Top 10 Most Difficult Job Interviews in Tech (2024)

Top 10 Most Difficult Job Interviews in Tech (1)

Glassdoor Reveals 25 Toughest Job-Interview Companies

Jobs site Glassdoor recently published its annual list of the 25 companies with the toughest job interviews, which included 10 tech firms, from Google and Microsoft to Facebook and Nvidia.

Ratings are based on a five-point scale for interview difficulty —1 for very easy, 3 for average, 5 for very difficult. It also ranks employee satisfaction — 1 for very dissatisfied, 3 for OK, and 5 for very satisfied.

Google and HubSpot joined Thoughtworks as the three most difficult tech companies to interview with, while Facebook and Guidewire claimed the two top spots in terms of highest employee satisfaction ratings. Both scored a 3.3 interview difficulty, but the social network earned a 4.8 satisfaction rating, above Guidewire's 4.6.

No company on the list had an interview difficulty rating of 4 or higher or below a 3.3. Heavyweights Apple and Yahoo did not make the cut this year.

A difficult interview process doesn't always mean a poor interview experience. About 80 percent of those who met with Nvidia and Informatica, for example, gave the experience positive marks, beating its tech competitors.

Glassdoor's report is based on companies with at least 20 interview difficulty ratings and 20 company ratings between July 2012 and 2013. Reviews from interns, summer part-time employees, and student candidates were excluded.

1.Gartner (No. 4)

Average interview difficulty: 3.7
Interview experience rating: 62 percent positive, 19 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 35 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Very intensive interview process. They get very personal and spend a lot of time trying to understand your 'sense of purpose.' Essentially what they are getting at is — do you have something that drives you to make a lot of money."
Potential interview question: "You have 30 seconds — List as many uses for a baseball bat as you can think of."
Potential interview question: "What is the market growth opportunity for electric cars in Singapore?"

2.Google (No. 8)

Average interview difficulty: 3.6
Interview experience rating: 62 percent positive, 21 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 37 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "The process and interviews were difficult and unusual but clear, informative and logical. It included a sales mock up pitch via the phone which is the hardest stage. You do need to understand the industry and local market and be up to date with related technologies."
Potential interview question: "How many people watched YouTube in my country in the last one hour?"
Potential interview question: "Count the number of positive intergers less than N that do not contain the digit 4."

3.HubSpot (No. 10)

Average interview difficulty: 3.5
Interview experience rating: 62 percent positive, 27 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 20 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Initial phone screen with HR, phone screen with Sales Recruiter, followed by a VERY LENGTHY (took me two hours) test which included six part (personality, vocabulary, situational questions, analogies, math and word problems), followed by a phone screen with the Sales Manager."
Potential interview question: "Teach me something."
Potential interview question: "What was the last nice thing you did for someone?"

4.Microsoft (No. 16)

Average interview difficulty: 3.4
Interview experience rating: 70 percent positive, 14 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 29 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Process was driven very professionally by HR who took an active role throughout. Good balance of discussion between my experience, skills and my current and future interests."
Potential interview question: "What do you do when there is no answer?"

5.Citrix (No. 19)

Average interview difficulty: 3.4
Interview experience rating: 56 percent positive, 28 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 29 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "We discussed approaches to specific challenges; when asked for examples of providing solutions to a business group, I targeted both my tactical and strategic examples to demonstrate my range."
Potential interview question: "What is the role of PDC [Primary Domain Controller] emulator?"

6.Nvidia (No. 20)

7.Informatica (No. 21)

Average interview difficulty: 3.4
Interview experience rating: 83 percent positive, 11 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 19 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Most of the interview questions are related to algorithm, problem solving and critical thinking. Interviewers are very friendly and do make one feel comfortable. They focus less on coding and more on general design skills."
Potential interview question: "Describe yourself in three words."

8.Facebook (No. 22)

Average interview difficulty: 3.3
Interview experience rating: 72 percent positive, 14 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 30 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "[In] the second phone interview, I told her about my future plans for Facebook; she said it wasn't much different from what they have now. (It is, but she was apparently expecting more than my already unconventional ideas.)"
Potential interview question: "Where do you see the future of Facebook?"

9.Guidewire (No. 23)

Average interview difficulty: 3.3
Interview experience rating: 62 percent positive, 21 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 30 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Overall it was a great experience and has undoubtedly developed my technical interview skills as well as understanding some more obscure areas of Java."
Potential interview question: "What is the difference between optimistic and pessimistic concurrency?"

10.Rackspace (No. 25)

Average interview difficulty: 3.3
Interview experience rating: 72 percent positive, 20 percent negative
Length of entire interview process: 23 days
Thoughts from an interviewee: "Hour three [of the interview] involved meeting the prospective actual team lead and manager to see how the fit might be. Questions like 'Do you get enjoyment out of completing 50 tasks in a shift or do you prefer to tackle very difficult projects that take many hours?' Resume was scrutinized, and questions about if hired, where I wanted to be within the company in five years."
Potential interview question: "If your day was 20 percent performing job duties and 80 percent strategizing, then give us examples of what you would be doing with that 80 percent."

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