14 ms·

My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

• Mahn 12y ago
  Sounds like a pretty standard process, I was actually expecting it to be more convoluted for a company of their size.
• zobzu 12y ago
  this is pretty close to the process we have here at <undisclosed bay area company> And indeed, if you had to go through all this it means they very seriously considered you for the position. Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit. There's many reasons why someone would not be selected and sometimes it's just that people didn't "click" really. I know that most of the time, recruiters word is "if you're not sure, better not hire than to make a mistake" and sometimes people who could have been accepted and made a positive contribution to the team get refused. There's even a bit of luck in that. Thanks for sharing, though. I've never applied for Apple - albeit I guess engineering jobs get more tech stuff in the facetime interviews ;)
  • blister 12y ago
    Why is this the case? As a hiring manager, I often lean heavily towards the "hire them and if they don't work out, let them go" camp. I've gotten a lot of great teammates that way and only one that didn't work out. But the one that didn't work out killed the interview and was ridiculously smart. All the ones that did poorly in the interview and had little experience ended up being some of my better engineers.
    • yen223 12y ago
      Because there's a prevailing idea that once you hire someone, there are huge legal and logistical barriers to letting him go. I don't know how true it is, but that's what people believe.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • zobzu 12y ago
      theres a lot of reasons, its more expensive to hire, form and fire than not hire for one. Then, there are relationships with colleagues and between employees regardless of performance, if you fire very rarely then your employees are happier, everyone's happier and performance is better. Basically, you always take the smartest risk you can, and quite often, that means no hire when you're not too sure.
  • joesmo 12y ago
    "Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit." Please explain. I hear this a lot but it's never substantiated other than by vague references to employees being able to sue for being fired. Yes, some employees do sue, but there generally is no ground to do so, even when the employer has misbehaved. In my experience, it's actually incredibly easy and cheap to fire someone. You might lose a couple months' salary, but generally even that won't be a total loss as you're likely to get at least some decent work even out of a bad hire.
    • pandaman 12y ago
      This depends on the job. If other people can do their job without one who has been fired then it's quite cheap. On the other hand, in software industry, there are often teams of specialist with different expertise and their jobs depend on one another. In such a case, firing one will interfere with every one else and you will take a loss in decreased productivity for everyone. E.g. you fire a member of a 5 people team on a project with 100 people total. So that team productivity drops 10% (it was a bad hire after all so there is not much loss) and, hence, the whole project slows by 10%. Now you pay the remaining 99 people 10% more to get the same work done.
• sb8244 12y ago
  Idk. Flaunting how much the process cost and how much income it lost was sort of put off for me. It's great to see insight into interviews, in general, but that just left a weird bitter note to the article.
  • joslin01 12y ago
    Same here. I always cringe a little bit when I see people breakdown their time to an imaginary monetary loss. This way of looking at things comes with a pretty heavy dose of narcissism if you ask me. It says "People would be paying me money for what I'm doing for free right now; look how much I'm sacrificing." While there might be quite a few people out there who could get away with billing their time at any given hour of the day, most of us have to establish relationships that facilitate a mutually-beneficial value exchange. Luis might have very well been looking for work during this time, but by phrasing it as an outright monetary loss, he exaggerates his sacrifice and gives an appeal to the reader to condemn what Apple "did to him."I believe this is the reason also for the "700 Billion". Oh well. Sucks to be rejected. Natural reaction
    • byuu 12y ago
      Yeah I wouldn't quantify how much money I personally lost, but it's absolutely fair to specify how many hours of time were lost. I value my free time. That's time I could be learning a new skill, working on a product, or just having fun. Either way, it's time I gave up for nothing. I understand wanting to really vet someone first; but it really does seem kind of excessive how long these interview processes are becoming. It's not as if the author were applying for a Japanese salaryman (read: lifetime) employment position. Why not do a normal interview, bring them on as a contractor, see how it goes, and then make your final decision? It'd be a bit of a risk for the candidate if relocation were involved and remote work wasn't possible, but that would be on them.
      • tomp 12y ago
        > but it's absolutely fair to specify how many hours of time were lost I don't think it is. First of all, the hours aren't "lost", they are "cost of getting a job" - you don't interview without at least considering the possibility of not getting an offer. Anyone who expects to get a job after every interview they do is delusional. It's like the time you spend pitching your services to a client who then decides not to hire you - not "lost" time, but "cost of business".
• ryanSrich 12y ago
  "Talent Shortage"
  • GuiA 12y ago
    I feel like that's a big misunderstood thing in our community. There is a talent shortage - in the sense that companies are always ready to hire someone in the top ~10%. That's what talent means in this context. Google and Facebook will always be more than willing to hire the people who build frameworks in their spare time or contribute to the Linux kernel. There is however no shortage of one trick pony PHP developers, because by mathematical definition they are the bottom 90% (see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html). (the question of whether companies actually need employees of that caliber for building mobile apps is a entirely different one)
    • m3talridl3y 12y ago
      "Wanted: Someone with the time-management skills to get to the top 10% of developers. Must be willing to show up for 8 rounds of on-site interviews and be prepared for deep philosophical discussions on the merits of mergesort."
    • jeffbush 12y ago
      Well, there have been a few instances in the past where I've been desperate to hire and I've brought people in against my better judgement. I can tell you it sucks having to look someone in the eye and let them go because they couldn't keep up with the rest of the team. Once you've had to do it a few times as a manager, you become more conservative with your hiring. Sure, pushing pixels around is easy, but when you're up against a deadline and the app is crashing in a subtle way, you need engineers who have solid debugging chops. Not everybody does.
      • joesmo 12y ago
        When you're up against such a deadline, your manager has failed you, not the other way around.
