Apple employs software engineers, supply managers, Apple Care at-home consultants, and workers in many, many other positions. Of course, they need to hire folks for these jobs. They do so very carefully: Reportedly, Apple takes on roughly two percent of candidates. So if you’re vying for one of these positions, it helps to have some inside information.
Maya Kosoff made a point of digging through recent Glassdoor posts to come up with 33 interview questions for a variety of Apple positions. They range from genuine brainteasers to ones so straightforward they’re rather unnerving. Here is a curated list of our 10 favorites, one for each of 10 different positions.
Apple Specialist: “Why did Apple change its name from Apple Computers Incorporated to Apple Inc.?”
Apple Retail Specialist: “Describe a humbling experience.”
Apple Family Room Specialist: “Who is your best friend?”
Apple Mechanical Engineer: “You put a glass of water on a record turntable and begin slowly increasing the speed. What happens first—does the glass slide off, tip over, or does the water splash out?”
Apple Care At-Home Consultant: “A man calls in and has an older computer that is essentially a brick. What do you do?”
Apple Global Supply Manager: “How many children are born every day?”
Apple Software QA Engineer: “There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?”
Apple Software Engineer: “Have you ever disagreed with a manager’s decision, and how did you approach the disagreement? Give a specific example and explain how you rectified this disagreement, what the final outcome was, and how that individual would describe you today.”
Apple Lead Analyst: “If you’re given a jar with a mix of fair and unfair coins, and you pull one out and flip it 3 times, and get the specific sequence heads heads tails, what are the chances that you pulled out a fair or an unfair coin?”
Apple Build Engineer: “Are you smart?”
To get the full list, click here.
This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Sign up now.
