Bloomberg's application process is tightly integrated with LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn profile, it's very easy to import it directly.

The first step was a 30-minute phone interview, primarily focused on C++ programming basics. I highly recommend candidates brush up on:

• Pointers
• C++ STL container classes (e.g., vectors, hash maps)
• Memory management (e.g., why malloc is no longer commonly used)

Within two days, I received an email offering a face-to-face interview at their London office. The guidance stated the interview would last "at least an hour, but please allow for up to three hours." I assume the length depends on how deserving a candidate is.

The interview was conducted by an engineering team manager and a lead programmer. The initial questions focused solely on pointers and their referencing/dereferencing in various situations. While fundamental, a lack of clarity here can easily lead to mistakes – as it did for me. I managed to backtrack and walk them through my correct solution after receiving a hint on a trickier question, but I knew my interview was likely compromised at that point. They concluded the interview after exactly an hour.

The entire process was extremely quick, and everyone seemed very efficient.

When using a hash table, what happens if the hashing function generates the same key as an existing entry?