Find out what our Guest Bloggers are getting up to. Throughout the year we will be following the progress of our Guest Bloggers as they find a placement or keep us updated as to what they are doing on their placement. Click here to read all entries from our bloggers or click here to meet them.

In my last blog I spoke about doing a student event called X48 (a gaming event for computer enthusiastic students) which was a big success – sold out and the quality of games produced was really high, plus a lot of energy drinks and sugary sweets consumed. It’s also really good to ‘get out in the field’ at these type of events to talk to techie students and really understand the audience. In my mind I would always encourage you in your role to get out there and understand your customers/audience in their everyday role and situation to improve overall marketing sales and/or service to them.

The next student event is the Imagine Cup (a student technology competition to solve the world’s problems) here at Microsoft HQ in Reading so I’m trying to make that a really great day for the students involved which looks like a lot of dominos pizza plus some cool swag to give away. We’ve hit the target for students entered into the competition which is really great, and is a good story to tell at the end of the year.

Just recently interviews and assessment centres were held for the new me, Sarah 2.0, which I shadowed my manager on and my job has been given to a lucky girl called Sam. It was really interesting sitting on the other side of the interview and picking up what to do and what not to do (note: fart jokes in the lift with your new employer are not good!). My manager appreciated the feedback I gave on candidates – after all I’m the one doing the day to day job so I have a good understanding of the type of person it would suit.

This also got me thinking about my return onto the graduate scheme and what I need to do in my last 4 months to really stand out from the thousands of applicants that apply to Microsoft. So the next 4 months are really around planning and strategic thinking, leaving my mark, for the next year and Sam to take over from me. I’m also trying to take as much training as I can from now until then, of which there are a lot of opportunities at Microsoft to expand knowledge and skills.

Good luck with the interviews if you’re having any!