I'm a mechanical engineering senior graduating in May 2015. Met Apple at a career fair at my university and they told me to drop off my resume at a separate event they would be holding on campus that Friday, which was essentially open interviews for anyone. They catered food and the event was completely casual, with three product design managers interviewing candidates. I saw a sophomore get interrupted mid-sentence and turned because he simply wasn't qualified and there was a massive line. After opening up with my own questions, making some small talk asking me about design experience and my hobbies, and bringing up relevant anecdotes from research experience, he asked me three technical questions which were extremely straightforward, answered them using knowledge taught to us about two years before in standard coursework and reiterated over the years. After nailing everything he was looking for, he wrote all over my resume, initialed HP at the top of my resume (I was told high-performer by my peers), shook my hands, and told me straight up to expect a call back. It's been over a week and a half with no contact, but I'm still hopeful for a follow-up.

The interview went well overall. The interviewer opened with a discussion about a project I'm proud of, then a beam scenario question that covered structural and load analysis, stress and deflection, and material selection — testing my ability to connect first-principles thinking across the full problem space.