I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Nov 2022
Interview
I got a call from an Amazon recruiter for the position of Technical Writer I for Bangalore location.
I was interested so she scheduled my interview.
The first interview was a video call with an senior technical writer who asked me behavioural and situation based questions. Amazon is known to have a unique interview process where they ask questions to judge candidates on the basis of their Leadership Principles.
I cleared the 1st round and next round was a written assessment. It included English writing and editing questions and some basic HTML coding questions.
After clearing the assessment, i was invited for the third round which was again a video call. At this point the recruiter tells me there will be a total of 5 rounds.
I cleared the third round too and scheduled the last two rounds. Unfortunately the interviewer didn’t for the 4th round. When i called the recruiter to follow up she said Amazon has declared a hiring freeze and they are not entertaining any more candidates.
I was shocked to know this at the last moment. More surprising was that the recruiter didn’t have the courtesy to call me beforehand and tell me that the interviews will not take place. I was given a meaningless apology and thats it.
This came after Amazon had laid off 10k ppl 2 days ago. If there was a hiring freeze wouldn’t the recruiters know already? Why was i not informed before.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult client/ customer.
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Boston, MA) in Apr 2022
Interview
They have a tedious interview process. There were four sessions:
1. Coaching sessions by the HR sourcer
2. Initial screen
3. Coaching sessions by HR recruiter before the final interview
4. Final interview
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a situation when you had to (a) resolve conflicts, (b) deal with difficult colleagues, (c) handle schedule challenges, etc, etc.
They are seriously hung up on Amazon's Leadership Principles. All the answers are expected to touch one or more LPs. The responses are also expected to be in the STAR (situation, task, action, results) format.
I was interviewed by five different people, each of whom had a different role within the company and a different approach to the interview. It was a positive experience for me. I felt that each interviewer was interested in finding out what I could do and how I could contribute to the company; they weren't looking for flaws or trying to find reasons for rejecting me. And they seemed like people I'd enjoy working with. But the process was long and exhausting, as high tech interviews usually are.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked what I did at my previous job to change things significantly for the better.