it before my internship

i also didn't really interact with my

mentor prior to my internship either

so again don't feel any obligation or

pressure to set up

that connection before your internship

even starts the weeks of your internship

are where that connection is actually

supposed to be built

and where you actually have something

concrete to talk about these people with

so the best advice that i can give is

just to type and if you really do want

to learn

then you can acquire but there's no

expectation or obligation for you to do

so

it's also entirely dependent on your

manager and your mentor and when they

actually reach out and when you can find

your team out again some interns don't

hear until the day of or the week of

and some people get a nice head start

like i did all right so let's talk about

the most interesting part which is

during the internship during the section

i'll use sui

as an acronym for software engineering

just because it's a lot less wealthy to

say

and i'll use pm as an action for product

management here are the basics of the

explorer program

you'll be split up into doing x weeks of

software engineering work and why weeks

or product management work the exact

breakdown will depend on your team

and what your manager wants out of each

of you explorer interns

so you'll be working with two other

interns that typically start and end at

the same exact time as you

your primary objective as an explorer

intern is to network and also to really

learn

and learn how to grow you will have a

project assigned to the three of you

and you'll definitely learn a lot about

working on an intern project working in

a group

working with other interns and

presenting and being proud of your work

you're not necessarily always expected

to deliver on the project but it really

is icy on the cake if you do manage to

finish and present fully about all

aspects of your project

each of you also be assigned a mentor

who may be a software engineer who may

be a pm

this really just depends on what team

you're placed on and who your manager is

now i'll go on to describe my specific

experience so the specific team that i

was placed on was the pm side of the

team

and all the mentors that we were

assigned to as explorer interns were

product managers depending on where your

place you may have all software

engineering

mentors or you may have a mix of a pm

mentor for half your internship

and a software engineering mentor for

the other half of your internship the

project that you're given should be

appropriately scoped

and you also may have a choice to choose

projects my manager gave us a choice to

choose between two different projects

and we ended up selecting the one that

we selected just because it sounded more

interesting there's

generally a lower bar for your explorer

project than there is a traditional

software engineering project

and it's a lot less scope than a regular

product management project

because the work will be split between

three of you so as you can see

they don't expect the world out of you

as explorer interns they recognize that

this is most likely your first

leadership experience

and also your first time working in a

professional environment they give you a

lot of ramp up time and they are really

gentle to you so take advantage of that

as best as you can

i also want to share the day in my life

looks like as an intern

i worked on pacific time and most of my

team was also on pacific time

except i did have a explorer podmate who

was on eastern time

i usually got up anywhere between 7 and

8 30 a.m and if i did happen to log on

to my computer and get all set up before

8

i'd usually spend that extra time

chatting with other interns getting to

know them because we had this sort of

morning coffee chat setup from 8 to 8 30

i spent about 30 minutes

checking emails messages and catching up

with anything that i missed from the

previous day

from 8 30 to 9 i usually check inside

mentor and we have a quick chat about

anything that i needed

or if there are any blockers that i

needed to get resolved

most meetings at microsoft are going to

be around 30 minutes so this can help

gauge and block out your time

i usually have some sort of one-on-one

or a group sync

so with my explorer pod we had a daily

sync where we check in about everything

that we're working on

and if we needed to prepare for any

showcases or demos

from 10 a.m to 12 p.m i'd use this time

to first get situated

and figure out what work i wanted to get

done for the day this time is really up

to me and how i wanted to use it

so nothing too exciting here

from 12 to 2 p.m there was a lunch break

somewhere in between and i also

was usually in a meeting during these

times i scheduled a lot of one-on-one

meetings during this time

but there are also some intern program

events going on

or team meetings that i could attend

from 2 to 4 30 p.m was basically

my last block of working time and i use

this time to catch up

on whatever tasks i still need to get

done and prepare for

the next day if you find yourself

getting too distracted by meetings and

your calendar is just getting filled up

then i'd recommend blocking out chunks

of your time in your calendar

specifically for work so people can't

schedule meetings over it

or i mean i guess they still can but you

know

so at microsoft they have what are

called connects which is how they

measure feedback

so it's basically an employee

performance review as an intern you

participate in two connects

one is the midterm connect which is

around the six-week market of internship

and two

is the final connect which is at the

very end of your internship so at the

beginning of your internship within the

first two weeks

you work with your manager to set up

