I'm interviewing for a Mac Genius position! Answer me some questions.
I've got an interview in a few days for a Mac Genius position at a soon-to-open Apple Store near me. So I'm wondering if others who have been through the same experience (whether hired or not) can tell me . . .
- What kind of stuff do they expect you to know?
- Is it true that they fly you out to Cupertino for a week for training if you're hired?
- I read somewhere that employees get a 25% discount on Apple products. I find that pretty hard to believe, so am I wrong?
- Any sense of what the salary range for the gig is?
- Any other interesting tidbits?
Thanks in advance, kids.
- What kind of stuff do they expect you to know?
- Is it true that they fly you out to Cupertino for a week for training if you're hired?
- I read somewhere that employees get a 25% discount on Apple products. I find that pretty hard to believe, so am I wrong?
- Any sense of what the salary range for the gig is?
- Any other interesting tidbits?
Thanks in advance, kids.
Comments
They've got to train you somehow...flying you out to Cupertino doesn't seem out of the ordinary.
As for what they expect you to know. You should be able to debunk the MHz Myth from heart.
- I read somewhere that employees get a 25% discount on Apple products. I find that pretty hard to believe, so am I wrong? <hr></blockquote>
Yes, you will be taken to Cupertino. Every Monday, I see a horde of you guys coming into Caffe Macs with your visitor badges.
You get the standard Apple employee discount. 25% on one purchase a year. 15% on three purchases. 20% on QPromo.
it's gotta come out a lot cheaper than just paying me salary
<strong>I'll work for macs and ipods. hire me.
it's gotta come out a lot cheaper than just paying me salary
I'm going to assume you don't have a mortgage to pay, do you?
Pipeline -- the discount sounds NICE. What's QPromo, though?
Eugene, please tell me you're exaggerating a little! I'd say I'm pretty damn knowledgeable about Macs, as well as their similarities and differences from PCs and UNIX. But older machines are kind of my weak spot -- my 9500 was my first Mac, so stuff from prior to that time is kind of foggy for me. (But is Apple really all that interested in supporting machines that old anyway?)
I could do the 8100 thing, though -- only because the 9500 case is equally as much a bitch to dismantle, and I've had to do it before. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
Applenut
Programmer
Dorsal
Time
Sizzle Chest
MichaelM800
Fran441
apple.otaku
Too many more to name here. Those just came to mind.
I think you will do fine.
1 more year
I am training for mine right now. Too young to work at the Apple Store though
<strong>You should really know everything that would be covered in the Apple Technical Training course, at least. I would think to consider an interview, you would have some certification right ?
I am training for mine right now. Too young to work at the Apple Store though</strong><hr></blockquote>
Lots of young people on here, aren't there? I feel like an old fart at 27. . . <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
I don't think you need any certifications; I don't have any. They saw my resume, so they obviously know that. But they always say they're big on people from a diversity of backgrounds, and since I'd be coming from the web development/webmaster field, that qualifies as something different. (Yeah . . . I know. Pay cut. Don't remind me . . . )
I am, however, working part-time right now doing essentially the same stuff -- tech support for Macs at a nearby school district. This isn't even on my resume, but I'm sure it can only help, since it's far closer to the kind of work involved in a Mac Genius position.
I keep thinking that I've got to push my utterly unhealthy passion for OS X as my big selling point. X is still a bit of a new frontier for a lot of longtime Mac heads, and since I've been following it since the first developer's preview (isn't #macfilez great?), and been a big *BSD fan for a few years now, I really don't have any fear of it. OS 9 and below are great in their own way, and I can debug extensions conflicts with the best of them, but . . . really. The time's come for us to move forward, right?
Hmmm. I wonder if "30-45 minutes" is going to be enough for this phone interview. (Oh, they mentioned they'd also try and ask me questions to get a sense of my technical ability, too.)
I will make Phil Schiller look apathetic.
I will be more passionate than the love child of Steve Jobs and Jon Ives.
I will know more about Macs than THT knows about the Peruvian economy.
I dont know if a lot of us could be considered geniuses, but there are some.
Applenut
Programmer
Dorsal
Time
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<strong>MichaelM800</strong>
Fran441
apple.otaku
<hr></blockquote>
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahaha. Oh man. You'll have to excuse me....Gfahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahaha. Hahahhahahaha. That's a good one. MichaelM8000 a Mac genius. Or is it jeehniyus? Jeanyus maybe? Thanks, Macintosh. That was very, very funny. And to MichaelM8000, for the love of God, give your posts a once (read: thrice) over before you submit them. Honestly, I'd be embarrassed if I were you.
-DisgruntledQS733Owner
I would bet that most people on this board could qualify to work for an Apple store. I dont know if a lot of us could be considered geniuses, but there are some.
Applenut
Programmer
Dorsal
Time
Sizzle Chest
MichaelM800
Fran441
apple.otaku
Too many more to name here. Those just came to mind.
