Late in the afternoon on Friday, I recieved an email from the Apple Store. I have been wanting to get a part time job there, so I was excited. The email was weird, as it asked me to respond to this email by the end of the day on Friday (about 2 or so hours left in the day) to reserve my spot at the hiring "meeting". Luckily I was on top of my email that day and immediately replied. They also asked for a bunch of information, information that was in my resume. OK, so that's not too odd, but the beginning of the email stated "after reviewing your resume...". OK, it was a little weird... And they wanted me to plan for "about a 3 hour time committment". It was getting weirder.
I arrived promptly at 1PM on Saturday where it took a couple of queries as to where this "meeting" was taking place. They had decided to move it to the mall's office/meeting room...something that would've been nice to include in the email that was still not 24 hours old...but that's okay. So we (another guy tagged along) found our way to this meeting room, where I was met by about 20 other "candidates" and three Apple personnel. It was announced at this time that this would be "a lot of fun" since it was going to be a "group interview". We would be breaking up into smaller groups and do some fun "activities" all the while we would be learning about the Apple Store and somehow, they would be learning about us. Fun activities? Breaking up into groups? Just how bad could this get?
We first split up into a group of 5, where we were instructed to learn something about someone else in our group, since we would have to be introducing them to the large group. So we spent about 10 minutes meeting each other. It appeared that we were going to be floundering, so I took command and said we would be responsible for introducing the person on our right. Done. My person was a nice enough guy named Allen who was a graphic designer and by his own admission, didn't know a lot about computers but knew enough to state that "Macs equal Good" and "Windows equal Bad". mmm-okay.... The other members of our little group were a lady that also knew next to nothing about computers, but her Windows computer had just crashed and a friend of hers told her that she should buy a Mac so she did and it was really cool and so she figured she should get a job there. She spoke in run on sentences...about her only redeeming factor was that she stated absolutely that this thing better get over before the Bronco's game started...a noble but ill-advised passion since this is still pre-season...but I digress. We also had another woman who's biggest claim to fame was that her husband worked for another Apple Store in town. I shouldn't say work...he is "the manager of the Genius Bar" at that store...so I guess that makes him some sort of extra-premium genius or something. She wouldn't stop dropping this fact and tossing out this person's name or that person. Nice gal, but didn't know a lick about Mac's. So 3 out of the 4 (not counting me) admittedly didn't know a lot about their product...I liked the odds here. Then came my 4th team member, and he drove the average the other way...but not necessarily in a good way. This dude was Mr. Mac. "I've got 32 Macs in my house" he'd proudly state to now one in particular. "My 4 year old daughter has the best Mac, a G4/800 Quicksilver tower, I only have a G4/350 Cube but at least I've upgraded mine with a Sonnet G4 blah, blah, blah...." This diatribe just went on and on. When he heard that I did software for my other job, he went on to tell me that he too worked somewhere else full time, for EchoStar in their call center. "Why don't companies out fit their call centers with Macs...you know they're better.." "Why don't more developers write software for the Mac...you know they're better...and that way people won't have to use IE and Safari is the best and I've got an old Mac Plus in my closet and..." I tuned out at this point.
So we introduced everyone and there were some interesting stories in the other groups...if I were to profile the rest of the crowd, I'd say (not self-agrandizing here) that I was at least one of the top 2 or 3 candidates...but apparently we had more "fun" to go through. We got to break up into another group and we had to play act and sell something. We could have as much fun as we wanted doing this. Since there could only be 4 members in the group, good old Allen got the boot and it was me, the Broncos fan, Mrs. Genius-Bar and Mr. Know-It-All MacFreak. We were tossed a USB cable and had 5 minutes to come up with a sales presentation. I think it sucked but it wasn't as goofy as some of the others...so who knows how I did in this area. Actually who knows how I did on any of this.
As silly as this whole process was, I'm going to be curious to see how it turns out for the management team. Besides wanting to get a job, I would love to be invited to the next round, just so I can ask "what on earth did you gain from this 3 hour goof show?". The whole purpose of the process is to determine how well the candidate may or may not fit in with the stated objectives and into the "team". I get that. But how did our little games determine that for these people? Maybe they looked for the most smiles, or the nicest clothes...I don't know.
After the selling "game"...they tossed out a bunch of questions to the whole group...questions like "how is Apple's brand strong?"...and then it became a free for all of who good filabuster the best and take the floor. I decided that if that's what I needed to get this gig, then I'll pass. Luckily this was just a moment or two of stalling really. The real meat of the interview then proceeded, still odd, but a little more individual. They broke us up into 3 groups (I was a "two") and we separated into different parts of the offices. The three employees then set down with us and asked us individual questions...