goals for your connect these will be

three to five objectives for you to

fulfill

throughout the course of your internship

to help keep you on track and also just

some way to measure the progress and

performance that you've had while

interning at microsoft i recommend they

really put some thought into these goals

not that they're going to determine

the entire rest of your internship and

that they can't be changed

but again it is what you'll be evaluated

against so be honest and true about what

you

truly expect to complete throughout the

internship once you finish writing these

goals these will be reviewed by your

manager

and then you're set i do want to note

though that if you do come back to

microsoft full time then your

interconnects will also show up on your

full-time connects

so you get to see a nice little history

of everything that you've accomplished

and all the goals that you've set along

the way so for me the first three weeks

my internship were pretty much all ramp

up time we were setting up meetings with

people on the team to get to know them

and also to find out what features we

need to know about for the product that

we are working with

and general best practices how to do

user interviews

all the fun stuff like that don't be

scared if you're spending a lot of your

time just getting information that's

pretty much the most important part of

onboarding onto the team

and also a really important part of your

internship one of my personal goals was

also to network

and so i was really proactive in setting

up one-on-ones with different people

across the company at microsoft you can

use the internal directory to help find

people that you want to connect with or

ask your manager

and your mentor and your team for people

that might be good recommendations

with a lot of the ramp up time that was

happening during the first three weeks

was also where a majority of our pm work

is being done we had to write a general

requirements talk

about what the project scope was what

features we needed and the general plan

of attack for each of these features

essentially we were writing a feature

roadmap for the project that we were

about to implement

then from weeks three to six is when we

really started to actually program

i know that week three can seem late to

start programming but i also know plenty

of people who started programming weeks

eight or nine

and still manage to finish their project

and also get a return offer so week six

like i mentioned is the midterm connect

this is where you evaluate your goals

from weeks one through six and also if

you're on track for a return offer at

this point i know return offers can be a

dicey subject and i'll also have a

section later in this video dedicated

just to the return offer however if

you're an explorer intern

and you've been communicating well with

your manager and your mentor then you

really shouldn't have anything to worry

about

it also shouldn't be a surprise to you

if you are or aren't on track

if you've been having regular one-on-one

meetings with your manager

aka weekly meetings then each of these

meetings should be a small update on how

you're doing

what's going on and what the next steps

are and your manager will be able to

assess if you're on track or not during

all these updates

you'll have to write out the midterm

connect so just reflecting on your

progress

but usually you also meet with your

manager discussing this connect

and then once you've actually published

and submitted your connect a recruiter

will also reach out to you for your

midterm

connect again this shouldn't be anything

scary but it's just meaning of the

recruiter

updating them about your progress and

how it's going with your team and if

you're liking your internship

and generally just saying hey i'm on

track to receive a return offer at this

point

for me this is also where i brought up

the fact that i was going to be

graduating early as when i applied

for the export program obviously as a

regular sophomore with a

grad date of 2022 but because i actually

decided that i was going to be

graduating 2021 later on in the school

year after i had accepted my offer

this caused some hiccups in terms of my

return offer process

but again not super important for the

general explorer process here

week six through twelve are going to be

your traditional internship expectations

so you'll be meeting with people to help

get you unblocked you'll be working with

your team

you'll be meeting with your manager

mentor staying on track with everything

that the project is expecting of you

and generally delivering on features

incrementally it's hard to say a

specific timeline for everyone because

again the explorer program is very very

tailored to your team

and the project so i don't want to

misconstrue anything about the explore

program here

along the way in your internship though

you'll find that there are a few explore

specific networking events so returning

interns or full-time employees who are

past

explorer interns come to speak and offer

you sage the advice and all their wisdom

to help you succeed as an explorer

intern too

so somewhere along the way in weeks

eight or nine you'll get a survey from

the recruiting team

asking to fill out your preferences and

also just a short reflection of your

time

with your mentoring manager this is just

the general ranking of your preferences

between software engineering and pm so

which one do you want to return to

if you do happen to receive a return

offer in previous years to be a product

management intern you did have to

interview

but i believe that this previous summer

they cut out the interview process

and you'll be able to just receive a

