Now serving: International recruits

A few years back before I came to work for Microsoft full-time, I was at a VBITS in the Speaker's Lounge. I was talking to Jim Fawcette, asking him about how the international subscription base worked compared to the US one, both in methods and percentages.

What he told me about how small the percentage of international subcribers was (way out of line with Microsoft's sales of the software that the magazines were writing about!), and how the whole model of other magazines essentially buying the content with no real attempt to go after the markets directly, I was a little disturbed.

I pointed out that if Fawcette's percentages did not match Microsoft's in the various markets that he ought to make sure people thought of that as a failure to find all of the people who were willing to give them money. But he really wasn't buying the argument; it was clear that it was not a central part of the model -- what was international was not always being treated as a core part of where everything is --the developers, the customers, the producs, the passion.

(This all might be different now, like I said it was a few years ago. But I remember my frustrastion at the viewpoint!)

I was thinking about this again the other day for a not entirely analagous situation. You see, there is a question I get from time to time about jobs at Microsoft from people who re not in the United States of America. I always am sure to redirect them appropriately to someone who is more qualified to help them out....

But it was great to stumble across the other day where Heather has pointed out in this post that the Microsoft Careers site now starts off with a dropdown giving a large list of locations:

It does feel better to know that international recruiting for positions throughout the world is something that is no longer a "local" concern but a global interest. :-)

Very cool!