APPLE INCBisociative Recruiting Reading between the lines of one blogged report posted by an unsuccessful Apple job candidate, it can be discerned that during the interviewing and vetting process each applicant has been required to play two customarily opposite roles: Apple insider and Apple outsider. Here‘s an account from that Apple interviewee, on the first page of a blog of hundreds of such Apple interview reports; note what appears to be a subtle blending of the roles of applicant and initiate, supply-side worker and demand-side consumer, end-user consumer and used in-house manpower, Apple product tester and Apple recruiter-tested job applicant: ―Once I arrived I was greeted by Apple employees and I filled out a piece of paper pertaining to the job like availability and what products I have owned or currently own. Once everyone had arrived we were loudly invited into another room where all the employees heading the seminar cheered and clapped. We got seated and everyone introduced themselves, everyone. Next we watched a few videos which showed the history and atmosphere of Apple retail. After each video the group was asked by an employee what we thought about the video or did anything stick out? Once the videos were completed we split up into groups and an Apple employee took us to a different part of the room and we answered individual questions. These questions were presented on an iPad…‖ (Italics mine). Much Deeper Than Rah-Rah Read superficially, this account, repeatedly confirmed by many other Apple interviewees, sounds like a typical rah-rah seminar format: pump up the crowd while pumping the company, its products and the company line—as product line and philosophy line. But, deeper reflection suggests that what is going on here is a brilliant integration of bisociated opposites, in which the job applicant is made to simultaneously play two very different, yet complementary roles— including the roles of unique individual and team player: applauding the candidates as a group when they enter the seminar, yet requiring self-introductions on an individual basis after that. product user and developer: Getting the applicant to use the tools (s)he will be expected to improve. Giving the job candidates iPads to use during interviews is a perfect way to do this. customer and job applicant: Again, the iPad given to candidates can identify them as current customers or motivate them to become future customers. corporate product/service tester and tested applicant: Asking candidates what they think of the video is a clever way to collect feedback about the video, for the purpose of evaluating and improving it, as well a method of gleaning useful feedback about the candidates. So if it gets bigger than a hundred people. Here are other Apple-Jobs recruitment and employment bisociations. And the thinking was a typical Steve Jobs observation: ‗I can‘t remember more than a hundred first names so I only want to be around people that I know personally. ―Steve had a rule that there could never be more than one hundred people on the Mac team. In both product and team design.―Steve would shift between being highly charismatic and motivating and getting them excited to feel like they are part of something insanely great. Sculley said. not grow—Jobs‘ hire-retire-fire core team strategy. co-founder of Polaroid. “Both of them had this ability to not invent products.‘‖ Jobs‘ philosophy in recruiting seemed to perfectly parallel his thinking in product development—a variant of the economist E. His personally handling all recruiting of his core team members further exemplifies this macro-micro bisociation within the mind of Steve Jobs and at Apple. inasmuch as irrespective of however collegial other aspects of the interviewing format may seem. John Sculley. good cop vs. even in his earlier years. in the aforementioned interview. And on the other hand he would be almost merciless in terms of rejecting their work until he felt it had reached the level of perfection that was good enough to go into – in this case. the Macintosh. as teased from the comments of former Apple CEO. in a wide-ranging October 2010 candid interview: grow vs. The . Speaking of the lasting impact of a meeting he and Jobs had with Dr. compact creative team. The way I like to work is where I touch everything.F. the candidate responses in this situation are in direct audible and visible competition. Edwin Land. it will force us to go to a different organization structure where I can‘t work that way. but.‖ This was tantamount to a bisociation of good cop-bad cop in one and the same person. It may seem paradoxical for a company to grow without some growth in the core-staff numbers. to disassemble gadgets and meticulously examine their components. Jobs applied his characteristic ―minimalism‖ (manifested in his sparse home furnishings and preference for compact products) and hands-on tactile engineering bias that compelled him. bad cop: Employing a post-hiring variation on the carrot-and-stick approach. Both of them said these products have always existed—it‘s just that no one has ever seen them before. competitor and cooperator: Another applicant reported the following experience— ―The second interview felt more like an interview but it was done in groups. I was interviewing with two other people. but discover products. This is a variation on the psychological game called ―Let‘s-You-andHim-Fight‖. product discoverer and inventor: The creative ideals that Jobs espoused included blurring or collapsing the distinction between invention and discovery. So if you wanted to add someone you had to take someone out. We entered a room and they asked us a question that we all had to answer‖. We were the ones who discovered them. Schumacher‘s ―small is beautiful‖ 1970s credo and quasi-bisociated concept of ―smallness within bigness‖: compact products. How we interview We‘re looking for smart. GOOGLE INC How we hire We‘re looking for our next Noogler . We‘re looking for people who are good for Google—and not just for right now. During some interviews. The utilization and extension of bisociation in Apple recruiting attests two additional facts—that Steve Jobs and Apple did not compartmentalize its role and that bisociation can be applied in the design and execution of your own or your client company‘s recruiting steps.someone who‘s good for the role. That means we have to be nimble. The Most Challenging Bisociation of All That the likes of Apple. At Internet speed. confirms its singular role in