I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (New York, NY) in Oct 2014
Interview
Had a phone interview and was contacted the next day to come onsite 3 weeks later.
Phone Interview
Basic questions on C. (Stack, Heap, Memory management, pointers)
Algorithm questions(Hashtable vs Binary trees, Linked lists), how to implement hashtable
Onsite Interview
Interview One
Q1 Josephus problem
Q2 Find all anagrams of a given word in quickest way possible
Interview Two
Reverse a linked list
I think the 2nd interviewer had already made up his mind even before interviewing me. I solved the problem corrected. He took a quick glance at my solution and said "thats all for now. Your recruiter will contact you in about a week"
I knew it was over because the onsite is usually 3 to 4 interviews.
Phone screen went very well, i passed to the onsites and they gave me the problem statement and i proposed a sub-optimal solution. They told to me come up with more optimal solution and didn't give me much time to think about it. They got impatient and gave me a hint. I figured it out and solved the problem, but apparently they thought I needed hints, which I didn't ask for.
15 minutes talking about resume, 45 minutes for 2 medium leetcode style coding questions (using code share), the interviewer was very friendly and communication is even more important than passing all test cases.
Overall, it was a positive and professional interview experience, though the interviewer was on the stricter side. Unfortunately, I was dealing with an illness and wasn't able to prepare as thoroughly as I wanted to, which left me feeling a bit off throughout the conversation. Despite not feeling my best and facing a tough interviewer, the process was well-structured.
Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Bloomberg with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 53% positive. To compare, the company-average is 54.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 22 days to get hired, when considering 1,458 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Bloomberg overall takes an average of 23 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Bloomberg as a Software Engineer according to 1,458 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 33%
One on one interview: 22%
Skills test: 17%
Group panel interview: 10%
Presentation: 9%
Background check: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 2%
Personality test: 2%
Other: 2%
Drug test: 1%
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