• Tech giants are known for their challenging interviews.
• Google, Meta, and Nvidia top the list of rigorous interviews with multiple rounds and assessments.
• But tough questions show up across industries, according to employee reports on Glassdoor.

It's tough to break into high-paying companies.

Google is notorious for having a demanding interview process. Aside from putting job candidates through assessments, preliminary phone calls, and asking them to complete projects, the company also screens candidates through multiple rounds of interviews.

Typical interview questions range from open-ended behavioral ones like "tell me about a time that you went against the status quo" or "what does being 'Googley' mean to you?" to more technical ones.

At Nvidia, the chipmaking darling of the AI boom, candidates must also pass through rigorous rounds of assessments and interviews. "How would you describe __ technology to a non-technical person?" was a question a candidate interviewing for a job as a senior solutions architect shared on the career site Glassdoor last month. The candidate noted that they didn't receive an offer.

Tech giants top Glassdoor's list of the hardest companies to interview with. But tough questions show up across industries — from luxury carmakers like Rolls-Royce, where a candidate said they were asked to define "a single crystal," to Bacardi, where a market manager who cited a difficult interview, and no offer, recalled being asked, "If you were a cocktail what would you be and why?"

The digital PR agency Reboot Online analyzed Glassdoor data to determine which companies have the most challenging job interviews. They focused on "reputable companies" listed in the top 100 of Forbes' World's Best Employers list and examined 313,000 employee reviews on Glassdoor. For each company, they looked at the average interview difficulty rating as reported on Glassdoor.

Here's a list of the top 90 companies that put candidates through the ringer for a job, according to self-reported reviews on Glassdoor.

• Internships are commonly filled by high school or college students.
• But graduates may increasingly be leaning on internships in a cooling job market.
• "It's harder and harder for folks to get onto the career ladder in the first place," Glassdoor lead economist Daniel Zhao told BI.

As anyone looking for a job now can probably attest, the job market is cooling.

A rising number of recent college graduates applying to internships could be a sign of these challenging times.

Careers site Glassdoor this week released its list of the best internships of 2025, based on median salary, overall reviews, and ratings of workplace factors like career opportunities, culture and values, and work-life balance.

In the report, Danny Cao, who leads the company's internship program, spoke of a trend he's seen among their own prospective interns.

"While the majority of our internship applicants are current students, I've noticed a slight increase this year in recent graduates applying for summer internships," he noted in the report. "This could potentially be a growing trend that showcases how internships are evolving into a stepping stone for not only students but also early-career professionals navigating a challenging job market."

Trainee programs and apprenticeships aren't unheard of for recent graduates. But more new grads applying for internships that are traditionally filled by students could mean early-career workers are struggling to find job prospects out of college.

"The fact that you have more of these new grads applying to internships is a sign of the slower job market and the bunching that we're getting down at the bottom of the career ladder where progress up the career ladder has slowed," Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told BI.

"Whether that means new grads or interns, there is this difficulty that folks are facing with getting their foot in the door in the first place," Zhao said. "So some new grads are turning to internships to get their foot in the door, whereas in a hotter job market, they would just go straight to an entry-level job."

Glassdoor's report pointed out that last year saw the most competitive season for internships since the pandemic. Applicant pool aside, a dearth of internships from employers' end is also contributing to the cut-throat competition.

"As companies have slowed down hiring, they've also pulled back on entry-level and new grad opportunities in addition to internships as well, so that's I think why we're seeing such high competition this year," said Zhao. "The slower job market overall means that companies are less willing to invest in their internship programs this season."

So what should applicants do in a highly competitive market? It's important to remember to "consider the rest of the applicant pool," Zhao said.

His advice is to look for a qualification that can differentiate you, whether it's additional project experience or even a past internship that may not be particularly on-topic but can add interesting value to your application.

"It's really important to stand out and to really try to make your application pop so that it gets that second look over from the hiring manager," he said. "Ultimately, your goal as an applicant is not to show that you are qualified for the job, but to show that you are the best candidate for the job."

• Internship season is in full swing.
• Career site Glassdoor has published a list of the best internships of the year.
• It's largely tech, along with some firms in consulting, accounting, biotech, and more.

Internship season is upon us, and careers site Glassdoor has published a listing of the best internships of the year.

More than half of the 25 top internships Glassdoor identified are in the tech industry, though industries like consulting, finance, and biotech are also represented.

"These are really industries that offer high career growth as well as good pay, so it's no surprise that these are very attractive employers for interns," Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told BI.

The job market has cooled considerably in the past few years, and it shows at even the lowest rungs of the career ladder. Glassdoor's report found that last year was the most competitive internship season since the pandemic. The top internships in this year's ranking come from some giants of their industries.

"These are larger companies that not only offer good career growth, but are also perhaps more stable than some of the smaller companies that are more volatile year to year," Zhao said. "As the job market cools, there is more appeal to companies where there might be more job security."

