Amazon is the pioneer in behavioral interview. Amazon interview process is peculiar but, is best in class. Amazon understands that their organization is dynamic and ever changing hence, a candidate coming through the traditional style of interview might not be able to sustain in their environment. As it is said that a subject can be learnt but a behavior cannot be learnt, behavior is instinctive. For that very reason, Amazon has laid out leadership principles which is subject agnostic, each leadership principles reflects a behavior. These leadership principles are not just apt for Amazon but if can be understood in their right sense, these leadership principles can be applied to any behavioral interview.
“I would rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person” - Jeff Bezos
For an organization that follows this approach, needless to say that you are up for some kind of challenge. Hence, it is important to first understand what this company is made of, before even penning down your thoughts on how you plan to crack the interview.
Amazon is an organization that lives by their leadership principles. If you can understand their leadership principles, the intent behind those principles and the questions an interviewer asks around those leadership principles, then you surely are on track for a great preparation for a successful interview.
Why should you know the Amazon Leadership Principles ?
Irrespective of whether you are applying for an individual contributor role or a people manager role, having a thorough understanding of Amazon Leadership Principles will help you in preparing right answers for the interview. Amazon believes in constantly raising the bar for their customer’s experience, that means they hire people who can raise the performance bar of the existing team - now you know how good you are expected to be.
You should know the leadership principles of Amazon because in every round of the interview you will be assessed against a leadership principle. The questions from the interviewers will be to collect information from answers that display your strength to raise the bar for a particular leadership principle. Hence, it is important to know and understand the essence of each leadership principle to be able to construct your answers in a way that interviewer is looking for, to assess your fitment for the role.
Understanding the Interview Construct
Amazon is proud of making great hires. Each interviewer at Amazon goes through a specific training before being eligible for interviewing candidates, where the objective is, to prepare the mindset of the interviewers, to create awareness on the process of collecting information from the candidates, to learn ways of unbiased evaluation and ultimately, deliver a delightful interview experience to the candidate. Following can be the composition of interview structure:
Versant Test by HirePro - This is a set of tests to assess your verbal and written communication. In some cases, it can also consist of aptitude test. For entry level resources, versant test powered by hirepro is used to screen the candidates who are best fit for next round of interviews.
Phone Screen Interview - Apart from the HR round of interview, one of the manager from operations team, mostly the hiring manager, assesses the candidate to check for fitment against the job description. For the on-site interview, a set of interviewers will invest their time to assess the candidate. Hence, it is important for the phone screen interviewer to evaluate if the candidate meets basic requirements of the job description before investing many interviewers time.
On-Site Interview - Depending on the level you are being interviewed for, the number of interview rounds can vary. Based on the level, interview loop is scheduled with a set of interviewers. Candidate is usually invited to the job location, and all rounds of interviews are scheduled within a day to ensure great interview experience to the candidate. Travel and stay in fully paid by Amazon.
Written Test - There is lot of emphasis on writing at Amazon, one should expect a written examination as well which largely will be focused on your ability to write answers that are concise and clear. No need to stress out, the answers you write as part of interview preparation homework, you can use the same to complete the written test.
Debrief - Once all interviewers have collected the information from the interview, they discuss collectively whether you have met the hiring bar and decide "Hire" or "No Hire" decision