I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Apple (Cupertino, CA) in Apr 2015
Interview
I was contacted via email by a recruiter from Apple to determine if I was interested in a position that the company was trying to fill at their corporate office. The interview process consisted of the following: (1) phone screen with the recruiter, (2) phone screen with the hiring manager, (3) an invitation to come onsite to Cupertino and interview.
The onsite interview is an all day event (9am - 4pm) that consisted of roughly 7 panel interviews with the hiring manager, HR, potential colleagues, Directors, and a case study presentation (there is no right or wrong answer but it's designed to see how you think and handle criticisms of your answer/choice). Also, cultural fit is extremely important at Apple as everyone believes whole heartedly in the mission.
Although I didn't get offered the role, this was by far the most professional and interesting interview experience that I've ever had. Everyone that I've interviewed with was kind and offered tips along the way to assist with subsequent interviews.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
"You have 5 minutes to tell me why I should hire you over the other candidates"
The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Apple in Jan 2015
Interview
Very straight forward and direct. The process is very streamlined. From first contact to offer is about 3 weeks so it is challenging to use other offers in your negotiations
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why Are you leaving your current employer? And why are you interested in Apple? Tell me a 30 second to 1 minute elevator speech about yourself
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Apple
Interview
I got an email from a technical recruiter for a position for operations program manager on the engineering side. He was very polite and friendly and we exchanged a few emails in which he helped me get a good idea about the position. I think we had a short "hello" call too.
Then the hiring manager called me for a phone screen and we spoke for 45 minutes. It went pretty good and we covered a lot of topics but nothing seemed out of the blue for me or hard.
I was invited for an onsite interview about a week later. I met with the same hiring manager and three of her engineering manager partners who worked in different teams. The interview with the hiring manager was much harder this time since she challenged me a lot about how I would handle difficult situations and coming from a service company, I kept thinking from the perspective of solving the problem at "our" end but Apple is a behemoth and they get their way done! So, I think she didn't appreciate how I approached her questions.
Among the other three managers, two were friendly and we had a very good chat. Most questions were behavioral and talking about my experience. The last interview was a bit harder because I had no relevant experience in that area and hence the conversation didn't move much.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Something breaks in the project at the last minute on a project and it is from a supplier. How will you solve it?