Here are the top 10 internships of the year, according to Glassdoor:

10. LinkedIn

Median base monthly salary: $8,333

Overall rating: 4.1

9. Synchrony

Median base monthly salary: $ 5,166

Overall rating: 4.1

8. Microsoft

Median base monthly salary: $7,875

Overall rating: 4.1

7. McKinsey & Company

Median base monthly salary: $8,333

Overall rating: 4.1

6. Genentech

Median base monthly salary: $7,500

Overall rating: 4.1

5. Uber

Median base monthly salary: $7,750

Overall rating: 4.1

4. AMD

Median base monthly salary: $7,916

Overall rating: 4.2

3. NVIDIA

Median base monthly salary: $8,333

Overall rating: 4.2

2. Capital One

Median base monthly salary: $8,833

Overall rating: 4.2

1. EY - Parthenon

Median base monthly salary: $7,500

Overall rating: 4.4

Glassdoor said its ranking was determined by looking at a combination of median salary, overall review rating, and ratings of workplace factors, such as career opportunities, culture and values, and work-life balance.

To be eligible for inclusion in the list, companies had to have at least 1000 employees. They also needed a minimum of 15 salaries listed and a minimum of 15 reviews with at least 10 workplace factors submitted on Glassdoor by US interns from April 2024 through March 2025.

For the rest of the list, check out Glassdoor's full ranking.

• About a fifth of recruitment ads in 2024 were "ghost jobs," a Greenhouse report found.
• Ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust, but hiring managers continue to see the benefits.
• Greenhouse and LinkedIn now offer verification features to help identify potential ghost jobs.

Everyone has a story about a role they thought they were perfect for, only to hear nothing back or be ghosted later on.

You may have even been love-bombed during an interview and told you were the ideal candidate, only for it to be crickets afterward.

Greenhouse may have an explanation. It found that between 18% and 22% of jobs listed with it in 2024 were appeals for new workers that never actually got filled.

The hiring platform surveyed 2,500 workers across the US, UK, and Germany, finding that three in five candidates suspected they had encountered a "ghost job."

In analyzing the data, Greenhouse found that about a fifth of the jobs posted on its platform could be classified this way — jobs that go up on boards but don't actually exist.

"The data highlights a troubling reality — the job market has become more soul-crushing than ever," Jon Stross, Greenhouse's president and cofounder, said in a statement.

Spotting a fake job ad

Ghost jobs are not a new phenomenon. Business Insider reported in 2022 on a survey of 1,000 hiring managers conducted by the lending firm Clarify Capital. Half of managers said they kept job postings live even when they weren't actively recruiting because they were "always open to new people."

A Resume Builder survey last May found that seven in 10 hiring managers also think it's "morally acceptable" to post ghost jobs, while three in 10 companies have posted fake listings.

Other reasons for putting up these ads include giving the impression of company growth, placating frustrated staff members, or holding out hope for the perfect "unicorn" candidate.

While hiring managers may see the benefit, in reality, ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust in the process, BI's Tim Paradis reported last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in response to persisting ghost jobs, Greenhouse and LinkedIn now have a verification feature to help candidates weed out ads that may be a waste of time.

Some ways to identify a ghost job, BI previously reported, include it being up for 30 days or more, can no longer be found on the company's website, or a vague description of the role and its requirements.

• Many parents struggle with putting their smartphones down and paying full attention to their kids.
• Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong told CNBC that he stays offline around his children.
• He only works in his home office, going in there for emergency calls or after his kids go to bed.

Teens aren't the only ones who are heavily enticed by smartphones; plenty of parents struggle to put their devices down, too.

A 2024 Pew Research Center report found that 46% of teens said their parents are "at least sometimes distracted by their phone" when they try to talk to them.

That's why Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong has a simple rule at home: he doesn't answer texts or emails in front of his kids.

"I want to lead by not having digital products all around," Sutherland-Wong, 44, said in a CNBC interview. He said he doesn't want to be "distracted by my email and text messages all the time" and gives his kids his undivided attention.

He stays offline when he's around his kids

Smartphones aren't just magnetizing because of work emails and apps like Slack; parents often use phones for everything from scheduling playdates to managing extracurriculars.

To reduce his chances of getting sucked into his phone, Sutherland-Wong gets fully offline when he spends time with his kids. He works remotely from his home office, which makes it easier to pick up on work once the kids are asleep.

Otherwise, he makes it a point "to be there when my kids come home from school, to be able to get offline, spend quality time with them, put them to bed, and then get back online."

He models clear boundaries around work

Not all work emergencies happen between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. To create "space" between his role as a father and as a CEO, Sutherland-Wong returns to his home office when an urgent work task arises.

He feels his kids "pick up on" how he takes work calls. Privately firing off emails not only helps him maintain a work-life balance as a father but also models healthier habits around technology for his kids.