direct return offer for product

management if you so choose

product management internship roles

though are a lot more sparse than

general software engineering roles and

it may be a little bit more difficult to

get a product management return offer

but again i'll save that for the return

offer section finally at week 12

you'll have your final connect where

you'll wrap up all your work and send it

off

similar to the midterm connect here you

reflect about all 12 weeks of your

internship

so don't be shy about bragging but

definitely do it in a neat objective way

again you go over the final connect with

your manager and your recruiter as well

and this will be where you get the big

news of if you receive a return offer or

not

so one of the awesome benefits of being

an intern at microsoft that i want to

highlight

is called the intern cohorts as an

incoming intern you'll be placed onto a

cohort with 20 or 30 other interns

and this cohort will be led by two

likely young microsoft full-time

employees

their job is to kind of make you feel

welcome and included and also to meet

other interns

so definitely participate in these

events if you want to get to know some

other interns

even if you don't really want to get to

know other interns i don't know why you

wouldn't

i would still recommend them because you

get to at least meet these full-time

employees and you can also ask them

questions

about their experience on microsoft if

you're interested in returning the

second cool thing that i want to

highlight is called the internetworking

program

throughout the weeks for as long as

interns are here so traditionally may

through september

they'll match up you as an intern with

one other full-time employee per week

you'll have a short survey you can fill

out about where your preferences and

interests are

and the internetworking program will try

their best to match you up with a

suitable full-time employee for you to

chat with take advantage of this to chat

with people that are of other interests

that you have that may not be on your

team

get to know them and see what they're

working on definitely don't be shy

though because one of the great benefits

of working at such a large company like

microsoft

is the infinite number of connections

you can make in one summer all right so

the big moment talking about return

offers so explorer interns can choose

that they like to return as a software

engineering intern or a pm intern

there are much more software engineering

spots than there are pm spots to return

as a product management intern it

generally requires specific manager

recommendation as well

and a bit of luck depending on how many

pm spots are open within your

organization

so what can you do if you want to be a

pm intern i'd highly recommend as soon

as you know to communicate this with

your manager and your mentor to set you

up as best as possible the skills needed

to be a good pm intern

or pm in general are much different than

being a good software engineering intern

or software engineer if you do

communicate this early enough with your

manager and mentor they can hopefully

help find suitable mentors for you that

are pms if your

mentor is a software engineer for

example or your manager is also software

and engineer or also vice versa if you

would like to be a software engineer

in general if you already know which

path you want to go down for sure then

communicate that as early as possible

with your manager and mentor

to make sure that you're on track to

return in that path

so what can i do to maximize my chance

of getting a return offer like i

mentioned you'll set up goals through

your connect

within your first two weeks these goals

are pretty much how you'll be evaluated

because you'll have hopefully checked in

with your manager about setting up these

goals

and your general expectations for the

internship being able to fulfill the

goals outlined in your connect are going

to be your best way to find success

to dive into a little bit more detail

though i think the most important thing

for

explorer interns is to show that you are

constantly learning and picking up new

things

of course while finishing your project

is definitely a really good sign

finishing your project isn't all that's

out there as an intern

you can refer to my previous video about

finding success as an intern a new grad

or generally being new to the job now

i'll provide some general advice on how

to get into the explore program

there really is no magic formula so take

everything i say with a grain of salt

for resumes they really don't expect you

to have the most amazing resume

especially because this is geared

towards underclassmen i was fortunate

enough to have an internship even prior

to my explorer internship

but i met freshman who had very sparse

resumes had only taken one or two cs

classes

and were still selected to interview i

think it's about showing that you have

potential and genuine interest in

technology

and the general computer science field

not that you have hard technical skills

and years of training under your belt

for your interviews just be friendly and

honest and be open to learning from the

interviewer

you may get corrected or make mistakes

and that's also totally normal and fine

you don't have to be a perfect candidate

to receive an offer some interviewers

may just want to test the ability to

solve a really difficult problem and put

you in stressful situations to see how

you react

there are tons of different interview

styles and every interview is going to

be different for getting a return offer

just do your best work and really over

communicate stay in touch with your

mentor especially because they are there

to help you

they literally sign up to a mentor for

