Get All Access for $5/mo

The 25 Trickiest Questions Apple Will Ask in a Job Interview Could you survive this line of questioning?

By Lisa Eadicicco

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Reuters | Brendan McDermid
Apple flagship store on 5th Ave in New York.

Apple is known for being one of the most challenging and exciting places to work, so it's not surprising to learn that getting a job there is no easy task.

Like Google and other big tech companies, Apple asks a mix of technical questions based on your past work experience and some mind-boggling puzzles.

We combed through recent posts on Glassdoor to find some of the toughest interview questions candidates have been asked.

Some require to solve tricky math problems, while others are simple but vague enough to keep you on your toes.

This is an update of a post originally written by Kyle Russell.

1. "Tell me something that you have done in your life which you are particularly proud of."
Interview for Software Engineering Manager.

2. "What are your failures, and how have you learned from them?"

3. "Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it."

4. "Explain to a 8 year old what a modem/router is and it's functions."

5. "What brings you here today?"

6. "You have a 100 coins laying 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."

7. "What would you want to do 5 years from now?"

8. "Why do you want to join Apple and what will you miss at your current work if Apple hired you."

9. "Describe yourself, what excites you?"

10. "How would you test a toaster?"

11. "If we hired you, what do you want to work on?"

12. "There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled 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?"

13. "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."

14. "Why should we hire you?"

15. "Are you creative? What's something creative that you can think of?"

16. "Describe a humbling experience."

17. "What's more important, fixing the customer's problem or creating a good customer experience?"

18. "You seem pretty positive, what types of things bring you down?"

19. "Show me (role play) how you would show a customer you're willing to help them by only using your voice."

20. "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?"

21. "If you're given a jar with a mix of fair and unfair coins, and you pull one out and flip it 3 times, and get the specific sequence heads heads tails, what are the chances that you pulled out a fair or an unfair coin?"

22. "What was your best day in the last 4 years? What was your worst?"

23. "How many children are born every day?"

24. "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?"

25. "If you have 2 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?"

Lisa Eadicicco is a Tech Reporter for Business Insider.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Starting a Business

He Started a Business That Surpassed $100 Million in Under 3 Years: 'Consistent Revenue Right Out of the Gate'

Ryan Close, founder and CEO of Bartesian, had run a few small businesses on the side — but none of them excited him as much as the idea for a home cocktail machine.

Growing a Business

5 Reasons Why Time-Tracking Can Put Your Business in a Chokehold

More and more businesses are adopting time-tracking software to manage their operations, but is it all it's cracked out to be?

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Business News

Looking for a Remote Job? Here Are the Most In-Demand Skills to Have on Your Resume, According to Employers.

Employers are looking for interpersonal skills like teamwork as well as specific coding skills.

Franchise

The Top 10 Coffee Franchises in 2024

From a classic cup of joe to a creamy latte, grab your favorite mug and get ready to brew up success with the best coffee franchises.

Business News

'Do You Sell Cars?': Tesla CEO Elon Musk Trolls Jaguar Rebrand on X

The team running Jaguar's X account was working hard on social media this week.