Till two months after I applied for the job there was not a word from Microsoft until a recruiter pops up out of the blue and wants to meet up as soon as possible. A Phone screen was followed up by a written questionnaires that I needed to send in before they would even say anything about their interest level. This was then followed up by a 1:1 interview with hiring manager after another 2 weeks. Then it took another 2 weeks for anyone to respond. This was followed by an extensive 2 hr panel interview/portfolio review and more 1:1 interviews. By then I was exhausted and tired of the long drawn procedure. The interviewers seemed to be very design focussed and did not really quiz much on methodology/techniques etc. it was more about process and team work. those are skills that are secondary to solid research but they seemed to focus on it. One of the interviewers was completely poker faced, unfriendly and came across as though he was doing me a favour by interviewing me. By now I lost interest, thankfully, they did too! :-)

I only had one day of interview but it was in 4 sets. One with all 3 people, then each interview with one person each, from the earlier 3-person panel.