Also, never ever apply through one of the career portals companies setup (taleo and the like).

Having applied for tens of perfectly matching jobs at MS, Google and others through their portals, all I can say is they never call you if you apply through their online resume management system. Taleo etc are a resume blackhole, and once they have your resume in their DB, the third party consultants cannot help you either since your phone number check turns up a duplicate on taleo.

If Satya Nadella were to apply via taleo, he wouldn't even be called.