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How About That

Want to Get Hired by Apple? Get Ready for a Nine Month Interview Process and Working on Fake Products

by Max Eddy | 11:01 am, January 30th, 2012

Here’s a fun little tidbit from a talk by Adam Lashinsky, author of Inside Apple, at LinkedIn’s headquarters. In it, Lashinsky and a member of the audience shoot back and forth about Apple’s rigorous interview process, which can last up to nine months or longer. They also touched on how Apple is able to maintain its (nearly) impenetrable veil of secrecy, a big part of which is hiring people they can trust. “But how does one prove their trustworthiness to Apple?” I hear you cry. By working on fake products.

We haven’t had the chance to read Lashinsky’s book, but it’s by all accounts an accurate portrayal of what it’s like inside one of the world’s most successful companies. During the LinkedIn appearance, a former Apple engineer is quoted by Business Insider as saying:

A friend of mine who’s a senior engineer at Apple, he works on — or did work on — fake products I’m sure for the first part of his career, and interviewed for 9 months. It’s intense.

There’s not a lot of discussion about what these fake products might entail, but it does occur to me that this practice might explain the ocassional bizarre leaks that sometimes come out of Apple. Nano iPhones, plus-sized iPads, etc., etc..

As someone who has observed Apple from a far, and has been a happy user of their products, I have to admit that I never imagined Apple would go as far as to deceive its own employees. One wonders what other tactics the company uses to keep their secrets secret. Ye gods.

(via Business Insider, image via our collection of fake iPhone 5 concepts)

Relevant to your interests

  • Anonymous

    Expensive way to vet your employees, and hardly foolproof.  I hope it isn’t indicative of a culture of paranoia and distrust, that doesn’t sound very rewarding.

  • Asreal

    It takes nine months for the brain washing to fully kick in and the gay poloneck to be fitted…

  • Dailystooge

    I thought this line was funny “Apple would go as far as to deceive its own employees”. Really they lie to you all the time, the biggest one of all being there products work properly (as we all know they have shitty software and design, anntentagate, battery drain and the fact that they are so locked down it hurts me to watch people use them). Also I have found since switching to android that my old iphone is like my android (if it was beaten to the point of being retarded and didn’t do what i wanted … then it would be just like my old iphone). And the fact that you still can’t use flash on the ipad and iphone is like apple saying to it users ” NO YOU CANT HAVE WHAT EVER OTHER DEVICE AND PC HAS IN THE WORLD AND I AM GOING TO OVER CHARGE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU FOR THE PRIVILEGE”. Also if you want proof I am right look up the numbers 30 million idevices were activated last year …. 200 million android devices were activated last year… hmmmm…. seems pretty clean the time of APPLE is over.

  • Me200548

    or if someone joins your team that you don’t like, make a leak – they will always point the finger at the new boy

  • Senor Clowncar

    Yeah…  clearly Apple can’t do anything right.  They only sold 37 million iPhones in their most recent quarter.  They only had $46 billion in revenue in the quarter.  Their stock price is only $495 at the moment, and they’re only most valuable company in the world by a long shot.  Obviously, they are on the verge of failure.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dragracedropdoll James Sterling

    Dailystooge, I’m assuming you’re basing your conclusions on ill-informed misconceptions. Android OS is just as locked down unnecessarily iOS is: Take the HTC Sensation for instance. It shut down at 6% battery using the stock firmware. Once rooted, however, it stayed powered up until it hit the 1% mark. iOS is just as capable as any other smart phone. 

    As for why flash isn’t on iOS devices: Flash is a security risk. Plain and simple. Apple’s stance on it is to avoid integrating such a gaping security risk in their devices until Adobe can get their shit together.

    Apple products are priced as such due to the hard work the engineers, software developers, manufacturers, etc. put in. The hardware is quality hardware.

    Senor Clowncar got the rest of this.


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