I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Bloomberg
Interview
Phone screening with a small coding problem using HackerRank. The interviewer did compile and test the code so pay attention to details! A week later on-site interview, 3 teams, first two technical, last one management. Difficult but fair, I really liked their attitude... Sr. Manager was not on site, I did not see the HR person.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Generic questions regarding multi-threading, no C++ 11 (is not approved for use yet), design patterns etc.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg
Interview
I had two phone interviews. The general questions were quite okay. Also the coding was fine. But Bloomberg was looking for an C++ expert and so they additionally asked very deep programming language questions which also includes threads. Additionally, they asked topic related questions. For the last two I was not prepared. It was my first phone interview and my preparation was too focused on the algorithm coding questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Very deep programming language questions (several).
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Bloomberg in Dec 2014
Interview
I received an form-letter style email saying that I have been selected as a candidate for a phone interview. On the scheduled day of the interview, after preparing all night, the phone didn't ring. I gave them about 40 minutes, after which I emailed the HR lady saying that I would only be available for another 15 minutes. The following day I received a reply from HR saying that they are sorry but "the interviewer wasn't available". It would surely have been helpful if they could have let me know about that before hand. I ended up wasting the entire morning.
The interview was rescheduled and I was asked 3 standard OOP questions using Hackerrank. After that, the interviewer proceeded to ask me if I had any questions for him. After asking the standard questions, he said "OK let's move on to the next question of the technical portion", then he said "OK bye", and hung up the phone. I stood by the phone stunned at what just occurred. Thinking it was some kind of phone glitch, I looked at the Hacckerank session trying to chat with the interviewer. He proceeded to exit the session. These guys are cutthroat and don't even have the decency to end off a call properly.
To me, the interview process was very unfair as a result of what I've described above, and I don't believe I had a fair shot at the job at hand. I received an email later on in the day saying that "I'm not a good fit for the position". Companies need to realize that applicants are interviewing them as well. We aren't begging for a job, professionals applying to work there often times have more experience than the interviewers. Companies should recognize this and treat people with some respect.
I will not be applying to Bloomberg in the future, as I don't believe they are a good fit for me.