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Microsoft Office: A potentially telling indicator of the sophistication level of your organization

This isn’t always true, of course, but in my experience, you can get an indication of what to expect in terms of sophistication by knowing what version of Microsoft Office is being used by an organization.

This is a good (and admittedly bizarre) question to ask in an interview when they ask you “do you have any questions for us?” 

If they tell you anything before Office 2007, then there is a pretty decent chance that when you get to look at the code base as a developer/architect, there is gonna be some pain experienced.

If they answer “We don’t use Microsoft Office, we use….”  and it is StarOffice, OpenOffice or Google Docs, then all bets are off.  It could be the best job you ever had or the worst.

posted on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:17 PM
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# re: Microsoft Office: A potentially telling indicator of the sophistication level of your organization
Raleigh Buckner
8/25/2009 8:29 PM
I would also ask OS version and IE version if it is a Windows shop. IE6 == show me the door.
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# re: Microsoft Office: A potentially telling indicator of the sophistication level of your organization
jdn
8/26/2009 12:30 AM


Brilliant, that's an excellent point.
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# re: Microsoft Office: A potentially telling indicator of the sophistication level of your organization
James Wampler
8/27/2009 2:36 PM
I am always surprised at how few interviewees ask questions like this. In terms of my job satisfaction, at the top of my list is the software and hardware I will be working with. I would ask about which versions of Visual Studio and the .NET framework and third-party tools they use as well.

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