I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Jul 2023
Interview
During my interview experience, I found the Hiring Manager (HM) to be visibly distracted and overwhelmed. They mentioned that their recent travel had left them unprepared for the interview, despite having received a two-week notice about it. The overall atmosphere was quite negative, which led me to withdraw from the hiring process. It was disappointing to encounter such a situation during what should have been a professional and constructive interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Can you tell me about yourself and your background?
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Berlín) in Jan 2022
Interview
Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem. What types of different perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was the outcome? Where there any key learnings from this experience? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Londres, Inglaterra) in Jun 2023
Interview
The process was straight forward and the communication was excellent from the HR/Recruitment process perspective. After applying online, the recruiter contacted me to arrange the initial interviews with the hiring manager. After passing this stage I was invited to a Writing assessment exercise + a full day of interviews with a panel of 5 people and 5 different interviews. They give you the choice if you want the interviews to be done in 1 or 2 days. ( I recommend doing it in 2 days, instead of all of them in 1 day) Now, in terms of the methodology that Amazon uses for interviewing. It is very long methodical and scripted! It is the type of interview that a good storyteller will have a chance to pass and potentially Amazon will dismiss a good candidate with more skills and experience. The interviewers were friendly but it seems that they are following a script. Some of them even read it to me with more than 3 associated questions to the original question to reply back. Unfortunately, 3 of 5 of the interviewers weren't related to the Marketing sector, ( finance, logistics, and programming) making the logic of the STAR and metrics feedback less understandable from their view and having to explain what each metric means as they weren't familiarised with the Marketing terms. ( CTR, Bounce rates, etc) . I considered this situation a huge downside of the interview process. The talent acquisition lady also informed me that when failing the interview after the feedback from the panel, any further applications won't be taken into account as the results last for a year and no other applications will be taken into account. I find that Amazon's principles are really good but the interviewing panel process needs people related to the role in question, and to ensure that candidates are not trying to explain terms and logic of metrics to people with opposite experiences and backgrounds. Other than that, I am grateful and proud to reach the final stages and experience the process in full! Best of luck to those interviewing!
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
1- Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem. What types of different perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was the outcome? Where there any key learnings from this experience? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
2 -Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock/barrier preventing your team from making progress. What was the barrier? How were you able to remove it? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
3- Tell me about a time when you had to validate the assumptions underlying a direct report's project. How did you decide follow-up was necessary? What steps, if any, did you take to validate the assumptions? What was the result?