Apple's cryptic job advert is a hidden online puzzle

Remember the days when candidates would wander down to their local corner shop and look in the window for job notices or requests for work? We’ve eclipsed our own times and gone past simply advertising roles. Now, recruitment demands that employers act innovatively and strategically in order to draw in the cream of the crop.

Apple is one company that does this better than most. The tech giant is well-versed in hunting for top-shelf talent and is resorting to increasingly bizarre methods of luring applicants in. A recent revelation reported in MacRumours, reveals that Apple has installed a hidden web page which is actually a job advert for a highly critical role.

Apple servers have a hidden page which details the advert for a "talented engineer" to work on a "critical infrastructure component". The fact that the page was hidden means that any coder who is eligible to work at Apple would have to decipher it first. Once they crack the code, they are then invited to an interview at the Cupertino-based company.

This isn’t the first time Apple has used strange ways to find employees. Reports have emerged of a semi-secret employment programme which people are comparing to a cult recruitment scheme.