I was looking at one of the positions in LinkedIn and I realized one of the recruiters had his email address in his profile. So, I emailed him my cover letter and my resume
Step 1.- Interchanged few emails with the recruiter. Very general questions like: Why Apple?
Step 2. I had an interview over the phone with the recruiter where he asked me very general questions like my immigration status and if I was willing to relocate to California. In this interview, he pointed out that Apple hires 50% personality 50% technical. He mentioned you could have a 4.0GPA and get all the technical answers right. But, if you don’t have the personality, they won’t hire you. He said they are looking for outgoing, energetic individuals.
Step 3. I had a technical interview over the phone with the hiring director. Questions mainly related with beam theory and material properties. After I passed the technical interview he said if I was willing to do their design challenge.
Step 4. The design challenge consisted in designing a mechanism to open a door for a hypothetical battery door. They give you a week to come up with an idea, 3D models, FEA, and cost of your design.
Step 5. I sent the design challenge and I received feedback few days later. He wanted some extra calculations. I spent two more days on those calculations and send them back. He reviewed the revised presentation and requested the recruiter to bring me for an onsite interview. I was told out of 200 applications, only four make it to the onsite interview.
In the meantime, another group at Apple showed interest. I had a technical interview over the phone and they ended up saying they wanted to interview me too.
Step 6. The onsite interview consists of two days. First day full of interviews with hiring manager and teammates. Second day is conditional. If they like you, they are going to make present your design challenge on the second day.
I arrived at the onsite interview. The first person I met was the recruiter. He restated the personality, energy part of the process. He said I should check my phone once in a while since he was going to give me feedback along the way.
So, the first engineer comes with an example of a product he designed. He basically wanted me to come up with his solution in the 30 min we had for the interview. Something that he, I assumed, worked for at least a year. Anyways, I actually gave the answer he was looking for. The second engineer comes and same thing. He wanted me to come up with the solution he implemented in something he designed.
Third engineer comes. He had such a low energy. It was hard to take a word out of his mouth. Anyways, I struggled with his question. But, at the end I ended up giving him the right answer.
Fourth person comes, he was the actual hiring manager. I answered all the questions he asked. I answered them so fast that he ended up giving me extra. He gave me an extra problem where we disagreed in one piece. I googled that part later and I was right.
Fifth and sixth engineers came and gave me some brainteasers.
I had a break in between. The last three interviews were going to be with Director level individuals. Before I enter the building for the last three interviews, the HR guys calls me and said it didn’t work out. He gave me some of the feedback he received from the interviewers. He said the third engineer said I had a very low energy, and the hiring manager said I struggled a lot with the technical questions, which it was not true. My take on this is no matter if you have the technical skills. If they don’t like your personality. They are going to give you bad reviews and they are not going to hire you.
Step 7. I interviewed with the second team. I got interviewed every 30 min from 10:45am to 5:15pm non-stop. It ended up being 10 people. All of them asked technical questions and brainteasers. It was mentally draining. But, they expect you to keep smiling and keep the energy up as if you just arrived.
The recruiter kept texting me throughout the interview with some of the negative feedback, which it worked opposite on myself. I got discouraged. They added two Electrical Engineers as interviewers. We had nothing to talk about. I am a Mechanical Engineer. I felt like a stupid. One of them once he walked inside the room I knew he didn’t like me. So, it was hard to please him. He was drinking his bubble tea and he was making all type of noises. It was disrespectful.
At the end of the day I was exhausted. The HR guy sent an email that evening saying I was not a match for that team either. So, I didn’t have a chance to present my design challenge.
CONCLUSION. I didn’t feel welcome. If you are white or Asian you have a higher chance of getting hired. Apple’s website reports their tech employees are 55% white, 27% Asian and the rest is black, Hispanic, multiracial and others. Which it correlates with all the people that interviewed me. They were all white and Asians. I am Hispanic with a MS from MIT.