• Miserlou57 12y ago
  About two years ago I was fast-tracked to interviews at Apple via recommendation. About 9 interviews later over 4 spread-out days, I was told I had done quite well during the interview process. Eventually I was not given the position because I was holding a beer in my LinkedIn picture. They ended up paying my current employer (their vendor at the time) astronomical amounts of money to do the very same service, done by me, on-site. Go figure.
  • geetee 12y ago
    I believe you, but they actually admitted that was the reason?
    • Miserlou57 12y ago
      not really. I had a close contact part of the process who revealed this to me.
      • ugh123 12y ago
        Probably couldn't have hurt to reach out to the recruiter and/or hiring manager and make a personal case for yourself.
        • hueving 12y ago
          Why would you lower yourself to the level of having to justify drinking beer to get a job?
          • libria 12y ago
            This is rationalizing. Just because some stuffy suit caught a glance at his profile and nixed him doesn't mean the team he would work with has any issue with it. As with all interviews, you gotta do a little dance to get in, but they're not reflective of daily experience.
  • adamnemecek 12y ago
• joslin01 12y ago
  Out of curiosity, why the title 700 Billion? What is the purpose of this in how it relates to the article? Regarding the article, yea, seems pretty standard. Sorry you didn't get the job
  • rscott 12y ago
    "A few people asked me to write about my experience of interviewing for a job at Apple—the 700 billion worth company—so here it is."
    • joslin01 12y ago
      I still don't understand, but ok, thanks. That's a great descriptor of Apple (of which there are many), but doesn't point anywhere toward a rationale for titling an interview experience as "700 billion". I'm not trying to say titles need to make logical sense, but they usually should make some sense
      • presty 12y ago
        it refers to Apple's current Market Cap
        • staticfish 12y ago
          I think he understands that, but is wondering why that is relevant for the topic at all.
  • toephu2 12y ago
    it's called link bait.
  • stevenjohns 12y ago
    It could be for a number of reasons. 1. OP wanted to emphasize what it is like to interview at a company which has a lot of resources to invest into interviews - one of the things mentioned was committing multiple people for a full day to just interview him, as well as willing to bear a high initial cost (travel, hotel) to interview him. 2. OP wanted to detail the interview process of such a financially successful company: who they hire, why they hire that person, how they find and select candidates that have contributed to that high financial success. 3. OP wanted a crafty title beyond "My interview at Apple" 4. More likely to be clicked on, shared, commented or voted on (i.e clickbait).
• hans 12y ago
  when i interviewed, at the end of the day, the dude went out of his way to tell me they'd let me know, no matter what, either way, in a few days. Then crickets .. i still resent how he was so insistent that i would hear from them. Just be honest jackass har har.
  • rhizome 12y ago
    LinkedIn did the same to me.
• GuiA 12y ago
  Posting as a French engineer who moved to the Bay Area a bit over 4 years ago, and has worked at a few companies of varying sizes and success in that time period: Silicon Valley as an engineer is a demanding environment to be in, and like many such environments getting in is quite a challenge. As an outsider, you are at many disadvantages: you don't know the culture, you don't know how things get done, you don't know who to talk to and who will waste your time, and so on. So to get in, not only are you fighting against all of these obstacles, but you also have to perform at the level which is expected of everyone, which might be higher than what you're used to. This means that the odds of getting in on your first try are quite, quite low. If your goal is really to make it there, you have to treat it as a numbers game - after 5, 10, 20 tries, you'll probably get in. Or maybe if your dream is to work at Google/Facebook/etc., then the best way to do it is to first start working for a smaller, lesser known company that's having a harder time hiring. Make yourself a name there, volunteer to give some talks, post some open source projects that'll bring your name at the top of Hacker News for a day, and after a couple of years, knock again at the door of your dream company. Or maybe they'll end up knocking at your door again very soon. Recruiters know very well that the number of false negatives is quite high, and that people can change very fast. If you want to take part, you have to put in a lot of effort and personal work, and expect things to take time- you have to stay humble, and you have to keep pushing. I think it's worth it. Some people don't believe that it is, and that's completely fine- but you have to know whether you want it or not. If you really do, then don't give up on the first obstacle.
• samdk 12y ago
  Note: after 25 minutes answering questions for a job you really want it’s kinda hard to shift to a question-asking mode. When I was looking for a job I found that it helped enormously to write down a set of questions ahead of time. Some I liked: What does a typical day look like for you? What projects do you work on? How long have you been at $company? How has your role changed since then? If I were hired for this role, what would my first day/week/month look like? Is there anything about $company that some people really like, but others might dislike? (For example, having an open-plan office.) What tools do you use on a regular basis?
  • jeffbush 12y ago
    I always find it a little funny as a manager when a prospective individual contributor asks me what a typical day is like for me. For me? I sit in meetings all day, thanks for asking. Would you like to know what a typical day would be like for you? :)
    • samdk 12y ago
      Finding out you spend all day in meetings still tells you something, especially with a few follow-up questions. Who do you spend your time meeting with? What about? How many people are typically involved? How long do meetings last? (That said, most of the people I've been interviewed by were devs, so this was not really ever an issue.)
      • jeffbush 12y ago
        Yeah, when I say I spend a lot of my day in meetings, I usually get a blank look, but it's an opportunity to riff and expand on what the environment is like at the company. For example, part of my job is to protect engineer's time. One reason I go to meetings to report status and collect relevant information to condense and pass on to the team.
    • copperx 12y ago
      You can wipe that smug smile off your face. The individual is interested in what you, the manager, does in a day-to-day basis.
