3 ms·

I think people miss that you don't need to ace these interviews to get hired. It's just more data points that allow them to probe the exact depth and breadth of

I think people miss that you don't need to ace these interviews to get hired. It's just more data points that allow them to probe the exact depth and breadth of your knowledge, as well as your general thought processes and how you go about investigating problems you don't already know the answer to. You're not necessarily expected to answer 100% of the questions 100% correctly. I'm not at Apple, but still a fairly desirable position at a good SV company where I was grilled on some extremely arcane details of things I claimed to have experience with on my resume. Some of them I knew instantly, some I didn't but had a reasonable wrong guess and the interviewer(s) explained the right answer and we moved on. That was fine. They explained beforehand why they were asking what they were asking and were very clear that I wasn't expected to be a walking encyclopedia, though I definitely had to show that I knew how to find and use the right part of the right encyclopedia.

stu2b50 6y ago
Additionally, looking at the list I'm pretty sure the interview were resume based, too. They asked such a breadth of questions because OP had such a breadth of supposed experience and expertise on his resume. I am fairly certain every apple interview does not involve questioning the candidate about their PyCon experiences. I see nothing wrong going down a resume and asking about each point. It certainly sounds better than the leetcode infested mess the rest of the industry uses.
908B64B197 6y ago
> some I didn't but had a reasonable wrong guess and the interviewer(s) explained the right answer and we moved on. That was fine. You would be surprised at the number of candidates who would start arguing with the interviewer. Being able to learn new things on the spot during a pretty stressful event, admit one is wrong with no shame and move on is a great trait to select for.

stu2b50 6y ago

Additionally, looking at the list I'm pretty sure the interview were resume based, too. They asked such a breadth of questions because OP had such a breadth of supposed experience and expertise on his resume. I am fairly certain every apple interview does not involve questioning the candidate about their PyCon experiences. I see nothing wrong going down a resume and asking about each point. It certainly sounds better than the leetcode infested mess the rest of the industry uses.

908B64B197 6y ago

> some I didn't but had a reasonable wrong guess and the interviewer(s) explained the right answer and we moved on. That was fine. You would be surprised at the number of candidates who would start arguing with the interviewer. Being able to learn new things on the spot during a pretty stressful event, admit one is wrong with no shame and move on is a great trait to select for.