Glassdoor users rated their interview experience at Bloomberg as 100% positive with a difficulty rating score of 4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty). Candidates interviewing for Summer Intership and rated their interviews as the hardest, whereas interviews for Summer Intership and roles were rated as the easiest.
Phone interview with soft questions and a logic question (see below). On site interview with two developers to talk about past experience, skills, and technical questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. If you have 10 glasses and 10 mice, what is the max number of bottles you can have and be able to identify the one poisoned bottle with only one test
2. write the insert method for sorted linked list
3. given numbers 0 to 99 with no duplicates in an array, how do you find missing number
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (New York, NY) in Dec 2012
Interview
I talked to Bloomberg recruiters at a career fair at my school, and they suggested a position for me to apply online. They were at my school looking for undergrads, and I'm a soon-to-be PhD.
I applied online. Response was quick... a little too quick. I was in the airport, and they immediately sent a link to a timed online screening. I had to ask for postponement which they kindly granted.
The screening was simple. Two tests, each around 45 minutes long, multiple choice, with various questions about the details of C and C++ syntax and semantics.
A week later, the first phone interview. A week after that, second phone interview. Two weeks after that, fly in for two days of in-house interviews.
Interviews featured questions primarily on C++ semantics, C++ STL (Bloomberg publishes their own implementation on GitHub), networking, and concurrency. There were a couple of brain teasers.
Interviewers were nice, dressed primarily in polos or untucked shirts and jeans (I felt overdressed in a suit). Interviews on the first day lasted from 10am to around 4pm with no breaks, and I met mostly project leaders. Interviews on the second day were from 2pm to 5pm, with senior management and HR at the end.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would you do to let a server provide high quality of service to well-behaved clients so that it doesn't get slowed down by a client that can't handle a high rate of traffic?
I applied through college or university. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg (New York, NY) in Oct 2012
Interview
Drop resume at university career fair, schedule an one-week-later school campus interview right on the career fair after chatting with the representatives; the second week, 2 rounds interviews with 2 Bloomberg employees each in the same time, all technique questions; then got an invitation for an on-site interview with a technique manager, followed up by an HR representative. The onsite interview is technique too, they also ask why you want to work here and show you Bloomberg terminal. Got an offer a week later.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Seems there's a stress test during one of those interview in which they ask you an open ending question and pretend not satisfy with your first answer. Just keep calm and keep talking.