• RandomBK 12y ago
  This all sounds like a typical 'cultural fit' screening process. I can't speak to SV firms, but many consulting/banking firms use the same technique. It can be very frustrating at times, as you never get to find out what went wrong, especially if the interview itself felt like it went very smoothly. I just finished a long string of interviews for consulting and product management positions, and there is nothing worse than to get a 'no, please try again later' without any feedback as to how you can improve. At the end of the day, it comes down to being able to truly connect with your interviewers and breaking out of the typical question-answer format. It sounds like you almost reached that point - I'm not sure if the lunch was a standard thing they did with all applicants, but it did seem like they were really interested in you. It could be that the process came down to a handful of equally desirable candidates, at which point luck plays a large role in deciding who gets the job. I would definitely keep in touch with everyone you met, and apply again at the next opportunity.
  • staticfish 12y ago
    What a nice, sane thing to write on HN. Reading this I got the exact same impression.
  • jsmthrowaway 12y ago
    For what it's worth, I recently left a position at Apple and I am the complete opposite of the "culture." Two key differences emerged in my reading of the author's process and my own, which I think boil down to differences between DevPub and where I worked, in what they call Internet Services in Cue's org. That's a pretty wide org, so there's vast gulfs even within, just based on the way the org was put together. My culture screen was in-person, while I was being interviewed technically. Part of their process was getting to know me. I'm relaxed in interviews, joke around, and have a good time because at the end of the day, we need to like what we do. I find that this confidence has opened a lot of doors for me, but I do have to work very hard to project it given my internal strife. I often find that interviewers are more nervous than me, frankly, because as an industry we tend to toss people in a room who are themselves suffering from imposter syndrome and ask them to gauge someone they've never met with very little interview training. I was interviewing for one company on my third day. I am the polar opposite of what I would consider to be someone who "fits Apple culture," in general, but it's worth remembering that there are vastly different cultures in different areas. I'm fat, I don't dress well, I'm largely unkempt if left to my own devices, I'm not a social butterfly -- put a soldering iron in my hand and I'll have a good time. I enjoy theoreticals about encryption and side channel attacks. I identify more with Woz than Jobs. Universally, across the board, every time I told someone I'm an engineer at Apple I got the look up and down and "you are?" in reply. I think people have an image of Apple that's formed from the typical customer and perhaps the retail folks; while that's true to an extent (what's served at Caffe Macs is an often great example, but you can find a kick-ass burger if you know which one to go to), I didn't find that Apple struck me as especially hipster or faux-cool or however you want to think of it. Again, maybe my area, but typical Web startup people generally break that way, so I would have expected Apple to reflect it, but no. That's neither here nor there and represents a very compartmentalized view. (I didn't work on Infinite Loop, and when I made journeys over there I got a different feeling, so that might be related.) Just based on my own experience, I think team fit goes way over culture fit, and I don't think OP's experience sounds like a culture screen. The other difference is that my process was practically a mirrored copy of Google's, with recruiter courting, technical screen by the recruiter, deeper screen by the #2 on the team, in person interviews. I interviewed for two different teams at Apple (one no-hired me, which was fun because then I was responsible for some of their stuff), and the process was nearly identical, except the no-hire team put a pair of people in the room and my accepting team put only one for each interview. At no point was FaceTime ever used. In fact, I wasn't aware that was a norm anywhere, but I admit that my purview was limited to my area.
• pkaye 12y ago
  My own experience from a few years back. I had relevant skills for some technology they were ramping up and got an call from them 1 hour after I submitted my resume. Next day did a phone screening and they wanted to interview me in person. The interview was for two days with 18 people. Most were coding and problem solving questions with engineers and then some management. I did correctly one all questions except one I got incorrectly and one I stumbled a bit. In the end I didn't get the offer because I was not enthusiastic enough. Apparently because I also mentioned I was interviewing at a startup. Honestly I felt I could contribute more to the startup than be a cog in the wheel at a big company. In hindsight the startup was more lucrative for me as an individual...
• drewblaisdell 12y ago
  > Overall, I’m pretty happy my work caught someone’s attention and that I had the opportunity to meet all these people. This is a really cool way to sum up the article.
• steakejjs 12y ago
  EVERYONE does a horrible job recruiting. I think a very low number of companies are doing this correctly. The thing about the process is one bad moment spoils the entire process for the candidate. Shallow/No responses, or horrible questions, or something unprofessional being said during the interview. It's not just $AAPL it is everyone, but if you are an interviewer or a recruiter, please fight for the candidates to get good responses and good questions, especially if you fly someone across the globe to awkwardly sit in a room for 6 hours.
  • UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    I agree that most companies get it wrong, but what is right? It seems like interviewing and recruiting is a field dominated by "sounds right, common sense" styles of thinking (like most HR) where there is no post-mortem of how well a candidate did in the next 6-24 months. Even if you look at most MBA programs, the stuff on recruiting and interviewing aren't as research and evidence based as you would expect, and instead you just get spoon fed a bunch of best practices seemingly out of thin air. I think programmers and technology companies in particular are very trend-following. For example, Microsoft decided to do some out-of-the-box questioning about circle manhole covers and suddenly tons of other companies had to have their own version. Google did CS algorithm questions, so everyone else had to have them also (even for jobs which use high level libraries like Java, C#, PHP, etc).
    • seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      They get it wrong because no one knows how to do it right. Actually...evaluating human knowledge and behavior into a bunch of 1 hour interview slots doesn't lead to much accurate information.
      • foobarqux 12y ago
        But no one seems to spend time on trying to figure out how to do it right or even how well the current methods perform.
• Vecrios 12y ago
  Isn't this why they are a top-tier company? I mean, their selectivity is what makes their company great as a whole.
