Contacted by Amazon military recruiter on LinkedIn. Submitted my resume and set up for a phone interview a week later with the recruiter. Very straightforward interview, it lasted about 30-40 minutes with basic questions about my background and leadership experience. Mostly just to get a good feel for your decision making. Very friendly and helpful. When he was satisfied, he told me to expect a call from the HR dept within a few days and they would schedule another phone interview with an Sr. Operations Manager.
A few days later, the HR rep sent an email asking when I would be available for my next interview. I scheduled a week later and the Sr. Ops Manager was easy to talk with and felt like his interview style was very similar to the recruiters. Approx. 45 minutes passed and he felt confident to push my application forward for a 1:1 interview at a later date. HR contacted me about a week later and told me there was a hiring conference being hosted by Amazon in Columbia, SC. The Travel Dept. set up airline, hotel and a rental car in my name to arrive the night prior to the 1:1 (in approx 3 weeks).
The weekend before leaving , I got a surprise email from HR with a homework assignment to have completed NLT 8:00 am that Monday. Nothing crazy, it was a word document with 5 questions with various Fulfillment Center worker scenarios. One question was a math problem dealing with workers production and completion rates. They gave part of the answer and asked you to figure out the blanks. They said be prepared to brief all your answers during the 1:1 interview process to the Amazon team members.
I flew into Columbia the night before (Tues). I got to the hotel about 6:00pm and all the accommodations at the for the car and Marriott had no issues. They sent me a tentative schedule of events when I turned in my answers. I had a 2:00pm show time at the Conference Center located just down the street.
When I showed up at the Conference Center, at 1:45pm, I was greeted by the welcome staff at a table in the lobby. They escorted me in to a holding room with about 15 other OPS candidates. A HR rep came in at 2:00pm and gave a quick brief on what to expect.
Minutes later, our names were called out and we got into groups and as we were escorted into the main area of the conference center. They had stations set up enclosed by black curtains. The escort walked each one of us to a different station, and she introduced you to a team of two Amazon Reps sitting inside the booth. First station I hit was the HR Rep and a Senior OPS.
After approx. 20-30 minutes, they gave me an opportunity to ask them questions,and I felt pretty good about everything that had transpired. On cue, the escort was waiting to take me back to the holding room, until the next booths became avail. I got to talk to the other candidates about their interviews a bit, but most folks were afraid to speak or give anything away...
The escort came in and we started the process over, this time I went into an area with an dry erase board. There was a calculator on the table in front of the team. After short introductions, they asked me to pull out my math problem and explain my answers from the HW assignment. Satisfied with that they started to ask about "What if's" So they gave me a threw out a few curve balls which deviated from the homework scenario. Stunned a bit on the onset, but once I saw what they were asking for, I recovered and saw the pattern they were after and answered accordingly. At one point, I felt like one interviewer was not satisfied with how I was getting my answers so she started asking questions which i found confusing... Could have been some nerves on my part, but the other guy seemed to get confused also and tried to explain my process to her... We got the same answers, but I went about it a bit differently. It never got heated or anything, but i did not feel great leaving the tent after that round. In hindsight, think she was trying to see how I deal with pressure...
Third and final round went into the tent with a HR rep and an Operations Manager. Pretty straight forward questions more focused on my experiences in the military. Overall felt very confident, but did feel a bit tired at this point as I found myself struggle a bit trying to find some answers. Both were very understanding and patient and professional.
Once completed, I was escorted out and told they would be in touch in a few days. Standard answer for everyone.
Exactly one week later, I noticed my linkedIn acct had an unusually high amount of profile views... +300 instead of the normal 5 to 10 avg per week. The next day I got a call from the Senior Recruiter in HR. Nice man and was very helpful. He said I was a person of high interest, and proceeded to offer me the position of Area Manager starting at 70K.