We first sat down with "Bradley"...he was introduced as the Mac Specialist Mentor. Non-management, but probably the fair-haired boy on the sales team. Nice enough guy. He asked a bunch of "sales" kinds of questions. Things like "if somebody walks in the door and asks 'why should I buy a Mac?'...what would you say?" Since there were only 5 of us, it was a more manageable "free for all". My friend, Mrs. Genius-Bar was in my group...she responded with a trite "it doesn't get viruses..." Another kid, fresh from his job at Best Buy, by way of Baskin Robbins, went into the typical diatribe about how the Mac is bestest and really cool and... I sensed a pause and jumped in. My standard response was to find out what issues(if any) this person was having with their computer. In a way, it was my CRI taught evangism towards Mormons, retooled for Macs. Basically it was, "is there anything I can say to get you to change your mind?" I then went on to say that you have to find out what their issues were...maybe viral infection is not their issue, so to beat them over the head with "no virus's" may fall on deaf ears. It was a nice and non-threatening way to make me look good and to blow a competitor away....because that's what we're doing here. This part of the "interview" was to individually shine, all the while manipulating the system to make others look worse. We then got to deal with the Store Manager...a nice enough lady but hardly a world beater. She asked the "personal" questions, like "what are you most proud of?" My response: the girls. "Why?" she asked. My response was simple and completely impromptu: they had made great choices in their lives, in a world that is much crazier than the one that she or I had grown up in. And they did it having parents that really didn't know what they were doing. This illicited a smirk from the Store Manager. She had tossed out that she had kids earlier...so I played that card. She then asked how old they were and we exchanged pleasantries about our respective kids. She then asked for one word to describe ourselves. I chose "loyal"...hopefully that was meaningful to her. I thought about "dependable" or "trustworthy"... Some others in my group, Mrs. Apple-genius for one, choice words like "crazy", "random" or "impulsive". My conservative response was a gamble, but it was also truthful. I still wonder what they got out of all this...I think it was a three hour observation and all you could do was eliminate yourself...and that was probably the plan.
Apple Retail is different. That's for sure. And they know it. Right now, nothing they do stinks. They're growing like mad. Their per square foot sales are massively higher than any other, not just high tech. They are clearly doing the right thing at the right time with the right product. They have to have all three components right now to succeed. But this process has been unusual to say the least. If I get to go on to the next level, something that I had to ask directly "So what happens next?"...I'm curious to see what sort of "surprises" are in store for me.
I arrived promptly at 1PM on Saturday where it took a couple of queries as to where this "meeting" was taking place. They had decided to move it to the mall's office/meeting room...something that would've been nice to include in the email that was still not 24 hours old...but that's okay. So we (another guy tagged along) found our way to this meeting room, where I was met by about 20 other "candidates" and three Apple personnel. It was announced at this time that this would be "a lot of fun" since it was going to be a "group interview". We would be breaking up into smaller groups and do some fun "activities" all the while we would be learning about the Apple Store and somehow, they would be learning about us. Fun activities? Breaking up into groups? Just how bad could this get?
We first split up into a group of 5, where we were instructed to learn something about someone else in our group, since we would have to be introducing them to the large group. So we spent about 10 minutes meeting each other. It appeared that we were going to be floundering, so I took command and said we would be responsible for introducing the person on our right. Done. My person was a nice enough guy named Allen who was a graphic designer and by his own admission, didn't know a lot about computers but knew enough to state that "Macs equal Good" and "Windows equal Bad". mmm-okay.... The other members of our little group were a lady that also knew next to nothing about computers, but her Windows computer had just crashed and a friend of hers told her that she should buy a Mac so she did and it was really cool and so she figured she should get a job there. She spoke in run on sentences...about her only redeeming factor was that she stated absolutely that this thing better get over before the Bronco's game started...a noble but ill-advised passion since this is still pre-season...but I digress. We also had another woman who's biggest claim to fame was that her husband worked for another Apple Store in town. I shouldn't say work...he is "the manager of the Genius Bar" at that store...so I guess that makes him some sort of extra-premium genius or something. She wouldn't stop dropping this fact and tossing out this person's name or that person. Nice gal, but didn't know a lick about Mac's. So 3 out of the 4 (not counting me) admittedly didn't know a lot about their product...I liked the odds here. Then came my 4th team member, and he drove the average the other way...but not necessarily in a good way. This dude was Mr. Mac. "I've got 32 Macs in my house" he'd proudly state to now one in particular. "My 4 year old daughter has the best Mac, a G4/800 Quicksilver tower, I only have a G4/350 Cube but at least I've upgraded mine with a Sonnet G4 blah, blah, blah...." This diatribe just went on and on. When he heard that I did software for my other job, he went on to tell me that he too worked somewhere else full time, for EchoStar in their call center. "Why don't companies out fit their call centers with Macs...you know they're better.." "Why don't more developers write software for the Mac...you know they're better...and that way people won't have to use IE and Safari is the best and I've got an old Mac Plus in my closet and..." I tuned out at this point.