generating wealth as well as ideas. the path to getting hired usually involves a first conversation with a recruiter. From the Apple corporate viewpoint. However. you‘ll likely interview with four or five Googlers. Steve had huge admiration for Dr. since Apple will discover. the world‘s most valuable company. seem to be the most challenging bisociation of all. We can‘t have too many specialists in just one particular area. should an applicant come up with a promising original idea. We look for people who are great at lots of things. good for Google and good at lots of things. and Disney have in the course of making their fortunes utilized bisociation as an underlying. what the applicants create as it is being invented—another clever recruitment tactic that can conceivably pay off in terms of Apple product development. both in how we work and how we hire. Our process is pretty basic. a phone interview and an onsite interview at one of our offices. in the recruitment groups. but for the long term. team-oriented people who can get things done. When you interview at Google. candidates are asked to create a new product and present it to the group. This bisociation of discovery and invention is replicated in the Apple recruitment process.Polaroid camera always existed and the Macintosh always existed—it‘s a matter of discovery. you will have to attempt what may. for you. love big challenges and welcome big changes. But there are a few things we‘ve baked in along the way that make getting hir ed at Google a little different. Land. to accomplish this. even if unconsciously adopted creative technique. This is the core of how we hire. Things move quickly around here. They‘re looking for four things: Leadership . Bisociating ―recruiter‖ and ―bisociation‖. He was fascinated by that trip. this is an additional collapse of the discovery-invention dichotomy. We‘re likely to ask you some role-related questions that provide insight into how you solve problems. we‘ve spent a lot of time making our hiring process as efficient as possible . you‘ll get more great people. we believe it‘s worth it. Googleyness We want to get a feel for what makes you. We believe that if you hire great people and involve them intensively in the hiring process. some of your interviewers could be potential teammates. How You Think We‘re less concerned about grades and transcripts and more interested in how you think. Independent committees of Googlers help us ensure we’re hiring for the long term An independent committee of Googlers review feedback from all of the interviewers. you. This helps us see how you might collaborate and fit in at Google overall. there are some pieces of our process that look a little different across teams. To give you a sense of what working here is really like. This might be by asserting a leadership role at work or with an organization. but when it comes to specifics. your bias to action and your collaborative nature.reducing time-to-hire and increasing our communications to candidates. While involving Googlers in our process does take longer. These core principles are true across Google. How we decide There are also a few other things we do to make sure we‘re always hiring the right candid ate for the right role and for Google. Role-Related Knowledge We‘re looking for people who have a variety of strengths and passions. well. We also want to make sure that you have the experience and the background that will set you up for success in your role. you work on tons of projects with different groups of Googlers. or by helping a team succeed when you weren‘t officially appointed as the leader. We also want to make sure this is a place you‘ll thrive.We‘ll want to know how you‘ve flexed different muscles in different situations in order to mobilize a team. we‘ll be looking to check out your coding skills and technical areas of expertise. We collect feedback from multiple Googlers At Google. but some interviewers will be with other teams. Show us how you would tackle the problem presented--don‘t get hung up on nailing the ―right‖ answer. and it‘s what allows us to hold true to who we are as we grow. For engineering candidates in particular. across many teams and time zones. . Our early Googlers identified these principles more than ten years ago. not just isolated skill sets. Over the past couple of years. This committee is responsible for ensuring our hiring process is fair and that we‘re holding true to our ―good for Google‖ standards as we grow. Our recruiters can help you navigate through these as the time comes. so we‘ll be looking for signs around your comfort with ambiguity. 300 people it took on in 2007.” Mr Bock said. The abstruse problems were part of a process designed to maintain Google’s vaunted intellectual elitism. It is seeking to recruit “well above” the 6. he said this was largely an issue of perception. but also came to be seen by some candidates as marks of the company’s insularity and intellectual arrogance. However. Mr Bock said. rather than purely intellectual.” The effort to draw in more entrepreneurial talent echoes recent comments by Google’s top executives that dealing with growth as the company’s headcount continues to soar. . Google has experimented with a number of different operating arrangements to try to give its employees a stronger sense of identification with smaller business units. Mr Bock acknowledged Google employees often say they feel the company has become slower and more bureaucratic since it has grown. like IQ quizzes. He also said Google wanted to counter the natural bias in its interviewers to hire people like themselves. A recent decision to relax its famous corporate secrecy and reveal its progress in a number of new markets. is the biggest challenge they face. they tended to favour candidates who were adept at a certain kind of test. Mr Bock said they were being cut out because. He refused to be drawn on the precise target. he said: “It’s not 10 per cent above. talent. but it’s still a company that wants to change the world. The new approach includes a new “rule of five” that limits the number of interviews a candidate can attend to no more than that number. he added. said Laszlo Bock. That has involved “questions like why is a manhole cover round and how many pingpong balls does it take to fill an aeroplane?” Mr Bock told the Financial Times. said he wanted to revive a start-up spirit at the company. but. would-be Googlers were often subjected to 12-14 interviews. hinting at an ambitious goal. who is