The process included:
- Initial screening with Lead Recruiter
- Initial phone call with the hiring manager
- On-site interview with total of 6 people
For product manager roles; Amazon prefers self-starters and likes to see innovative capacity aligned with the leadership principles.
First thing first; Amazon is not for everyone. It is a high-performance and restless environment. (Remember restless.com ?) But if you want the job, you need to really prepare for the interviews, especially for the on-site round. Even if you don’t get an offer, you will learn a lot during the process. Amazon has the most intense and serious recruiting process I have ever experienced.
Here is the interview checklist that worked for me; follow the steps to nail the interview.
0) Preparation is the key, If you are not prepared (especially for the on-site) take a later time to get prepared. There is no point to go an Amazon interview without adequate preparation, don’t waste your time. You will need at least 20 hours of preparation. I spent around 40. Working for Amazon was my dream-job; so I invented heavily.
1) Get into Jeff Bezos’ brain. Reading the 15 principles from the web site doesn’t makes that much sense. Instead read ‘The Amazon Way’, the book that will help you to understand the inner mentally of Mr. Bezos, that became the ‘religion’ of Amazon. A truly inspiring book...
2) Think 2-3 alternatives for each behavioral question listed here on Glassdoor. I have listed like 80 of them total and created answers. In an interview you won’t have time to remember them. Also you are asked to give a different answers if the question is asked before. Remember, those guys will be typing every word that comes out of your mouth and share it internally.
3) Tie all of your stories to one or multiple a leadership principle. Write your stories that in mind. Don’t let them hang in the void; nobody will care to see you are a hard worker.
4) On-site interview is also a physical challenge. Prepare accordingly with your diet and exercise, starting from couple of days before the interview. I am pretty serious here, the day long interview will suck your energy out of your bones, and if you can not keep up your boost at 3pm with the nervous bar raiser - generally that is the last round - you will be knocked out!
5) Prepare yourself to a ‘stress interview’. Most probably your ‘bar-raiser’ will grill you more than the other guys, and he/she will intentionally increase the stress level. Be prepared for it, it is part of the game, dont’ take it offensive. Don’t drink coffee that day, keep your sweet snacks in your pocket.
6. Trust you skills and personality and repeat yourself “I don’t need Amazon, but Amazon needs me”. Yes, Amazon is a huge talent grinder with a very high turnover rate. They need to recruit best talent continuously, which is a very tough. So, if you trust your skills ; embrace them, never let your interviewer set the tone of the interview. You are the value, you are the boss.
7. The key question you need to answer is why you want to work with Amazon. Amazon is not known for being employee-friendly, or best place to work; so find an honest answer. You can answer this question if only you know what you want, and know about Amazon. My answer is “I want to do start-up work in a giant company”, find whatever is yours.
Amazon is an amazing, one-of-a-kind company. You will like learning more about it, so take the interview process as a learning activity. I have estimated the rejection rates for each round is like 70%-80% range, so don’t take the outcome so serious. I saw mediocre past colleagues who passed Amazon’s high ‘bar’, and some very talented people got rejected.
The key is how you position yourself in the shadow of Amazon’s 15 cultural pillars.
Hope that helps :)