So we introduced everyone and there were some interesting stories in the other groups...if I were to profile the rest of the crowd, I'd say (not self-agrandizing here) that I was at least one of the top 2 or 3 candidates...but apparently we had more "fun" to go through. We got to break up into another group and we had to play act and sell something. We could have as much fun as we wanted doing this. Since there could only be 4 members in the group, good old Allen got the boot and it was me, the Broncos fan, Mrs. Genius-Bar and Mr. Know-It-All MacFreak. We were tossed a USB cable and had 5 minutes to come up with a sales presentation. I think it sucked but it wasn't as goofy as some of the others...so who knows how I did in this area. Actually who knows how I did on any of this.
As silly as this whole process was, I'm going to be curious to see how it turns out for the management team. Besides wanting to get a job, I would love to be invited to the next round, just so I can ask "what on earth did you gain from this 3 hour goof show?". The whole purpose of the process is to determine how well the candidate may or may not fit in with the stated objectives and into the "team". I get that. But how did our little games determine that for these people? Maybe they looked for the most smiles, or the nicest clothes...I don't know.
After the selling "game"...they tossed out a bunch of questions to the whole group...questions like "how is Apple's brand strong?"...and then it became a free for all of who good filabuster the best and take the floor. I decided that if that's what I needed to get this gig, then I'll pass. Luckily this was just a moment or two of stalling really. The real meat of the interview then proceeded, still odd, but a little more individual. They broke us up into 3 groups (I was a "two") and we separated into different parts of the offices. The three employees then set down with us and asked us individual questions...
We first sat down with "Bradley"...he was introduced as the Mac Specialist Mentor. Non-management, but probably the fair-haired boy on the sales team. Nice enough guy. He asked a bunch of "sales" kinds of questions. Things like "if somebody walks in the door and asks 'why should I buy a Mac?'...what would you say?" Since there were only 5 of us, it was a more manageable "free for all". My friend, Mrs. Genius-Bar was in my group...she responded with a trite "it doesn't get viruses..." Another kid, fresh from his job at Best Buy, by way of Baskin Robbins, went into the typical diatribe about how the Mac is bestest and really cool and... I sensed a pause and jumped in. My standard response was to find out what issues(if any) this person was having with their computer. In a way, it was my CRI taught evangism towards Mormons, retooled for Macs. Basically it was, "is there anything I can say to get you to change your mind?" I then went on to say that you have to find out what their issues were...maybe viral infection is not their issue, so to beat them over the head with "no virus's" may fall on deaf ears. It was a nice and non-threatening way to make me look good and to blow a competitor away....because that's what we're doing here. This part of the "interview" was to individually shine, all the while manipulating the system to make others look worse. We then got to deal with the Store Manager...a nice enough lady but hardly a world beater. She asked the "personal" questions, like "what are you most proud of?" My response: the girls. "Why?" she asked. My response was simple and completely impromptu: they had made great choices in their lives, in a world that is much crazier than the one that she or I had grown up in. And they did it having parents that really didn't know what they were doing. This illicited a smirk from the Store Manager. She had tossed out that she had kids earlier...so I played that card. She then asked how old they were and we exchanged pleasantries about our respective kids. She then asked for one word to describe ourselves. I chose "loyal"...hopefully that was meaningful to her. I thought about "dependable" or "trustworthy"... Some others in my group, Mrs. Apple-genius for one, choice words like "crazy", "random" or "impulsive". My conservative response was a gamble, but it was also truthful. I still wonder what they got out of all this...I think it was a three hour observation and all you could do was eliminate yourself...and that was probably the plan.
Apple Retail is different. That's for sure. And they know it. Right now, nothing they do stinks. They're growing like mad. Their per square foot sales are massively higher than any other, not just high tech. They are clearly doing the right thing at the right time with the right product. They have to have all three components right now to succeed. But this process has been unusual to say the least. If I get to go on to the next level, something that I had to ask directly "So what happens next?"...I'm curious to see what sort of "surprises" are in store for me.