I am pleased to publish, that I have been nominated as a Microsoft Security MVP in August, 2025. This milestone is a huge step on my professional career and my dream since I have been started working with Microsoft Azure and its security features. I promised to my colleagues to share some insights about the process and how I finally managed to get the recognition. I can definitely agree with other MVP’s, that it is not an easy recognition to achieve and requires constant dedication and effort in your freetime to contribute something that is valuable to the community. Community, that is working with Microsoft technologies.
Before my nomination, I have regularly engaged with interesting discussions with the other Finnish MVP’s in conferences, meetups and other Microsoft-related events, We have discussed the current requirements and what precisely needs to be done to receive such recognition. Some of those persons are even Regional Directors, which is other respected recognition.
I received this email during busy morning. What an end to the wait!
Just please make sure that you can be nominated, you need to have following attributes:
- You are not a current Microsoft employee
- You’re an expert on some aspect of Microsoft solutions, products, research, etc.
- You have a proven passion for sharing your Microsoft expertise to the community.
Start Contributing
First step towards MVP status is by starting the contributions around the areas of interest. I would recommend to check out the DotNetCrunch’s excellent collection of award categories (link). The contributions can be blog posts, giving a presentations about the Microsoft-related topics to the community of your choice or in conferences, writing articles to your blog, writing books, posting videos on YouTube for technology consumers, providing feedback to the Microsoft Partner or Customer Connection Programs and achieve recognition from there. Posting tutorials, walkthroughs or reviews will definitely help you to get noticed.
I have been actively contributing to the Microsoft Security Customer Connection Program, if you are interested, feel free to submit the application here.
TIP: Start writing down the list of contributions to the memo or Excel sheet (Kudos to my colleague Pasi Huuhka for this tip!)
Just keep in mind, the amount is not crucial – the quality of the content is more important. The jury will make their decision about the quality of the contributions as one, so having a long list of low-quality content won’t look too good in your application.
Here is a comprehensive list of different available activities (Thanks for Myron Helgering of creating the list!)
- Blog
- Book/E-book
- Article
- Podcast
- Webinar/Online Training/Video/Livestream
- Content Feedback and Editing
- Online Support
- Open Source/Project/Sample code/Tools
- Product Feedback
- Mentorship/coaching
- Speaker/Presenter at Microsoft Event
- Speaker/Presenter at Third-party event
- User Group owner
Finding a Nominator
To be considered for a Microsoft MVP award, you must first be nominated by either a current MVP or a current Microsoft employee. If you are lucky to have a MVP as a colleague, you can and you should ask him/her to write a nomination for you. If you are not so lucky, don’t worry. When you attend Microsoft technology conferences, you certainly run into MVP’s there. Just prepare to introduce yourself with an elevator pitch and connect with the experts of your area’s of interest. After the event, you can search the list of all current MVP’s through this link. After connecting and sharing some insights, I’m sure he/she is more than happy to write a nomination for you!
Finally: Writing the Nomination Application
Very nice, you managed to find a Nominator for you! The next step is the initial screening, and if you pass it, you will receive a application of the nomination. Answer any relevant questions in the application and be ready to provide documentation that supports your nomination when requested. The additional questions varies, but they can relate to the topics of your contributions or they might want to know more about your experience in certain Microsoft solutions. The awards committee frequently deals with a backlog of nominations, so you should expect the entire process (from nomination to final decision) to take 90 days or more. For me, it took a bit over 90 days.
You will receive an email, when the nomination board has made its decision.
Best of luck!
Do you have any questions about the process or comments, feel free to share them below! I am more than happy to answer them.
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