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Apple's toughest job interview questions revealed

Candidates have been asked what brings them down, how many babies are born a day, and how they would test a toaster

Hardeep Matharu
Friday 30 October 2015 15:47 GMT
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Apple is known for being one of the most creative and stimulating places to work
Apple is known for being one of the most creative and stimulating places to work (Getty Images)

Do you think you have what it takes to work at tech giant Apple?

Known for being one of the most challenging and stimulating places to work, it’s not surprising a job interview at the company tests your technical prowess as well as whether your brain can tease out the answer to a mind-boggling puzzle.

But, how would you take to being asked how to breakdown the cost of a pen, what your best day was in the last four years, or how to drop an egg without breaking it?

Test yourself with this list of the 33 hardest Apple job interview questions compiled by Business Insider from previous candidates’ testimonies:

“Who is your best friend?” – family room specialist candidate

“Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it.” – software engineer candidate

“Explain to an eight-year-old what a modem/router is and its functions.” – at-home advisor candidate

One interviewer wanted to know how many babies are born a day (Getty Images)

“How many children are born every day?” – global supply manager candidate

“You have a 100 coins lying flat on a table, each with a head side and a tail side. 10 of them are heads up, 90 are tails up. You can’t feel, see or in any other way find out which side is up. Split the coins into two piles such that there are the same number of heads in each pile.” – software engineer candidate

“Describe yourself, what excites you?” – software engineer candidate

“If we hired you, what do you want to work on?” – senior software engineer candidate

“There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labelled 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?” – software engineer candidate

“Scenario: you’re dealing with an angry customer who was waiting for help for the past 20 minutes and is causing a commotion. She claims that she’ll just walk over to Best Buy or the Microsoft store to get the computer she wants. Resolve this issue.” – specialist candidate

“How would you break down the cost of this pen?” – global supply manager candidate

One Apple interviewer asked how a candidate would break down the cost of a pen

“A man calls in and has an older computer that is essentially a brick. What do you do?” – Apple Care at-home consultant candidate

“Are you smart?” – build engineer candidate

“What are your failures, and how have you learned from them?” – software manager candidate

“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.” – software engineer candidate

“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?” – mechanical engineer candidate

“Tell me something that you have done in your life which you are particularly proud of.” – software engineering manager candidate

“Are you creative? What’s something creative that you can think of?” – software engineer candidate

“Describe a humbling experience.” – Apple retail specialist candidate

One candidate was challenged with a problem about eggs (Getty Images)

“If you have two eggs, and you want to figure out what’s the highest floor from which you can drop the egg without breaking it, how would you do it? What’s the optimal solution?” – software engineer candidate

“Why should we hire you?” – senior software engineer candidate

“What’s more important, fixing the customer’s problem or creating a good customer experience?” – Apple at-home advisor candidate

“Why did Apple change its name from Apple Computers Incorporated to Apple Inc.?” – specialist candidate

“You seem pretty positive, what types of things bring you down?” – family room specialist candidate

“Show me (role play) how you would show a customer you’re willing to help them by only using your voice.” – college at-home advisor candidate

“What brings you here today?” – software engineer candidate

“Given an iTunes type of app that pulls down lots of images that get stale over time, what strategy would you use to flush disused images over time?” – software engineer candidate

A question relating to fair and unfair coins was put to one prospective employee (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“If you’re given a jar with a mix of fair and unfair coins, and you pull one out and flip it three times, and get the specific sequence heads heads tails, what are the chances that you pulled out a fair or an unfair coin?” – lead analyst candidate

“What was your best day in the last four years? What was your worst?” – engineering project manager candidate

“When you walk in the Apple store as a customer, what do you notice about the store/how do you feel when you first walk in?” – specialist candidate

“Why do you want to join Apple and what will you miss at your current work if Apple hired you?” – software engineer candidate

“How would you test your favorite app?” – software engineer candidate

“What would you want to do five years from now?” – software engineer candidate

“How would you test a toaster?” – software engineer candidate

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