DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this post are solely my own and do not represent those of Apple Inc. This post is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or sponsored by Apple Inc. All opinions and statements expressed here are my own and should not be attributed to Apple Inc.

Timeline

From applying for a role, to interviewing, then to receiving my offer, this whole process took 4 months.

Application

I initially submitted my resume to an Apple recruiter at a campus on-site recruitment event, hoping she would contact me if there were any suitable roles for me. I then heard back from another recruiter 2 months later, who had got hold of my contact from the previous recruiter. She reached out via email to invite me for a phone call.

On the phone call, she screened my resume and asked my availability for internship. She then encouraged me to apply for the ‘Information Systems and Technology Internship Program’ at Apple Shanghai. I then submitted my application for the role online through Apple’s Job Application Portal.

Note: I will refer ‘Information Systems and Technology’ as ‘IS&T’ in this blog post

1st Interview

My 1st interview was a 45-minutes interview with the IS&T Team Manager. We both did an introduction about ourselves, the manager then introduced the team and what they did at Apple. The remaining time was the manager asking me questions about my background, the projects I did and my previous internship experience that I’ve written on my resume. She also asked some behavioral questions, for example: ‘How would you build trust in the team’, ‘How would you plan and execute given tasks’, and etc.

Take-home Assignment

After passing the 1st interview, my recruiter sent me the take-home assignment that I need to complete within 5 days. The task was to develop a tool (mini program / native mobile app / web app) that would satisfy a specific set of requirements. I went for the web app development approach as I’ve already had experience in frontend and backend web development. You can check out my web app here.

2nd Interview

My 2nd interview was a 60-minutes session with the IS&T Team Manager and one of the engineers on the team, in which I did a 15-minutes case presentation about the take-home assignment that I’ve completed, and also showed a live demo of the web app.

The remaining time was spent on the engineer asking a lot of questions on my Machine Learning skills and experience, ranging from ‘Explain the differences in Lasso and Ridge Regression’, ‘Explain under-fitting and over-fitting’, ‘List out some activation functions that can be used with the MultiLayer Perceptron model’ and etc.

3rd Interview

The 3rd interview was a 45-minutes session with the IS&T Team Greater China Site Lead. This session mainly focused on project-based behavioral questions, for example: ‘One of the hardest projects I did, and how did I plan and executed it’, ‘How would I self-learn the latest technologies for a project’, and etc.

4th Interview

The 4th and final interview was a 60-minutes session with the IS&T Team APAC Lead and the Head of IS&T. The questions included: ‘How would you prioritize tasks & work under tight deadlines’, ‘Describe a situation when you reached out to your network for help on a project’.

Internship Offer

The next day after the final interview, I got a call from the recruiter giving me a verbal offer. We also discussed starting dates, working hours, and estimated stipend.

It then took another three weeks of waiting to get my official offer letter from Apple, because they had to conduct a background check on me, and there was also Chinese New Year holidays in between this period.

Final Notes

Your recruiter stays with you the whole time
From beginning till end, the same recruiter will stay in touch with you via e-mail or phone to help arrange interviews and also answer your questions. Please ask them for help and clarifications if you’re facing any problems.

Interview questions and process may vary
I didn’t write too much in detail of the questions I got asked because of two reasons: 1. Apple’s strict privacy rules, 2. The interview questions and process largely depends on what offices, roles, teams you’re applying to & your interviewer. There’s no fixed questions and answers for the interviews, not even the amount of interview rounds you’ll have to go through will be the same.

Know your interviewer
This is just an extra tip from me. Based on the interview email you get each time, you can actually try to look up the interviewer’s profile on LinkedIn. Try to understand their role, what they do at Apple, and their experiences. This will help you get a better sense of what will be coming up in the interview (either more technical or more behavioral questions). You can also think of some questions in advance to ask the interviewer.

Dress code
You should dress business casual for your interviews. I wore shirts and pants for all my interviews.

Make sure the meeting app (Webex / FaceTime) runs fine on your device
Enter the meeting room 10 minutes earlier, set up and test your camera & microphone.

Helpful resources
Here are some resources that I’ve found helpful while preparing for my interviews:

Here I would like to express my gratitude to my recruiter for giving me quick feedback along every stage of the application process, and also to the interviewers who asked thought-provoking questions which I can then ponder and improve on after my interviews.

For those who are reading this and applying to Apple, I wish you good luck & all the best!