I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Amazon (Bengaluru) in Jul 2016
Interview
I got a call from recruiter who saw my profile on a job portal. The entire process was quite long 2.5 to 3 months but the interactions with all interviewers were pretty interesting and good.
Since this was my first interview at Amazon, I read a lot about company, culture and people. Do that it helps.
I had:
2 telephonic rounds (hiring manager and skip level manager)
6 On-site interviews (Includes Bar raiser round)
1 Document writing/Case study
Tips:
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Amazon has 14 leadership principles and they believe everyone hired is a leader. They evaluate candidates to identify if the candidate displays their leadership principles.
Before interview revisit your entire career and think of various interesting/challenging things you have done, problems you faced and how you overcame those.
Prepare more than 1 example for every situation, by prepare i mean structure your thoughts.
You can't fake it so be real, if you haven't faced a situation interviewer is asking about be honest and share that you haven't come across the same yet and infact that would be a very good learning experience.
I followed STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) methodology to structure my thoughts and answer each question.
Take time before you start answering each question, interviewers are very mature and understand you need time to grasp the question, revisit your experience and answer it.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
--Past work experience details, immediate last role, its impact and why i think this role at amazon is a
good career choice for me?
-- Situation when you failed (Tip: It is important to highlight here that what did you learn from it?)
-- Situation where you had to launch a product where you had pressure to launch, what
compromises you made?
-- Significant professional failure
-- Challenging situation, what you did and why?
-- A time when you had to do a quikfix to stop a problem's magnitude, what did you do and how?
-- Handled a difficult team member?
-- Did something beyond your role but good for customer
-- Had to make a gut call and decision without sufficient data
-- Had a great idea but had to convince team to execute.
-- A time when you had to go against your management's decision
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Naples, FL) in Aug 2016
Interview
Initial phone interview with HR, asking if serious about the position and would I move etc. Next I moved on to a phone interview with the hiring manager. Spent over an hour on the phone with the hiring manager, he thought we had only scheduled for 1/2 hour but then was pleased to know we had the hour. It was difficult to answer the questions and convey the complicated business strategies from my prior company and apply them to Amazon. Take time to think through the answers and unravel you old company speak. keep it simple.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time when you had a few months to finish a project and then the timeline changed and you only had a matter of days... what did you do?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Londres, Inglaterra) in Oct 2016
Interview
Very difficult and challenging telephone interview. Everything you say is open to being challenged and they take very little at face value. If you get through that you move on to 5-6 face to face interviews similar to the telephone. I found this easier than the telephone but nothing is given away. Everyone will be writing notes and if you aren't clear about something they will make it known. Any situations you give them must be crystal clear, they leave nothing for interpretation. Make sure you have plenty of good examples for 'bias for action'
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give me an example of something which you did at risk?
...give me another example...and another.