Transparency FAQ

The Microsoft Careers Site is Microsoft’s AI-powered job marketplace where people who are interested in working at Microsoft can find jobs that match their skills and experience and learn more about Microsoft’s culture.  

The Microsoft Career Site has a range of functions that make it easier to align the most qualified applicants for available opportunities. To take full advantage of the Microsoft Career Site, submit your resume to your created profile (however there is no obligation to do this). 

You can click on “Join talent network” at the top of the page or “Sign in” to submit your resume. Using these options creates a profile so that recruiters at Microsoft can see your information and reach out to you about company updates, open positions, and recruiting events.  

Creating a profile will also activate AI job recommendations so that you can see which open positions are a “good” or “strong” match for your skills and experience. Recruiters can also see your highlighted skills and attributes relevant to open positions and may reach out to you and invite you to apply. A strong or good recommendation does not guarantee or imply any specific outcome for a candidate's application to any role. 

The best way to create a profile is by using the “Sign In” option to set up a login so that you can view and edit your profile information, create job alerts, and update your settings. Creating a login also allows you to input your location, so job recommendations will be filtered to show jobs near you. 

If you go to the Careers page without uploading your resume, you can search for jobs by keyword and location, or you can use the filters at the top of the page to narrow down the list by things like job title or profession. If you don’t submit a resume, the AI features will be limited to using your IP address to infer your location so that jobs nearby will be presented to you first, and using your search terms and clicks to show you jobs that match your search patterns. 

Resume parsing: When you upload your resume, an AI parser extracts your contact information, education, and work experience and populates it into your talent network profile, saving you time. Be sure to always check the information extracted to your profile to ensure that it accurately reflects your information, skills, and experience. 

Skill inference: Based on skills you mention in your resume, your work experience, and your education, the AI tool will extract and infer the skills you have and add them to your profile. These extracted [and inferred skills] are visible to you when you log into your profile, and you are encouraged to edit those skills if you feel they do not reflect your skills and experience.  

Job recommendations: The AI tool will compare the skills, experience, and education from your profile with requirements for open positions and show you jobs that are a “good” or “strong” match for your profile. A strong or good recommendation does not guarantee or imply any specific outcome for a candidate's application to any role. You can of course also manually search for available positions using filtering tools.  

Prospect Recommendations: When recruiters view you on the list of recommended prospects for an open job, along with other information relating to your profile, skills and experience, they will also see information inferring match scores from 0-5 showing how well your profile matches the job requirements.  

AI recommended job alerts: You can opt in for job alerts that are based on AI-enabled recommendations for your profile. If you opt in, you will receive emails letting you know when a new position matches your skills and experience. You can change your preferences at any time using the “Settings” link at the top right of the page below your profile avatar.

Similar positions: When you view a job on the Microsoft Career Site, the Site identifies similar positions to the one you are viewing and displays them in a “Similar Jobs” carousel at the bottom of the page making it easier for you to view a wider pool of available positions that you may be well suited to. You can also browse through available positions or search for available positions using search and filter tools. 

Insights from previous hires: When you view a job on the Microsoft Career Site, the Site processes the profiles of previous hires for the role and displays collective information about their skills and job titles for you to view making it easier for you to identify the skills you have that have historically been desirable for the role. 

Attribute inference: AI infers various attributes from your profile such as education level, work categories, industry experience, relevant experience, influencer status, watchlist status (experience at a company that is part of the requisition calibration), likelihood of moving from your current positions, likelihood to respond to contact from a recruiter, former employee status, and current employee status. These attributes are highlighted on the recruiter's view of your profile. 

The Talent Network is a collection of all internal (employee) profiles, prospects, and applicant profiles that Microsoft recruiting can leverage for sourcing. Through this data, Microsoft has an understanding of available talent in the market and the prospects that may be interested in a new job at Microsoft. 

When you upload your resume, it is reviewed by an AI parser to extract your contact information, education, job experiences, and the skills you have gained throughout your career. This information is populated into a talent network profile that includes highlights about your background and job interest and can be searched by recruiters. 

You will receive AI-powered job alerts listing jobs that match your Talent Network profile attributes and receive recruiter outreach emails in addition to being surfaced to recruiters for positions aligned with your profile attributes. Creating a login to the Microsoft Career Site (see below) will provide you with more visibility and control over these various experiences. 

When you create a login to the Microsoft Careers Site, have access to the extracted and inferred information on your Profile and you can amend any of this information if you feel it does not reflect your skills and experience. Be sure to always check the information extracted to your profile to ensure that it accurately reflects your information, skills, and experience. 

Once you have created your profile on the Microsoft Career Site, you can view and update the data by clicking on the My Profile link in the dropdown menu that opens when you click on your profile avatar next to your name on the right side of the page header. 