• natch 12y ago
  The author has an odd interest in sharing numbers that, while significant, show that the point is being missed. Sure, 700 billion is an impressive market cap for a company, but that's not what it's all about for the creative people of Apple. $6,000 of your time, meh, we all invest that much in side projects, year after year, if not more frequently than that. 5,000 miles, yeah, so you took a flight, is this supposed to be a measure of something of significance? Yes we sometimes travel for interviews. Putting mileage numbers to it almost sounds like complaining. 17 hours of WWDC videos, that's a sliver of a slice of what's available. If anything, it's an embarrassing number to admit to, for someone who claims to be an Apple UI expert. Maybe this weird fixation on off-point numbers was a turnoff for the kind folks at Apple, I don't know.
  • pippy 12y ago
    If we're going to focus on money, which the Author did, Apple's revenue per full-time equivalent is $2.13 million. It's obvious that Apple didn't feel that he was going to be worth that.
    • 001sky 12y ago
      This comment highlights why the pot should never call the kettle black.
  • soup10 12y ago
    I'd be annoyed too if I was subjected to the bureaucratic circle-jerk tech companies call interviews.
  • atarian 12y ago
    Good callout.. especially considering the article started off like: >3 screening calls, 5 FaceTime interviews, a trip to Cupertino for 5 two-person interviews
  • robmcm 12y ago
    Don't forget that some people pay to travel to WWDC out of their own pocket, it's not like it was a trip to someone horrid.
• fenomas 12y ago
  I notice several comments about culture fit and not clicking with interviewers, but it's worth keeping in mind that there isn't always a "reason" for not getting an offer. Not related to the candidate, that is. Job openings sometimes disappear for random internal reasons, or there may have been another candidate for the same position who was objectively a much better fit. I feel you have to look at job interviews like a hand of poker or the like. There are things you can do to increase your odds, but even with perfect play not every hand is winnable.
  • grecy 12y ago
    This exact thing happened to me today. I applied for a Developer position back in the summer (not at Apple) and after a great phone interview I never heard back. Today, more than 7 months later I got a call out of the blue saying the position was just advertised again and they were really disappointed I didn't apply (I didn't see it) apparently my resume was great and I scored really high on the phone interview (who knew?) so they've had me submit my resume today and have already started calling my references. I'm very curious why it all fell in a heap 7 months ago, but I suspect internal politics or the budget dried up or some-such.
    • jsmeaton 12y ago
      Another data point. We were hiring for a developer position and found a really promising candidate. The higher ups decided that we needed a hire for another team first which put a temporary (permanent.. ) hold on our new position. I found out much later that the candidate was never even contacted to tell them it was a no. This was a major breakdown of HR - but it shows that it's not always about the candidate.
      • deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    • mattmurdog 12y ago
      Something similar happened to me years ago. I later learned the hiring manager had left. But when they contacted me, I had already moved on.
• thombrn 12y ago
  We live in an age of inversion. Many things are the opposite of what makes sense. - You have to interview, and prove you're worthy, to become a slave - You have to pay to look at ads (ever been to a movie theater, or sat in a plane with screens in front of you?) - You have to pay to get cancer (ever buy a cigarette?) It's interesting, because the other way makes way more sense. If you're going to be a slave, you should get to pick where. You should be paid to look at ads. You should get paid to get cancer.
  • joslin01 12y ago
    Yes, using such a manner of thinking, you ultimately arrive that you are born to die, and but live to suffer. It truly is a grim irony, isn't it? Sometimes though, we say to ourselves we were born to live and suffer to live. The manner through which you justify your existence here on this Earth -- and how that relates to your work / play balance -- is nothing special to this age and never will be something special to an age. Its roots go too deep. We'll always be paying in some form to live or die.
  • csallen 12y ago
    >> You have to interview, and prove you're worthy, to become a slave... If you're going to be a slave, you should get to pick where. Being a slave means performing involuntary work without pay. Having a job means performing voluntary work for pay. I'm not sure how you're conflating the two. Also, you do get to pick where you work. >> You have to pay to look at ads (ever been to a movie theater, or sat in a plane with screens in front of you?)... You should be paid to look at ads. On the contrary, those ads offset the cost of your movie or your flight. Just because they don't completely cover your cost doesn't change the basic tradeoff that's going on.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• dpweb 12y ago
  Can't help but wonder how Jobs or Woz would have reacted to that when they were young? I get the feeling they would call the company "assholes", of course there wasn't quite the celebrity culture of tech and money back then.
• robotresearcher 12y ago
  The lack of explanation about why they didn't hire you is completely normal in California. Saying nothing at all ensures they don't say anything that can be interpreted as discrimination, minimizing their legal exposure. They have nothing to gain by explaining and plenty to lose if they say something stupid.
  • jeffbush 12y ago
    It's also just awkward. I've had a few cases where people pressed me for feedback, and I responded gently but truthfully. I thought the answers were somewhat innocuous (you don't have any experience with X), but people still got defensive. I've certainly interviewed and didn't get offered a job. It stings, even when I knew I wasn't the best fit. It's natural to feel some bitterness.