you anyways so they know all the hard

work

and the time consuming questions that

come with mentoring intern the more

questions you ask the more you learn the

more you learn the higher chance you

have of getting return offer it's not a

direct linear one-to-one relationship

but it's there i'll also answer some

frequently asked questions

about the explore internship program so

one question is when should we hear

about our team as hyman's like i

mentioned this will depend basically on

your manager and your mentor

some interns don't find out until

literally the day over the week of and

some people will have their managers

reach out a couple

weeks or a month beforehand so another

question is what were some of the

challenges that you faced

i think that honestly one of the most

important challenges i faced was dealing

with my own imposter syndrome

i've always really had a lot of doubt in

my mind about if i can succeed

and do well especially when i'm

interning at such a high level company

like microsoft

i still they managed to deal with this

throughout my internship so i'd

recommend that if you do have any of

this imposter syndrome or doubt about

your performance just throw it out the

window as soon as you start

the most important expectations are your

own and you'll work to set those up with

your manager and your mentor

and see what's actually viable and

important for you as an explorer intern

the next question is do you think

there's a learning curve as a first time

microsoft employee

i would say it's not a specific

microsoft thing it's more of a general

first time interning or working at a new

company kind of thing there's always

going to be some sort of onboarding

process

or a ramp up process when you're working

on a new team whose products you

actually know nothing about

take your time during this process

because again no one is expecting you to

deliver a full feature or product on

your first day on the job

and this kind of backer knowledge is

really important to set you up for

success later down the road

if you gather a good chunk of your

knowledge at the beginning of your trip

you want to spend tons of time

piecing together little parts of that

knowledge later down the road another

question is one of the major differences

between software engineering and pm work

and my general thoughts on those

portions of the internship

so the pm work and the suite work are

going to be pretty different in terms of

what you're doing

but i enjoyed both parts of them for

different reasons generally i enjoyed

the pm work because it was something new

and i really enjoyed learning more about

pm

because that piqued my interest and i

never heard about it before the explorer

internship

i can only really speak to what i did on

my team for my team as an explorer

intern the pm work involved requirement

gathering

user interviews and generally putting

out a feature run up to figure out what

we need to prioritize this can kind of

sound like what you are doing as a

regular software engineering intern

anyways

but it's nice to have that structure in

place as an explorer intern for the

software engineering process we didn't

really have a formal sprint

process so to speak this also may depend

on your team and what they're expecting

out of you

but i did like it just because it was

implementing and i had fun working on

the project that i was on

in terms of major differences i would

just say software engineering is going

to be

more heads down work whereas pm is going

to be high level working with customers

and defining the road maps

so a question that i'm excited to answer

is if and how i maintain contact with my

internship manager and mentor so i don't

maintain constant contact with a manager

or my mentor but i do

occasionally message them or chat them

up if i have anything exciting to share

or just seeking their advice i may

occasionally meet with a manager on

a random month or so just if i have any

big news or advice

but talking about mentor is pretty

casual we sometimes chat and set up

meetings as well

it really just depends on how

comfortable you are with them and if you

actually established a more lighthearted

relationship with your manager mentor

during your internship instead of one

that is strictly professional

i would recommend trying to at least put

a little bit of energy into establishing

a more friendship role

just because it can be really stressful

if you are always dealing with someone

in a professional environment

and you can't really trust them to just

let loose and have some casual talk

the last question i want to answer is

how prepared did i feel going to my

internship and how i think i performed

so going into my internship i really

didn't have any expectations because

again this was a new company it was a

new project and i was going to be

working with entirely different people

i guess you could say i wasn't really

prepared because i asked my manager

about what i can study

and i did end up actually doing that but

i don't think that that had a huge

impact on how i performed i would say

just based off reviews from my manager

my mentor and the fact that i have a

return offer full-time

means that i performed pretty well and

made a good impression so

yeah i know this is a longer video

talking about the explorer program but i

hope that this kind of

helped answer a lot of your questions

and also just shed some light on what

the explorer program is like and what

you can expect

moving forward or if you're applying for

the program if you have any questions

feel free to leave them in the comments

below and i'd be happy to answer them as

always thank you so much for watching

and i'll see y'all next time

[Music]

bye

[Music]

you