Your profile settings are accessible using the “Settings” link at the top right of the page below your profile avatar. 

On the settings page you have the option to edit your preferred language, opt in/out of being displayed to recruiters on the prospect list of any job globally, set up job alerts, manage the frequency of AI-powered job alerts, and opt in/out of receiving company updates and other career opportunities from Microsoft. Even if you opt out of receiving email updates, you will still receive emails about jobs to which you apply. You must be logged in to update your profile settings. 

Use the ‘AI-insights visibility to Microsoft Recruiting’ setting to choose whether you want your profile to be shown to recruiters when you receive an AI-powered recommendation to a role for which you have not yet applied. This won’t affect the job recommendations you see, and you can update the setting at any time. The Microsoft Recruiting team can still find your profile through manual search. 

Your options are: 

• Yes, allow Microsoft Recruiting to see my profile as a potential match recommendation for roles I haven’t applied for, based on AI insights. 

• No, do not allow Microsoft Recruiting to see my profile as a potential match recommendation for roles I haven’t applied for, based on AI insights. 

Opting out of global job matching does not mean that your data won’t be processed by AI. It will stop your profile from being recommended to recruiters on positions to which you haven’t applied, but you will still see AI-powered job recommendations on the Microsoft Career Site, and your profile data will still be processed to generate highlights for recruiters who find you by searching the talent network. 

Recruiters have access to all profile sections, Microsoft application/recruiting history, and AI-generated highlights about your profile and ways in which you align or do not align with open positions (e.g., education level, job titles, industry experience, inferred highlights, and recommendations as to your qualifications for a role). 

The highlights recruiters can see are outlined in the following table. Note that highlights are not used in generating match recommendations. They are surfaced to recruiters as additional information but will not be used to make recruiting decisions.  

If you have included your GitHub or X account information on your resume, they can also add links to those profiles. Recruiters can also import your LinkedIn profile and join it to your Microsoft Career Site profile. 

• Education level: Education level (e.g., Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate) 

• Work categories: Job titles the individual has held 

• Similar industry: Indicator of experience in a similar industry to Microsoft 

• Relevant experience: Number of years of experience that are relevant for a specific position 

• Is influencer: Indicates a significant following on GitHub or X if the resume contains links to the person’s profile on those platforms. 

• On watchlist: Experience at a company that is part of the position calibration 

• Movability/Likely to Respond: An inferred indicator that the individual may be interested in changing jobs at this time based on recent job applications, current job tenure, work history, job titles, previous job tenures, and industry tenure benchmarks. 

• Former Employee: The person has worked at Microsoft in the past 

• Current Employee: The person is a current employee 

• Missing Titles: Indicator that the individual is missing work experience required for a specific position 

• Missing Skills: Indicator that the individual is missing skills required for a specific position 

• Missing Companies: The individual has not worked at companies that are listed in the position’s configuration 

• Mismatched Experience: The individual’s experience is misaligned relative to the position 

Recruiters can see information about how strongly your skills, experiences and attributes align to a given role, when prospecting and sourcing. They can also see a match score on your profile with a number from 0-5 for a given job. Once you apply to a job, the numerical indicator is hidden from recruiters, and you will be assessed based on the information in your profile and resume.  

If you have opted in for AI job matching, you can still receive emails about jobs for which your profile has been recommended. For some positions, recruiters actively reach out to prospects who have a strong match to the job requirements by manually searching for profiles with the attributes desired for a position. This is the only type of email you will receive if you have opted out of email campaigns. If you do not want to receive these emails, you can opt out of AI job matching and you will no longer receive them. 

Available jobs are posted on the Microsoft Career Site detailing characteristics such as the job description, top skills and top job titles of successful candidates for the role. The AI model used within the Microsoft Career Site assesses these characteristics against information on your profile to generate recommendations for you.  

The match scoring model considers a range of factors, including job titles, the description and ‘About Me’ section of your profile, work experience, location, skills, education, seniority, and resume, among other factors indicating potential qualifications for a requisition. These factors collectively help assess the relevance and fit as compared to the attributes specified on the job requisition. 

Recommendations are based on profile-job fit. If you wish to see only positions that are located near you, use the Location filter at the top of the job search page. 

Insights from previous hires are based on the collective characteristics of candidates who were successful in applying for the role in the past. 

The recommendations are based on the information in your profile. If the recommendations don’t make sense, it is likely that the information on your profile is not accurate. Log into your profile and navigate to your profile page using the “My Profile” link accessible by clicking on the profile icon next to your name at the top right of the page header. 

