I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (London, England) in Oct 2014
Interview
The first stage of the interview process was a 90 minute telephone and web browser interview that requires you to discuss and solve live programming problems. I enjoyed the process and the interviewer asked fair questions in ascertaining my experience level. At the time I figured that with the technical interview being so thorough that this part of the process would be over and the onsite interview would focus more on the job itself. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
I received a message informing me that I could interview on-site and that it would take 3-4 hours of my time. Expecting it to be difficult, I spent about three days preparing for every eventuality beforehand and showed up confident. To my surprise, I was told that we'd be doing a technical test first. Having already completed a thorough technical test, this immediately put me in a frustrated state of mind but I figured I'd play along and answered all the questions. This was actually less difficult than the phone interview, but the worst aspect is that it seemed completely pointless. None of the questions actually related to the job in any way, and I don't see how they could have assessed my competency to do the job by asking me questions about minor language aspects like type casting. When they asked if I had any questions, I didn't really have any because I'd already done that on the phone. So I ended the interview by repeating some of those questions so that they didn't think I was disinterested.
Then it got worse. They couldn't find a team leader to interview me after I had sat waiting in the cafeteria for 20 minutes. Apparently they checked the person's calendar (it was empty) and he was nowhere to be found and probably wasn't in the building. I had expected it too because there were some nervous glances exchanged when I asked who would be interviewing me early on in the process. I asked that the manager phone me so that I could complete the interview and then went home. What disgusted me the most is that nobody in HR came to talk to me to explain the situation or apologise for what had happened (the technical guy had to do it). Three days later I received an automated email of rejection and no explanation... no phone call... nothing.
So in retrospect, all the effort I had put into preparing for this interview had been a complete waste. The 3-4 hour interview turned out to be one hour of questions of no relevance to the job. All I learnt was that Bloomberg has no respect for a candidates time, their entire interview process is suspect, and they're rude and unprofessional. A real shame given that I was actually excited at the prospect of working there. Now nothing could be further from the truth.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The difficulty ranged from easy to medium, but I was concerned that on occasion they used methodologies that should never be used in modern practice. For instance, recasting class pointer types in live code. It gave me concern as to what their code might actually look like if they expect you to know such things.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (New York, NY) in Oct 2014
Interview
1 technical phone interview + coding in Hackerrank then fly to NYC for onsite interviews. I think the onsite interviews would consist of 4 rounds but I was kicked out after 2.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Keep asking about C++ even I said that I am more comfortable with Java.
I got email from HR to give five dates on which I could give my interview. But, on the day of my interview they asked to reschedule it as the interviewer was not available. Then, on the day of my interview I got call at the exact time, firstly I was asked to tell me about myself and how i got to know about Bloomberg..etc. Initially I misunderstood the question and wasted 15 mins, interviewer asked me about my solution and then I realised that I misinterpreted the question. I quicky came up with correct solution and then we did a dry run of it. He told me that he got my logic and then asked me to code, but despite giving me n extra 5 mins I couldn't complete the code( I did things in haste). After the interview, I tried and it took me 10 more mins to complete the code. (Posting the solution as well)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If the input is 6, then output should be the series 6 3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1, similarly if input is 10 then it should be 10 5 16 8 4 2 1, and if input is 4 then output is 4 2 1.