• yeukhon 12y ago
  I like the following interview style (I was interviewed for a security full time position at a well-known SV company like this): Skip introduction... 1) start with basic textbook questions like what is authenticity and authentication or XSS 2) catch what the interviewee said and build questions (e.g. I said something about private key so interviewer asked me about pro and cons of asymmetric and symmetric encryption). Oh yeah - know your shit because they are going to catch you! It's okay to say "I don't know." Being straightforward earns respect. My interviewers didn't penalize me much (well I just graduated from college...). 3) the next couple interviews again starts with introduction, then deep dive into what the team does, what the team is building at a high level, then proceed to ask me my interest. Here i would talk about my ideal projects, show them high level how I would go about implementing my idea, challenges I face (and also why I have to build one; are there any existing solution and are they not adequate). Take caution of your words - know the things you say aloud. Somewhere in those 4-6 interviews, add a programming sessions if you haven't done so (for me I skip that and went to onsite because of internal referral). I didn't get an offer probably because I didn't quite know what I really want to build. My idea was too generic and probably too "child play." It was a really intense and yet fun interview. This interview process allows interviewer and interviewee to see if they are a match or not quickly and pleasantly. I always look back at this interview and believe that the rejection is just and great for me and for the team. I wasn't a match and I won't be a match any time soon. I am still exploring techniques, interests and ideas.
• convivialdingo 12y ago
  Seriously, I think a couple of hours and a lunch is all that is needed to consider most positions. Management and directors can be more prolonged. Developing a workforce is about cultivating good leadership, a balanced diversity of thought, improving raw talent and most importantly tenacity.
• kkotak 12y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience. Bottomline - don't let any person/company judge your competence. If you've got the chops, you'll excel at what you do. So, go build it.
• brooksbp 12y ago
  I've had 9 on-sites in the past 4 months at both large companies and start-ups. A few reflections: - Sometimes, a "No" means "we like your career trajectory; we've identified you as a candidate that we want to follow up with in ~6 months". - Sometimes, a "No" means "we really like you; we think you'd be a fit here, we'll be constructing this team in ~6 months". - Sometimes, a "No" means "we wont relocate; we wont fly you out here; we're only considering local (e.g. Bay Area) candidates". - Sometimes, a "No" means that it's up to you to reflect on the situation. Take as many notes as you can during the process. Analyze what you said, wrote, acted, etc. It's up to you to determine how you could be better. - When you get to the on-site and have the opportunity to learn a lot more, things might not be all ponies and rainbows like you'd imagine. Be open to what you didn't want to see, hear, or learn about. You might learn that you actually don't want to work here. - You're racing against the clock. Balance is key. You hear advice about asking clarification questions, discussing trade-offs, etc. but at the end of the hour one of the most important things is the code you put up on that board. The interviewer will likely whip out their phone, take a pic, and that's that. - Coding on a whiteboard, with a stranger, in an unfamiliar environment, after traveling many miles... is... challenging. Without much practice, you're at risk to fall flat on your face--I've face-planted my fair share, and it's always fuel to get back at it again. - Interview as much as you possibly can. You learn about companies, people, technology, industry, challenges, etc. Practice, practice, practice. - Sometimes, recruiters reach out to you for an initial call (you're excited), and then you learn that members of the hiring team haven't even seen your resume (orly? u think i haz de skillz dear rekrooter?). You then never hear back from the recruiter, or receive an email stating that they're not moving forward. I've only had a couple of these, but it's enough for me to strongly dislike contact before any member of the hiring team has reviewed my qualifications.
• mikekchar 12y ago
  I have been working at a smallish startup for the last 2 years and have spent a lot of time hiring people. You have not asked for comments about what might have led to your rejection, so feel free to disregard this free advice. Obviously I don't have enough information to give you real feedback, but perhaps the following will be helpful. By far and away the biggest reason we tend to reject junior/intermediate people who have had a decent interview is that their view of their own level and our impression of the same level appears to be grossly at odds. We don't expect junior people to know how to do everything, but rather hire people where we can see very good growth potential. We have an exceptionally low attrition rate, so this has worked out very well for us. There were several things in your web page that would raise immediate warning flags for me if I were to see it in an interview. As others have mentioned, the attention to numbers makes me feel that you are justifying yourself. For example, the translation of the time you spent on a personal project to money makes me feel that you are trying very hard to make it sound impressive. The details about how many hours a course took and how you spent many more hours making notes makes me think that you want this to be a very impressive thing. Please don't take this as a personal attack. It is a very good thing to be proud of your accomplishments and to use the good feelings as a springboard to your next project. The only problem is that you will find that these accomplishments will really pale when compared against the many people who have nurtured side projects for years, written hundreds or thousands of pages of peer reviewed documentation, designed and given courses (as opposed to taking them), etc. My point is not to discourage you -- just the opposite! I love to see CVs where people take initiative and invest their own time in things they love. No matter how small the thing might be, it always has the potential to be a seed that grows into a tree. But if I get the sense that you are over valuing your accomplishment I am left to wonder -- is that all this person is capable of? I am looking for amazing growth in the applicant. Can they do something 10 times more impressive with some guidance? 100 times more impressive? Or will they hit a glass ceiling and say, "This is as good as anyone could reasonably expect me to be". Even if someone has potential, they don't always have the maturity yet to bring that potential to fruition. My advice is simple. Present your accomplishments with no embellishment or sales pitch. If they are impressive, then the interviewer will be impressed. If they are not impressed, then you have a very real opportunity. Ask the question, "What would make you impressed and can you help me get to the point to be able to do that?" If they can, then the job will be yours. If they can't then it is not a job you want anyway.
