Mountain View; Google vs. Microsoft

Once again, I'm at the Red Rock Coffee Company in downtown Mountain View (at Castro and Unlabelled Street #48, which Google Maps suggests may be called Villa). I'm outside, where the air is brisk, the leaves are turning, and the traffic is...well, shitty.

But I'm on foot, so it's okay.

Mountain View has its perks. I'm at this great coffee shop, across the street from (clockwise from left) an excellent Indian restaurant, a great brewery/burger joint, and one of the best Thai places in the area (so I'm told). There are also an absurd number of tech companies here, judging from the commuter shuttles that keep passing by. Microsoft was the most recent, which reminded me to blog.

Like last time, I spent a solid five hours in my Google interview today. I was very comfortable with everyone, which, with any luck, showed through in my responses. I think I did well, but I really have no way of knowing. At the very least, I had fun.

I returned home to find an "e-Interview" email from Microsoft. Now, I expected to hear from Microsoft — mge sent them my name about a week back — but I found the contents of the email indicative.

First of all, I can't decide whether "e-Interview" should be pronounced "EEHN-turr-vyoo" or "EIN-turr-vyoo." I lean toward the former, but that's probably just because I like saying EEHN.

But moving beyond issues of pronunciation, the email contained a curt greeting followed by a form for me to fill out. Not, like, "How should we contact you with more information?" either. No, this contained 11 short-answer questions, ranging from "How confident are you in your ability to write C/C++ without a reference?" to some pretty specific coding methods questions.

Now, I realize I'm but a Southern boy, but I always learned that peppering someone with questions was an awfully rude way to introduce one's self.

To explain why I'm taken aback by this, let's step back for a moment and look at the equivalent communication from Google. The process went like this:
1. Google requested my résumé. I supplied it.
2. Someone from Google called me and told me about what they were looking for, gave me a synopsis of how life at Google works, and offered to answer any questions I might have. Later, he collected info on where I felt my strengths lied, to better route my further interviews.
3. He called back a few days later to set up a phone interview.

By comparison, the email from Microsoft seems awfully presumptuous. It's as though they're assuming I want to work there — they made no effort to convince me that MS was where I should be. I've seen the questionnaire on which my name was provided, and it asks this:

"Is there anyone else in your set of peers or friends who you would like to recommend as a great candidate for Software Development positions at Microsoft?"

So, basically, anyone that is recommended as a great candidate obviously wants to work at Microsoft. I did not send in my résumé unsolicited, or even solicit this contact through a friend. No — I was simply recommended.

I'm trying to decide how to respond. Compared to my correspondence with Google, this seems awfully brusque.