Microsoft is on a hiring spree at US business schools

Safiya Miller had her selection of job vacancies from large technology companies after obtaining an MBA from the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in New York State.

In the end, she chose Microsoft, becoming an account executive at her Bay Area offices in 2015. Her decision was secured by the company's legacy and the long and varied experience of her colleagues. "If I had to move west, I wanted a team where I could learn and grow," says Ms. Miller, who had previously worked on the East Coast of the United States. UU And Brazil. "I wanted to learn together with [people] that not only have they been in the industry for years, but they were also experiencing this renewal and the rebirth of the company," he says.

Few technology companies have the staying power of Microsoft. Founded in 1975 before many of today's technology founders were born, the company is among the top five MBA students at leading business schools, such as Insead, the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.


It attracts graduates like Ms. Miller because it's good to reinvent yourself. It is no longer considered to be tied to the fate of the PC market, under Satya Nadella, its CEO since 2014, the company has focused on offering broader services, such as cloud platforms, business software and artificial intelligence.


That means a wider selection of jobs for business school graduates, says Chuck Edward, head of global talent acquisition at Microsoft. MBAs are usually ambitious, technologically competent and trained in data and analysis. They also tend to have some experience in working life, all valuable to the ever-changing Microsoft.

"With MBAs, we know what we're going to get," says Mr. Edward. "Our demand [for MBA talent] has increased significantly in the last two or three years."

The company says it hires several hundred MBAs per year from nearly 150 different schools in 40 countries. About two thirds are from the US UU And Canada. They are sent around the world to work in divisions from commercial development and finance to marketing and human resources.

The average starting salaries and signature bonuses for MBA graduates at Redmond, Washington headquarters are more than $ 160,000 for finance managers, product marketing managers and strategy managers and business programs, according to Transparent Career, a Emerging company that collects MBA graduates. - informed salary information.


The reinvention of Microsoft has also led to redundancies. This year, the company fired between 3,000 and 4,000 employees, mostly sales personnel outside the US. UU., According to the New York Times. This came after the loss of jobs three years earlier, following the acquisition by Microsoft of Nokia's mobile business. Then, Microsoft dismissed 18,000 employees, 14 percent of its workforce, the deepest cuts in the company's history.

Edward says the recent job losses do not affect the demand for MBA talent. This year, Microsoft hired approximately 30% more MBA than the previous one, and plans to hire more. Many will be recruited from their summer internship program. "Our goal is to convert," says Mr. Edward. "When we bring an intern, [we want him] to become a full-time employee."

Those who want to stand out in the interview should reflect Microsoft's leadership principles: create clarity, generate energy and achieve success, says Edward. That process begins with a telephone interview and those who do the next round are invited to the company's headquarters or to another of its large offices. They meet with current employees and have a full day of interviews.

The process usually lasts three to four weeks, according to Microsoft, although it can vary to meet the recruitment deadlines of business schools.

The company visits the campuses in the second year of students to recruit additional full-time employees, a move that not all big recruiters do, says Michelle Hopping, director of MBA career management at Wharton School. Ms. Hopping says that Microsoft not only searches for Wharton students at recruitment events, but also offers extracurricular activities, such as competitions and educational opportunities in the classroom.

Once MBA graduates have joined the company, most participate in the Microsoft Academy for college rentals. Ms. Miller was assigned two mentors through this program when she joined. In addition to two or three major training events per year, members and alumni of Mach MBA

Microsoft is working on AI chips across its different devices, top exec says

Microsoft is working on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chip for its next-generation HoloLens helmet.

And the American technology giant could take it to other products in its range of equipment, Panos Panay, vice president of devices at Microsoft, said on CNBC on Tuesday.

In July, Microsoft revealed that it was working on a processor for the second generation of HoloLens, a handset that allows users to interact and touch digital images superimposed in the real world. Microsoft calls this "mixed reality." The AI ​​chip will allow HoloLens to do things like recognizing objects in the line of sight.

It marks the first incursion of Microsoft in Artificial Intelligence chips because it seems to take rivals like Apple and Google.

The software giant is also looking to expand its offer. When CNBC asked if Microsoft would introduce AI chips into the entire device, Panay said "yes."

"We need to continue to find these pieces of silicon, those sets of chips that must be developed to give life to the sensors, to connect people with each other and with their products," Panay told CNBC in a television interview.

Microsoft now has a range of devices. It has expanded its range of Surface tablets, launched in 2012, to include a laptop and a desktop computer. It also has the Xbox game console and the HoloLens headphones.

There is an arms race in Artificial Intelligence tokens at this time. Huawei has introduced its own AI chip called Kirin 970 that has been included in the Mate 10 smartphone launched earlier this year. The new Apple iPhones also incorporate the company's A11 bionic chip.
Panos Panay, vice president of the unit at Microsoft, talks about the new Laptop Surface at a launch event on May 2, 2017 in New York.

The chips on the devices allow these devices to use "AI on the device". This means that devices do not need to communicate with the cloud to perform complex AI tasks, making them more efficient.

Mr. Panay said he was working with partners and doing internal developments to bring the chips to the market. Microsoft also has a number of hardware partners. For example, Huawei and Lenovo manufacture tablets and keyboards with Windows, Microsoft's operating system. Panay said the company will look to shoot its chips at partners.

"I think one of the most important things we do in Surface and in the development of our chips is the possibility of creating the technology within Surface and multiplying it with our partners to give everyone the opportunity to use it," Panay told CNBC.