3 screening calls, 5 FaceTime interviews, a trip to Cupertino for 5 two-person interviews lasting a whole day, and a lunch at the newest Café Macs.
In the end, I got a shallow no.
A few people asked me to write about my experience of interviewing for a job at Apple. At the time of writing (February 2015), the company is valued at around $700 billion. Here it is.
June 2014
In June 2014, after WWDC, I had an interest in knowing how Apple's new technologies could impact my work.
As a UX Designer, I specialize on Apple's platform. I do product, interaction, visual design, as well as development for native high-fidelity prototypes. To be a specialist I need to not only be a UXer but also follow this platform closely to understand how new tools can improve my workflow, and what new possibilities or constraints are introduced by new devices.
To achieve that level of understanding, I watched 17 hours of WWDC 2014 session videos, writing detailed notes for each of those hour-long sessions.
I thought other people could benefit from this information so I compiled all privacy and security-related news into a simple reference you can read on my blog: iOS 8 Privacy and Security Updates.
September 2014
I invested around $6000 (£4000) of my time into that article, two weeks at a roughly $600/day (£400/day) rate. 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)
The article turned out to be relatively popular with the developer community, some journalists, and it also spiked the interest of just enough Apple developers to warrant an email from one of their internal recruiters. (better ROI)
"I wanted to reach out to see if you might be open to exploring career opportunities at Apple as a member of our Developer Publications team…"
My reply was an obvious:
"Absolutely!"
As a Designer, amongst other things, I care about optimizing enjoyment and performance.
I've had the opportunity to design products: the customer side of apps and overarching client-server architecture; continuous deployment and content authoring workflows; client and server APIs; design and developer documentation.
So when Apple asks me if I want to help improve their Developer Documentation, I'm in. I knew it would be something I'd enjoy, since writing, teaching, and development can all be designed.
The people I've met at Apple are doing a good job and investing a lot of their time into the Developer Documentation. They're also genuinely nice people. The docs have room to improve, as any large body of documentation does. What shapes that internally I can't see from the outside.
Apple needed more people, so we started talking.
Screening
Apple recruitment starts with screening calls to assess interest and team fit.
Calls are 30 minute-long, informal, you're explained how the process works and what to expect next.
The internal recruiter will manage the process and team members will either clear you to the next step or redirect to another appropriate team member.
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.
Then came FaceTime.
FaceTime
The FaceTime interviews were 30 minute-long and 1-1. I was essentially being asked questions about what I do as a designer, how I go about writing my articles, the ups and downs of my experience doing so. At the end there was always a 5-minute question time.
A small thing I'd do differently next time: after 25 minutes answering questions for a job you really want, it's hard to shift to a question-asking mode. I sometimes failed to remind myself I was talking to people who wrote the original OS X HIG, and missed the chance to learn from someone with that kind of experience.
5000 Miles
3 weeks after speaking for a total of 2 hours with possible future team members, I was invited for a new round of onsite interviews at the Apple Headquarters.
Due to thanksgiving, workload, and holidays we ended up scheduling this new round of interviews for the second week of January 2015.
I was given a link to Apple Travel and freedom to book a return flight and 3 nights accommodation at a hotel near the Apple HQ.
6 Hours, 12 People
The interviews took 6 hours and involved 12 people. The tone was casual and everyone was friendly. I wouldn't say the interviews themselves were hard despite the barrage of questions aimed at understanding who I am as an employee, writer, and developer.
There were questions about how I deal with orders that conflict with my views ("How would you implement and write about the Hamburger Menu"), how I write my articles ("Say you were given the task of writing a cookbook, how would you go about it?"), and how well I understand iOS ("How many *Kits have you used?").
I even got to talk about Cognitive Science and was recommended a book titled "Tree of Knowledge" from an editor dressed as Steve Jobs. He worked for early Apple, left, and rejoined when Jobs did. I enjoyed speaking to him.
I had lunch with the team lead, who drove me in her own car to the newest Café Macs, sharing its architecture with the upcoming campus.
The interviews ended as they had started: a quick chat with the internal recruiter.
Thank You
The decision was made just a week after the interview.
"…we will not be moving forward with your application."
End of story.
What I'd flag
Three observations from the process. Each is something I'd be curious to hear the team's view on rather than a complaint.
- Length and load. The process spanned roughly four months and involved more than a dozen people, plus over $2000 (£1300) in travel. Given the eventual outcome, that's a lot of time and goodwill on both sides. I imagine careful hiring is the cost of careful hiring, and I'd be interested in how the team thinks about the trade-off.
- A turn of phrase. One interviewer used a phrase about candidates who don't make it through, that I found uncomfortable. I don't think it reflects how the team usually talks, but it's the kind of small moment that sticks for the person on the receiving end.
- Indirect questioning. The interviews leaned on indirect questions ("Say you were given the task of writing a cookbook…"). I'd be curious how that calibrates against more direct exercises, since indirect questions ask the interviewer to do a lot of inference.
What I took from this
17 hours of WWDC notes turned into a deep article, a transatlantic interview, lunch in Cupertino, and a clearer picture of where I sit as a designer. The article alone has been a meaningful return on the investment. The interview was a bonus, the offer would have been a different bonus, and not getting it doesn't change the rest. Thanks for reading.