• dba7dba 12y ago
  I also recently went through an interview process lasting over 3+ weeks, 3 separate interviews with 4 different people. Initial phone interview and skype for the other 2. Oh and add to that tech tests lasting over 3 hours, completed after screening interview. In the end I didn't get an offer, with a one liner explanation. I was grateful that they even gave me a chance and hold no hard feeling against them BUT I'm pissed about the waste, on my and their part. On the days I had the interviews, I wasn't productive at all as I spent time preparing, managing my nervousness (pacing around), and decompressing after interview. Those are a few days I won't get back. Even without putting monetary value on it, I think all can agree it is a big waste. After all that, all I got was a stinking one liner explanation, that I wasn't a good fit. What was the tech test for? One person on the team I talked to seemed as if he hadn't seen my resume until the interview time. He was going down my resume and asking questions and I could tell that it was his first time reading it. And I also feel that was the person that gave thumbs down. I hope their accounting knows that 1 person cost the COMPANY nearly 6 man hours of their employees, for nothing. EDIT: From what I've seen previous jobs, managers and team members are asked to interview the candidate, not necessarily say yes/no based on the resume alone. Not that anyone will listen but I think it would help if HR asked managers/team-members to give up/down on each resume before calling in for interview. If enough give down, don't call in for interview. Save time for all.
• pistle 12y ago
  From surveying the comments... If companies are willing to spend the time and money vetting you, why are you not looking at them the same way? Despite the headlines, market cap, cache of the name of the company on your CV, how can't you have as many questions coming up to put at them as they have for you? The only time I've been turned down for a job that looked like it could have "dream job" aspirations to it, I had to say that 1) I totally knew and agreed with why they were declining and 2) felt they knew exactly why I would not likely feel comfortable coming in with them in a way that fits just right. You should be seeking out, within reason, what day 1, month 1, and year 1 are going to be like. You should be seeing how they fit into your life path as much as they are seeing how you are going to get them through the issues that made the added headcount necessary. What OP left me with, literally, was "I'm not a dummy b/c they brought me in." It's such a dry, objective review that it makes me think they were along for the ride instead of taking the wheel. It could well be just a personality-based thing. The OP has an apparently sterile passion for design and/in documentation. Interviewers love passion and resonance - or at least they should at some place you really want to be. Nobody should have to pry things out of you. And then, they want to be able to agree with you and your view on technical passions and interpersonal rapport. Are you hard-working, objectively talented, opinionated-but-open, and do you seem ready and able to complement or enhance them?
• downandout 12y ago
  Though this isn't as bad as many I've read, stories like this are the reason I have never applied to work at any of these large firms (Google, Apple, etc.). I have been a full-time developer for more than 20 years. I have 4 software patents to my name, one of which formed the basis of a startup that was acquired for $64 million. I know a few people at Facebook and Google (not at Apple), and I am definitely in the same league in terms of coding skills. However, based on available information, I am 100% certain that I couldn't successfully complete the on-command hypothetical coding exercises with someone standing over my shoulder, along with the other mental and social gymnastics associated with applying at any of these companies. I wonder how many other well-qualified people are out there that will simply never apply because of the drawn-out, intimidating hiring process.
  • roylez 12y ago
    Sometimes it was not only intimidating. Several months ago I had interviews with apple for a devops position. While most interviewers were friendly, there was a very aggressive one. He started with "I am going to ask you some of my favorite questions", and the tone of the interview went sour. Most of the questions should be from the skill sets he was mostly proud in but remotely related to the requirements of the position. For questions that were relevant, he asked something like "how could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" which I answered "practically it is impossible", he insisted there was a way which I did not know, and I felt insulted. While I guess he was expecting me to answer process group killing (which is still impossible when all resources are taken the computer is not responsive at all), it is just too damn wrong to make an interview a do-you-know-what-I-know showcase of the interviewer. Unfortunately, in big companies like Apple, ego-filled persons are not rare. If having to go through more than 5 rounds of interview, one have a good chance to encounter one.
    • jdmichal 12y ago
      > "How could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" I imagine that's a bit like asking how can you completely clean malware off a computer without reformatting. The answer is roughly the same: In the general case it's impossible, because once arbitrary code has been executed on your machine, nothing can be trusted.
• makeitsuckless 12y ago
  When I read these stories, I always wonder how many qualified people would actually subject themselves to such a pathetically long interview process? I imagine that companies with such processes only get candidates that are extremely compliant and lack self-esteem. Because most people I know would politely tell the employer to go f themselves after the 3rd screening call. Are these long drawn out, humiliating application processes typically American or does this happen in other countries as well?
  • sosborn 12y ago
    >Are these long drawn out, humiliating application processes typically American or does this happen in other countries as well? It happens in other countries too. It is really more a symptom of company size than company nationality. The mega-corps all tend to do shit like this.
• sandworm 12y ago
  I cannot stand the whole "culture fit" gambit. It's a job, not a country club. The idea that some people will "fit in" and others won't and that this can be determined during an interview is naive at best. What you get are a bunch of new hires who's only qualification over the not-hired is that they put on a good show for the interviewers. I'd say they are the best actors, but that doesn't cover those very good actors who make the mistake of playing the wrong part. Say you are willing to work through weekends to meet deadlines ... oops sorry, you guessed wrong. In this office that attitude is too competitive. We are going with those who guessed "no, weekends are for relaxing" and don't think you would get along with them. The message this sends to current employees is also evil: if you don't fit in perfectly we don't want you. So everyone shows up to work in costume, wearing a mask, because they fear standing apart. Bring the wrong suit or express the wrong opinion and you might not "fit" anymore. We often hear about a lack of visible diversity in IT. How can we expect to achieve visible diversity if we cannot yet tolerate emotional and cultural diversity? Employees and prospective employees should be judged on on their work product, not on their ability to emotionally camouflage themselves. Did Office Space teach us nothing?