I think you will do fine.<hr></blockquote>
Dude, just because he got ONE thing right (debateable) it does not make him a friggin GENIOUS!!! Also even if dorsal IS an insider, how does that qualify him as being a mac genious? not in any way. I doubt he spends as much time learning things about the mac OS as you do... and I dont think you spend (too) much time... I have no opinion on Mike. but seriously, sometime macintosh your posts dont make any sence...
Nebagakid-- where are you getting training done? I'd like to look into it as well... It would look good for colleges... how long does it take to be certified?
[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: psantora ]</p>
<strong>Pipeline -- the discount sounds NICE. What's QPromo, though?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm 90% sure its the quaterly promo (i remember one quater it was the old TiBooks, Q3 2001 I think)
<strong>awww,,, thanks. Belive me I have tried. they don't like us teens
1 more year
your 19? I thought you were like 15 or something....maybe thats eman I'm thinking of
I'd assume they'd ask you about RAM and HD related stuff, as well as airport, networking, OS 9/os X relations and making the two work together as painlessly as possible, and they MIGHT ask you about the older stuff, but I wouldn't think that it would matter THAT much, however I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of old mac-heads with their 68k macs start coming in with problems they have lived with for years and years and never resolved because there was no store to goto(sounds wild, but I've known old hippies and the likes that don't really use their computer, but will go into the store to get it fixed...even if its not broken)
I've learned SOOOO much about Macs and computers in general in coming to these forums, I'm not a mac genius, but I feel like I could sucessfully argue compare and describe the major system components and some subsystems
there are definatly alot of geniuses here when it comes to the macintosh and I'd like to thank all you knowledgable people out there that have allowed me to learn so much about computers.
See, that's why I would be perfect, I have teh intarweb at my fingertips!
<a href="http://www.info.apple.com/info.apple.com/applespec/applespec.taf?RID=140"; target="_blank">BAM!</a>
<strong>I would bet that most people on this board could qualify to work for an Apple store. I dont know if a lot of us could be considered geniuses, but there are some.
Applenut
Programmer
Dorsal
Time
Sizzle Chest
MichaelM800
Fran441
apple.otaku
Too many more to name here. Those just came to mind.
I think you will do fine.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I am OK for the programmer, his knowledge his high and he make me learn many things. I am sure that he is really an engineer.
For the ohters i can say, but you can be sure that many members of AI can be apple genius, because i know some Apple genius and they where not so strong, In my city at least.
So common Sense don't worry, no Apple genius know everything about mac, even Steve Jobs won't be able to answer to all the questions : he is more concerned by the future rather than the past. In a another way be a Apple genius is more simple than to be a PC genius (strange name isn't it the cohabitation between PC and genius <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> ), because you have to be a genius to make this damned s""t work ...
Good lucK CommonSense !
At the start of the phone interview, I was told that this was more of a test of my knowledge, not an interview per se. If I did well enough on this test, then an in-person interview would be the next step. There were 25 or so questions, and I was told that one of three things would happen:
a) If I didn't do very well, they'd cut the test short if they sensed the gaps in my knowledge. This wasn't a bad thing, they said; this happens fairly often and is no big deal.
b) If I did really well, they'd move to the next step -- send out some paperwork and set up an in-person interview.
c) If I fell somewhere in between, they'd hang on to my information and get back to me as they interviewed more people and had more of a basis of comparison.
They didn't ask me about anything older than . . . oh, say, 1999. In fact, they said not to worry about older hardware; the Apple stores won't accept service requests for older stuff, so there's no need to know it. The questions were fairly esoteric; no casual fan would probably make it past this questionnaire. But at the same time, there wasn't anything that would totally stump some of the more knowledgeable people on this forum. (I'm deliberately being kind of vague because, although I didn't sign an NDA or anything, I would imagine they would prefer specific details not leak out onto the Internet -- we KNOW how secretive Apple is.)
There was only one question where I felt a little unsure of the answer, and even then, the interviewer accepted it. In most cases, I found myself giving more of an answer than was requested. Good sign!
So I made it to the next level. Some PDFs are being sent to me to fill out today, which I'm to bring with me to an in-person interview to be held in a couple of weeks (they'll call to schedule it later).
Incidentally, for anyone in the area who's interested, the Short Hills, NJ store opens in June. (Yeah, I thought it'd be sooner also.) Training is about six weeks, two of which are in Cupertino! And one thing that surprised me a bit was that, aside from higher pay (and by the way, for Mac Genius positions it's in the $20s per hour, 40 hours a week, and additional if you work over 40) and more responsibilities, Mac Geniuses also do sales floor coverage when needed. I didn't expect that, and that's the only issue I might have, since I'm not exactly Mr. Sociable, and I have little patience for staunch PC fans (though I guess those people wouldn't even walk into an Apple store to begin with). Four Mac Geniuses are hired per store -- well, at least at Short Hills, anyway.
So that's the update . . . in case anyone's interested.