I was contacted by an Apple recruiter who had come across my resume on Monster or another site where it was listed. The position was for the manufacturing group for mobile devices.

It wasn't my typical area of expertise, as I'm more design-focused, but I have an extensive background in manufacturing and machining, so it seemed like a good time to make a change.

I had a quick phone call with the recruiter and was asked standard questions regarding why I was looking for a job, if I was willing to relocate, etc. After this brief (10-minute) phone interview, I received an email and scheduled another brief phone interview with another recruiter, then again with a hiring manager.

The conversation with the hiring manager was very technically focused on manufacturing processes, plastics, metals, composites, tooling, machine tools, inspection, surface finishing, treatments, and so on. This interview lasted about 30 minutes, and the manager was a pleasure to talk to. He had a great sense of humor, and the conversation, although technical, was enjoyable and relaxed.

Following this, I received an email and was invited for an on-site interview. The Apple travel site takes care of your airfare, hotel, and rental car and is very efficient.

The on-site interview was about 5 hours, meeting with someone every 30 minutes. The bulk of the interviews consisted of Apple products and pieces being placed in front of me, followed by discussions on how they were produced, the tooling used to manipulate them, ensuring accuracy, how surface finishes were produced, why things were done a certain way, and how I would approach them.

Everyone I met with was lighthearted and seemed to have a sense of humor. All were incredibly bright individuals who seemed to really enjoy what they were doing. All in all, it was pretty intense, but if you know your stuff, there shouldn't be anything unexpected. I was pleased that they didn't give me any brain teasers or abstract questions.

My advice to anyone in any interview situation is this: if you don't know something, admit it. Don't try to BS your way through, especially in a group like I was in, as they will see through it. If you don't know something, just say so.

My plastics experience is limited, so when technical questions about plastics and overmolding came into play, I was upfront and told them I knew about the process and could describe it, but had no hands-on experience in it.

Also, make sure you can back up every single thing you put on your resume. If you have a lot of fluff in there, it's going to come out during the interview process.

Lastly, don't show up empty-handed. Bring examples of your work and show them how diverse your skill set is and why they should hire you. It's also a great opportunity for you to talk intelligently about all the things you've done and explain your thought process behind them. This is what many people you interview with are looking for.

This was a very hands-on interview. No BS questions, but know every manufacturing process you can, regardless of how abstract.

Same goes for surface finishing, treatments, and manufacturing automation.

Also, Apple does things very differently: cost is second to quality. So, where other manufacturers are stamping sheet metal and molding things out of cheap pot metal, Apple is CNC'ing components, has incredibly tight tolerances, and is highly automated.