Is there a better place to intern than Apple? Quite possibly not, according to the claims of one former intern who recently broke confidentiality to speak out about his experiences with the company.
Forget about hopefully making enough to cover your bus fare, “Brad” says Apple offers interns around $6,700 per month, plus the opportunity to work paid overtime at time-and-a-half.
And when it comes to perks, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Brad says that interns are offered free communal housing near to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, or else are given $1,000 toward their monthly rent if happen to live alone.
On top of that they get to meet the likes of Tim Cook and Jony Ive through a special speaker series Apple arranges for its interns. That’s in addition to the people they’re directly working with — many of whom played key roles on past and present major Apple products.
So what’s the catch? Unsurprisingly, secrecy is one part of it. You may be able to list Apple on your CV, but don’t count on revealing specifics to future employers. The Apple campus is said to be “totally locked down,” with staff banned from taking photos, and employees from one department frequently having no clue what other departments are working on.
According to Brad, a colleague who worked on the original iPad in 2010 told him that he had been working on 9.7-inch displays for several months without being clued in on what it was for.
“They didn’t know if it was a big phone or a small laptop. It wasn’t until the product release where Steve Jobs went on stage and showed the iPad that they realized this is what we worked on for the past two years.”
While it sounds like Brad got a decent peak behind the Apple curtain, he says that certain buildings are regularly blocked off and interns are drilled about the importance of security “from day one.”
Finally, don’t just expect to get a general internship with Apple because you happen to be a fan. Internships are for very specific roles, rather than the kind of pot luck internships seen elsewhere — where you get placed with a team after being taken on.
Apple hasn’t commented on Brad’s claims, so there’s a chance that none of this is true, but it certainly seems to chime with what we’ve heard about Apple internships from previous interviews with employees and interviews on Glassdoor.
My only real question is where do I sign up? (Serious answer for anyone reading this: right here.)
Source: Business Insider