  • personjerry 12y ago
    > I cannot stand the whole "culture fit" gambit. It's a job, not a country club. The idea that some people will "fit in" and others won't and that this can be determined during an interview is naive at best. First, regarding the cultural fit: I think it's important that you share a similar mindset with the people who already work there. You'll get along better, and it is more productive. For example, if one person is much more assertive than another, and tends to get their way, we may miss out on the contributions of another. (A lot of very different examples here) The second part: You're right, they can't give you a full personality quiz, but they're doing their best (oral communication and body language tell a lot more than having you fill in a quiz). They want to look for someone who fits in, so they bring you in and see if you do. What other way is there? > ... best actors ... I think if you intend to be an actor for the sake of a job, you're going to have a miserable time. Sure, I suppose this is the case if you value money more than satisfaction at you workplace. Which is where you'll make friends and spend a lot of your life, so I think you shouldn't, but that's subjective, so I concede this point. > ... not fitting ... This relates to the previous part in terms of priorities between just "getting the job" and "being happy with your job". As for the idea of not fitting in, I think it's too much of an exaggeration to think that people won't tolerate a few things here and there--but if you're entire view was different or fake to begin with, well maybe you didn't belong after all... you wouldn't be happy there anyway, so it's for the best.
• crimsonalucard 12y ago
  If you're too good, they often won't hire you for political reasons. It's unjust but I think it happens a lot.
• vijucat 12y ago
  The "Are you good enough for us?" interview process is seriously broken, maybe even neurotic, considering that the excessive focus on weeding out false positives actually ends up rejecting too many good people such as you who would end up contributing a LOT. The inequation is : Savings due to reducing false positives << Loss due to increased false negatives. 10X lower It takes intelligence to realize this, because weeding out false positives (LHS) is a Realized profit : your workplace is full of smart people and you get to say, "See, our process works", while the RHS is an Unrealized loss : you never got the chance to quantify how much you lost by rejecting the next amazing employee. IMHO, everybody needs to get off their high horse and start accepting employees after gasp just a cursory inspection of resumes / qualifications / blog posts, or even more radically, random double gasp selection of 10% of candidates who meet the minimum criteria. Give everyone a long probation period, and allowing them to seek feedback frequently as to how they can influence the decision to hire them on a more permanent basis so that the final decision will not be a surprise binary event. Hire for passion and ability, not just "the best"; how can you know the best among a sample if you never gave them a chance to score at the job (NOT looking good in an interview)? I have been surprised many times by hiring non-superstars and then finding out that there are many dimensions to doing a job, such as perseverance and sincerity, that they can bring to the table that can tilt the final score in their favour.
  • gummadi 12y ago
    >> Give everyone a long probation period, and allowing them to seek feedback frequently as to how they can influence the decision to hire them on a more permanent basis so that the final decision will not be a surprise binary event. Hypothetically, let's assume every company follows this method and around 30% of the employees who went through long probation period didn't make it through. Wouldn't that leave the employees in an even worse situation than getting rejected immediately, since they resigned their current job and now everyone in his professional circle knows that he or she didn't make it through company X's probation period? In addition to that, the employer will also accrue a lot more negative publicity from the employees who didn't make it through.
    • vijucat 12y ago
• qxmat 12y ago
  The last big interview I had was with a four letter company in Canary Wharf. The interview 'day' was me alone in a catered meeting room with a File->New assignment. Despite end of the day praise and the acknowledgement that I'd be recommended for the next phase, not to mention a genuine rapport with the devs that sporadically popped in, the four letter firm acquired a software house and froze recruitment a week later. I spent a day revealing tricks and patterns - something I charge a substantial daily rate - for nothing. But this is ridiculously common: the more effort required to interview the less likely I am to get the job. Nowadays I'm happy to walk out of bullshit interviews where they ask open ended questions where only their answer is correct. You get to a certain age/experience where it becomes apparent that a good interview is an informal session where you have a meeting of the minds not an adversarial grilling.
  • robmcm 12y ago
    I have been on the other side when consulting at a 4 letter company in that location. Most of the time you know nothing about the interview until someone asks you to give them a technical screening an hour before. There is also no formal process or seeming involvement from HR, it's just a, "is this person any good". From my experience it often comes down to, in order of importance: - Are they willing to be perm - Do they know what they are talking about - Will they fit in the team The first one seems to be a trump card, even though most perms end up leaving before the contractors. This brings me onto another point in which the best interview process is hiring someone as a consultant, and then converting them after a year or so if you are both happy to.
    • skore 12y ago
      > the best interview process is hiring someone as a consultant, and then converting them after a year or so Unfortunately, this is also a "great" way to keep temp employees in constant limbo with the perm job as the carrot and stick. Usually, the temp job also leaves you with a lot less money (particularly because all the perks - insurance etc. - are reserved for proper employees) and, depending on the company, that's just all too attractive: A temp worker turning in work like a perm worker, always trying to "get there".
• bonn1 12y ago
  Maybe Apple is overdoing the hiring process but I think it's the right approach especially for a company like Apple. I rather risk to decline ten good candidates instead of hiring one wrong one. Hiring not fitting people will cost the company so much time and money that a expensive hiring process is justified. Question is which hiring process leads to good fits only but this is a different discussion.
• jedc 12y ago
  I used to work for Google and did a ton of interviews for roles where I was the hiring manager, as well as others. One of the more painful things that I came across regularly was that we often had multiple great people go through the full interview process for a role, but could only hire one. Often 2-3 candidates could have done the job brilliantly, but we could only choose one. In that case, it tends to be really subtle things that shift the decision. (And this is where Google's Unconscious Bias training is vitally important - https://www.gv.com/lib/unconscious-bias-at-work https://www.gv.com/lib/unconscious-bias-at-work) It sounds like that situation may very well be the case here: lots of expense (both time/effort and $) and a long series of interviews, with a "no" at the end. (And in my experience those "no's" are often blunt, no matter how awesome a candidate is, for cover-your-ass/legal reasons.)
  • wmkn 12y ago
    Google always has openings for hundreds of engineers. If multiple people did well and the process is so expensive, why not hire all of them?