Make sure your profile is complete and correct to get the best recommendations possible. If you have skills or experience that the AI parser did not identify in your resume, you should add them manually. Also make sure to add your home address to see recommendations for open positions that are located near you. You can filter by location on the job search page as well. Having a lot of skills on your profile is less important than having accurate and relevant skills and experience. The number of skills is not a factor the model takes into account in making recommendations as to your qualifications for a role. 

If your profile is correct, but you still feel that the recommendations don’t make sense, use the Support link at the bottom of the page to get help. Make sure to give specific examples and state clearly that you believe the Microsoft Career Site recommendations are not suited to you. 

You can also give feedback on the recommendations by clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down button at the top of a recommended job posting.  

Check the security settings on your resume file. If it’s marked as confidential, the resume parser cannot access the information. Try changing the security settings and uploading the file again. 

Check the Troubleshooting and Support section of the Transparency FAQs for tips on how to make your resume AI-parser friendly. 

If it still doesn’t work, click on the Support link at the bottom left of the page to get help. 

You can also update the information in your profile manually. 

If you didn’t upload a resume when you created your profile, you may not have enough information available for the AI to recommend jobs to you. You should have at least 1 work experience or at least 1 education record along with a minimum of 11 skills or a valid resume linked to your profile. You can update your profile by clicking on the profile icon at the top right of the Microsoft Careers Site header. 

If a Microsoft employee has referred you, you should have gotten an email with a link to apply in the Microsoft Career Site. Log in or create a profile using the email address noted in the message. Click into the Applications area of your Action Center and click on the Referrals tab to see a link to the position for which you were referred and complete your application. 

If you do not wish to apply for the job, you can ignore the email. The referral itself sets up a profile for you in the Microsoft talent network, and you may be contacted by Microsoft recruiters about that position or other open positions, events, or company news. If you do not set up a login to the Microsoft Career Site within 30 days of being referred, your profile will be deleted from the Talent Network.  

Any AI model can make mistakes. It is strongly recommended that you create your profile by setting up a login so that you can make sure the location, education, skills, and experience in your profile are accurate after you upload your resume. It is especially important to check the skills and job titles that are listed on your profile, as these play a significant role in the job recommendations aligned with your profile. If you have skills or titles that are missing from your profile, you should add them. 

Microsoft has carefully assessed its implementation of Eightfold to ensure that it is consistent with Microsoft’s Responsible AI Standards and practices. Microsoft’s implementation of Eightfold will comply with all applicable local laws and regulations. Both Eightfold and Microsoft will continue to monitor and assess the implementation of AI into Microsoft’s talent management and talent acquisition processes to ensure that the AI continues to comply with these standards.

In line with Microsoft’s commitment to data privacy, Eightfold processes your data under the direction of Microsoft according to current Microsoft data handling policies. Your personal data is stored in the Azure cloud in a secure tenant with all data encrypted both at rest and in transit. Access is restricted, and system configurations and data processing follow Microsoft security and privacy policies and procedures. For more information on how your personal data is processed, please see the Microsoft Data Privacy Notice.  

No. Microsoft Careers Site user data is not used to train the model; it is only accessed at inference time.  

The AI model that parses your resume performs best in English. Therefore, it is critical that you review and confirm the information extracted to your profile to ensure that it accurately reflects your information, skills and experience. 

If your résumé/ C.V. has a lot of complex formatting like multiple columns, tables, section breaks, images, or important information entered as alt-text, the parser may have a harder time identifying your skills. 

You have a couple of options to fix this: 

• You can reformat your résumé into plain text format and re-upload it. 

• You can manually enter the skills and other information that the AI parser missed 

It’s important for your profile to have all the skills and experiences that you have gained in order for the system to provide the most relevant recommendations for you.  

Some general advice on crafting a resume that is friendly to AI parsers: 

• Keep formats simple, use docx, or pdf file formats without a lot of tables, section breaks, fancy fonts, or images. 

• Do not embed experience, education, or skills in a png or other image file inside a word document or pdf file. 

• Make sure to include descriptive job titles for your previous experiences, job titles are an important factor in the recommendations you see. Avoid employer specific titles and think about what your position would be most likely to be called industry-wide. 

• Include your educational history with the degree(s) you received and your major(s). Do not include the graduation date. 

• Make sure to nest your project experience under the job title where you worked on the project. The parser has a hard time with resumes that list employment history first followed by a list of projects. This is common with consulting resumes. 

• List your jobs in reverse chronological order. 

• Use acronyms and abbreviations judiciously. Avoid employer-specific terminology and stick to jargon that is well understood in your discipline generally. For example, API/SDK is fine for software engineering jobs, but GTM for “go to market” is better to spell out. 

• Skills are more reliably identified if you include a separate skills section in your resume to highlight your most important/relevant skills. 

Please use the Support link at the bottom left of the page for questions and concerns about the use of AI in Microsoft’s Microsoft Careers Site.