My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#251

Post by rifung » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #206

EnderMB wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a similar vein, I'd also like to know how many people manage to land jobs at the Google's and Facebook's of the world, and ultimately prove to be less-than-spectacular developers. I dropped out of a masters degree to join a startup as a .NET developer, but kept in touch with a few guys finishing there. One of them now works for Google. He was always great in the algorithm classes, and he knew his theory reasonably…

Maybe he gets to work on difficult problems that can only be solved by a great algorithm. Or maybe he works on making a set of algorithms 5% faster. Making a sorting algorithm just 1% faster for the most used cases will probably save a company like Google vast amounts of electricity. I guess there are plenty people who understand both algorithms and programming language features well. But if you want someone who is a…

At such a big company, I doubt anyone could get a job just working on algorithms coming out of undergrad. Maybe if you had a PhD in a relevant field I could see it. I'd bet almost everyone at Google is extremely good with algorithms when compared to the whole population of developers so I really don't see them giving this kind of sought after position to someone so junior. There's just too much risk for the managers to give it to someone who's still unproven.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#252

Post by driverdan » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #104

Gustomaximus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate, Linkedin is professional profile site. Personally I would not put a photo of myself holding a drink for this reason and agree or not, its reasonable to expect people wont like this. If someone said the same cause they saw a Facebook picture of you holding a beer then I would be in absolute agreement.

Where do you draw the line? is it OK for me to have a shaggy beard? How about long hair? Tattoos? My personality is my personality, and when you hire me you're going to get the whole thing. If you can't handle it, I rather you don't even talk to me in the first place. I look forward to a future where nobody cares about this stuff.

If your personality needs beer to work then it has a problem. LinkedIn is for business, not partying.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#253

Post by driverdan » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

thrillgore wrote: post #249

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.

If a company can't take criticism then why would you want to work there? That sounds like an awful place to work.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#254

Post by rifung » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

bumbledraven wrote: post #185

jedc wrote: post #172

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 su…

How long ago were you doing these interviews? Currently, a company like Google/Facebook/Apple will hire all the good people they can find.

While that may be true on the whole, it doesn't mean each team is allowed to just hire as many people as they can find. Of course, it's possible that you could interview with more than one team at a given company, but that depends on the company policies as well as other teams being interested.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#255

Post by s73v3r » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #104

Gustomaximus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate, Linkedin is professional profile site. Personally I would not put a photo of myself holding a drink for this reason and agree or not, its reasonable to expect people wont like this. If someone said the same cause they saw a Facebook picture of you holding a beer then I would be in absolute agreement.

Where do you draw the line? is it OK for me to have a shaggy beard? How about long hair? Tattoos? My personality is my personality, and when you hire me you're going to get the whole thing. If you can't handle it, I rather you don't even talk to me in the first place. I look forward to a future where nobody cares about this stuff.

Shaggy beard, long hair, and tattoos are part of what's going to be at the job. You're not going to be drinking beer on the job.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#256

Post by squiguy7 » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

oalders wrote: post #102

Gustomaximus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate, Linkedin is professional profile site. Personally I would not put a photo of myself holding a drink for this reason and agree or not, its reasonable to expect people wont like this. If someone said the same cause they saw a Facebook picture of you holding a beer then I would be in absolute agreement.

On a whim, I recently updated my LinkedIn picture to a photo of myself in a multi-coloured clown wig. This put an immediate end to all messages from recruiters.

Here is the evidence: https://twitter.com/wundercounter/status/570454045099307008

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#257

Post by sosborn » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

makeitsuckless wrote: post #141

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 applica…

>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.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#258

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

jedc wrote: post #190

skuhn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

> 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. Wow, that is seriously f ked up. While I got pressure to hire (one role I hired for was very specific so it took a long time to find a candidate), as long as I was actively sourcing/interviewing people, I never got too much flak. You've…

[deleted]

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#259

Post by geebee » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #212

downandout wrote: post #135

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 sam…

I feel the same way. Every time I think about applying to, e.g. Google, and start looking at how I need to prepare, I realize it's going to take around 40hrs of algorithm prep followed by a gruelling interview process. And at the end, I may fail due to interview nerves or whatever. It's hard to justify so much time. Then again, maybe working at these big companies is really worth it (many people seem to think so!). N…

This deters me from interviewing as well.

I keep my data structures and algorithms book on the shelf - it was printed 15 years ago and uses Java, but it's easy enough to implement in something else. I used to restudy it every few years, for interviews. You need to be ready to do tree traversal, detect cycles in lists, sort and search, create a hash, find shortest paths in graphs.

I go back and forth on whether I'd do this again. I can't say never, because a good enough job might be worth the effort and risk, but I'm hesitant. How many times in life do you want to retake your undergraduate data structures and algorithms exam? I would outright refuse to do a lengthy "homework assignment". I've done that once (7-8 hours recommended time), sent it in, crickets chirping, and a one line brush off from a recruiter a full month later. I'm actually embarrassed to admit I even did this once.

As an aside, while I generally take a dim view of professional licensing, I wouldn't mind taking a "bar exam" for software development if (big if) it were well designed and administered, and perhaps voluntary to avoid regulatory capture. The reason is, I wouldn't mind studying a hundred hours or more for this test if it was widely respected and meant I wouldn't have to keep re-taking it every time I interview.

Re: My experience of interviewing for a job at Apple

#260

Post by abawany » Wed, Feb 25, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #248

abawany wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saddened that as a candidate, I am expected to just go away without getting any feedback but the company in a similar situation hounds me if I happen to reject them. I don't know how to improve this situation, unfortunately.

How about ignoring their requests for feedback and doubling down on your own? You make it sound like the only option is passive acceptance.

Two reasons that make this difficult:

- It is difficult to double down on feedback requests when they stop returning your calls and emails after the generic rejection pablum

- One is hesitant to do the same to them (ignoring their requests)

Fundamentally there is a difference in the power relationship here, in my opinion. A typical company can and is able to afford to treat candidates badly but I don't believe that a typical candidate enjoys a similar luxury.