Simon Willison’s Weblog

Microsoft “get” blogging

5th April 2004

Who would have thought a year ago that Microsoft would be the company that took corporate blogging to the next level? Say what you like about the company itself, you can’t fault the quality and quantity of bloggers coming out of Redmond at the moment. Yesterday I stumbled across this fascinating blog that provides an insight in to Microsoft’s recruitment techniques. If you’re looking for a job at a high-tech company you can’t afford not to read this—they already have a bunch of resume advice, tips on what to wear to interviews and posts on subjects such as employee referrals, international recriting, phone screening and more.

The authors are two Microsoft recruiters and display an incredible enthusiasm for their work, which is probably what makes the blog such a great read. It’s fun to compare their more recent entries with their opening entry, which Robert Scoble rightly criticised as being far too corporate. The great tragedy of the official Bush and Kerry blogs is that they frequently read like glorified press releases. One of the core messages of the Cluetrain Manifesto is that people want to be communicated with in a human voice. I don’t know if the Microsoft recruiters have read it, but they’ve certainly taken that core value to heart.