    • jedc 12y ago
      Good point. Most roles at Google have a specific job req... you find the right person and the job is filled. But there are roles where that's not the case and where what I said doesn't necessarily apply. (That said, I'd argue that the expense that a company takes to interview you is in direct proportion to their interest in you, no matter what else happens in the process.)
  • skuhn 12y ago
    This is the startup secret weapon: they can hire people that Google (and other large companies) cannot. When there's no shortage of work to do, and hiring is a constant struggle, you can hire as many good people as show up at the door. A lot of startups do still hire with a large company mindset, but I think they're making a big mistake. Simply the process of getting approval for a job req and playing the required politics screws everything up. I've actually been pressured to hire someone just to hold onto the req at a large company, with the up-front, stated intention to fire the person in a month or two and keep looking.
• whybroke 12y ago
  It wouldn't happen if it weren't economically wise. Contrary to claims to the contrary there is no shortage of adequately qualified candidates and an endless and growing sea of unqualified. So randomly rejecting the majority of qualified candidates is a relatively small price since the hiring goal is to get rid of the vast sea of unqualified. If there were indeed a shortage the practice would be reversed and companies would be willing to risk hiring unqualified workers in order never to miss the one candidate who can do the job. But so long as there is a flood of less qualified workers along side a good number of skilled ones, the practice will continue or worsen.
• techhackblob 12y ago
  If software development was not a creative process then such algorithmic/IQ test interviews would be very relevant. Unfortunately for those wasting their time with such interviews it is a creative process. A recent Nobel prize in economics was given to Daniel Kahneman for his work proving such gut instinct interviews are a failure. When I first left college and was bad at software development I passed those tests, got into software firms and got my experience. Now even though I write software everyday for my clients I wouldn't pass any of those interviews. Zuckerberg is right - younger people are smarter (at passing those tests).
  • Tloewald 12y ago
    Where was there any suggestion of algorithmic or IQ test interviewing?
    • techhackblob 12y ago
      I was commenting on the article's posts which had expanded into interviews for such firms as Apple, Google etc. Apologies if that is not allowed.
• thrillgore 12y ago
  I find that ranting about a company's hiring procedures is a quick way for their HR department to quickly strike your name from the "Future Followup" file. Apple is the richest company on Earth. Criticize their means and methods when they're in Chapter 11.
  • driverdan 12y ago
    If a company can't take criticism then why would you want to work there? That sounds like an awful place to work.
  • jazzyk 12y ago
    Richest != Best to Work For
• frade33 12y ago
  I really have no idea, what criteria is the most important for apple. However for me, when hiring these points hold most value in the order they are mentioned. 1. Type of Person. (Preference to be given to a positive, honest, candid, compassionate, less focused on money and more dedicated to and focused on job/skills and friendly person). 2. Skills level. Author apparently failed at the money vs dedication. If you are more focused on money than skills/job., you are a big no-no. in my books.
• hyperliner 12y ago
  Unfortunately, laws make it really difficult to provide candid feedback to candidates in the US. I always call my candidates and ask one simple question when they don't get the job and after I tell them they won't be getting the job: do you want the usual HR rejection reason as in "you don't fit the profile we are looking for" or "we have a candidate that better fits the business need," or do you want me to give you 3 suggestions on how you could have done better? If the latter (they always want feedback, don't we all?) then I go into very specific behaviors. The majority of these tend to fall in two camps: you did not prepare for the interview, or you did not demonstrate a specific skill or experience and this is how I think you can get it. 100% of the people I have given feedback have never come back to sue my company or me for rejecting them. Many have followed me and one has actually followed me, interviewed at another place I went, and got the job then.
• brooklyndude 12y ago
  My experience interviewing at Apple, don't let them know you know more then them (guess common sense, did i get the "then & than right?), you ain't getting the job. Sorry to say you have to dumb yourself down to work at these major companies, it's a pretty big ego game at play. Actually it's probably like that across the world, but sometimes you luck out and actually get to work with just awesome people.
• cpncrunch 12y ago
  I noticed quite a few grammatical errors while reading this blog post. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but if the person is looking for a job writing documentation then it could be a problem. Some examples: >I personally don’t see money as a measure of worth, but as a freelancer and well, running my business, should not and cannot ignore it. >Calls are 30 minute-long, informal, you’re explained how the process works and what to expect next. >The first call was with an internal Technical Recruiter, given my interest, I had a call with one other team lead before being redirected to the Developer Publications lead. (I have no idea what this last sentence actually means).
• kjs3 12y ago
  I got roped into one of these idiotic interviews at a Very Important Company. Them: How would you solve (well understood, theoretical and tedious to solve problem). Me: I'd Google it. Them: That's cheating. I want to understand how you think about the problem. Me: We're not in school. You'd be paying me to be efficient and solve problems. Why would I waste time on something I can Google. That's how I think about the problem. And that was about the end of it.
• DyslexicAtheist 12y ago
  >> I invested around £4000 (~$6000) of my time (2 weeks @ £400/day rate) into that article, I’ve written 8 of the total 16 topics I intended to, and replicated dozens of Apple logos which I made freely available on Dribbble. (terrible ROI) that's dedication >> So when Apple asks me if I want to help improve their Developer Documentation: I’m in. (rofl) I have never seen anyone put in so much effort/investment for so little return. IMO his creativity and drive belongs in a start-up. pearls to pigs I guess, but sure he doesn't see it that way
• igauravsehrawat 12y ago
  I don't get it. They have the right to reject. What's wrong ?If you want to change their interview process get selected and change it ! Don't defame google,apple,fb ..etc interview process. (Humble request)