Meet them at a college career fair, had interview at my college a week later. Then was invited out to Redmond for an on campus series of interviews. They took care of the travel plans and hotel along with reimbursing for meals taxi fares to get around. On campus interviews were interesting, series of interviews with different developers in the team I was being considered for. Typically about 2 programming questions and a few general questions with each developer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The most unexpected question was "How would you test a parachute?"
I applied through university. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2013
Interview
Met Microsoft at a career fair. Had an on campus first round interview and 6 weeks later was contacted about going to Seattle for the final round. The entire interview process took around 2.5-3 months
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given any number break it down into a multiplication of all prime numbers ie 8 => 2 x 2 x 2. Shift an array by x spots in place. Design and test a file backup system.