due to take over as chief executive officer in April. and few had concerns about bureaucracy when asked about their own experiences at the company. was also partly designed to bring a new focus to the spread of its operations. Larry Page. In the past. he said. The streamlined approach and change in style come as Google has embarked on a hiring binge designed to cope with an unprecedented global expansion.Google tries new angle on hiring By Richard Waters in San Francisco Google is seeking to streamline its famously convoluted and quirky hiring process as it aims to recruit record numbers this year and increase its intake of people with entrepreneurial. it’s a larger company. “Yes. including display advertising and the mobile internet. head of human resources. its last record hiring year. The company is also trying to cut out the kind of intellectual mind games its interviewers have often used to test the brain power of potential hires. Qualities Google seeks in a candidate: Diversity Problem-solving skills Curiosity and a thirst for knowledge The ability to think creatively and outside of the box Googleyness .” Mr Bock said. Google cut back on its recruitment as the financial crisis hit in 2008. a competition where over 14. Preferred recruitment tools used by Google: A social media platform that includes an #askagoogler Twitter feed and 2 million videos posted on YouTube.See more at: http://www.dpuf . where students are invited to Tech Talks and open houses. but was quickly forced to ramp up its hiring efforts again. and even laid off some workers. adding that evidence it was making progress in areas other than search had helped in its hiring. Google Games.fUZDfivk. They are also enthusiastic about rolling up their sleeves and making the world a better place. Google Ambassador Program.000 applications a week. It is currently receiving 75. Google Code Jam.greatplacetowork. a program that gives students the opportunity to learn about new Google products and services. while also offering feedback from their own university experience.“The rap out there for a long time was that we’re a one-trick pony. Campus recruiting. .com/publications-and-events/blogs-andnews/756#sthash. a recruitment event where students team up and solve mindbending puzzles.000 global programmers compete to solve complex coding challenges in a limited amount of time."Googley" Googlers are passionate about their work and attack problems with flair and creativity. pricing. strategy. .Boston Consulting Group Interview Questions Boston Consulting Group is an international strategy and general management consulting firm with offices in 38 countries worldwide. Candidates will find a history of past internships at relevant firms and international study or work experience will be useful when making their application. Be prepared for competency based interviewstyle questions asking you to give examples from your past. and technology and communications. First Round Interview For the first stage interview your interviewers are most interested in finding out about you and who you are. Application Requirements Graduate level candidates should have excellent academic grades (including at least a 2:1 at degree level) to consider applying to BCG. organisation. health care and private equity. Application Process The application process for graduate jobs at Boston Consulting Group is as follows: Online Application First round interview (competency based) Second round interview (including case study questions) If you pass the initial online application. financial services. The primary industries that Boston Consulting Group serves are: consumer goods. you should expect two rounds of interviewcomprised of case study questions and two to three interviews per round. The company's areas of expertise include: branding. corporate development. deconstruction. globalisation. energy and utilities. . know that IBM does review ALL applications and will reach out and interview candidates we think may make a strong fit. what skills they possess. leading classroom discussions. IBM How does IBM's university recruiting process work? How do students apply? IBM recruits at top programs throughout the US. . What to expect in an interview IBM uses behavioral-style interviewing and in some instances (i. Second rounds. or business issues involving creative strategy or sound business judgment. participating in student organization events. students can find us at career fairs and info sessions. We welcome any and all candidates to apply through our Web site. but how an individual can fit in with IBM long term. consulting) case interviews — these help us learn what students have accomplished. and how deep their experience goes. It's not about hiring for one role per se. may take place at one of our office locations. Second Round Interview Case study questions may address issues such as market sizing. We typically conduct first-round interviews on campus. and so on. IBM hiring managers absolutely want to hear about a candidate's career goals too. and show high levels of interest in working for them.com/start. On campus in Fall and Spring.e. The Boston Consulting Group website provides sample scenarios which may be helpful in your interview preparation.Boston Consulting Group are keen to hire candidates who are enthusiastic to work for them specifically. for competitive students. For candidates who apply online at ibm. Make sure you ask questions about the firm. . which will give you the best insight into what to expect when you take the real thing. Most importantly — be excited about your career ambitions! We love enthusiasm. . We recommend that everyone undertakes the practice tests. all candidates must undertake our basic psychometric tests. A candidate should demonstrate that they have done their homework. finance. etc. There are two of these. sales. technical. the links below will take you to a practice verbal and a practice numeric test.Even though IBM can offer students positions in many functional areas (i. Stating generic interests will not get you very far. TATA MOTORS Practice Online Tests As an important part of our application procedure.e. marketing. management.). it's important for a candidate to have a strong idea of what type of role they are looking for. To give you an idea of the content and format of these tests. consulting. one verbal and one numeric. We want to see a candidate prepared to explain how their skills and experience will benefit our company and make short and long term impacts.