I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Bratislava) in Aug 2021
Interview
There 4 interviews overall, a screening, then with a hiring manager, another hiring manager, and then 3 people at the same time. Questions were mostly about Amazon's culture and my management skills.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would I do if I failed in x situation?
How would I give feedback about some shortcoming in the company to other employees, etc
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Amazon
Interview
Recruiter was lovely, very personable, reached out on LinkedIn, asked was I interested in the role, setup a quick call, very flexible with timing etc
Hiring manager interview was, not an interview tbh.
Interview was scheduled for 45 mins and ran for an hour. Interviewer was late. Then proceeded to tell me all about himself, his career at Amazon, the job etc and asked me two questions. And interrupted me during one to tell me his opinion.
Clear that this manager had never worked anywhere besides Amazon. Talked about leadership principles and competencies and behavioral interviewing and said Amazon isn’t like other companies because of this and that other companies don’t do them. It was bizarre.
When I indicated towards the end of the interview that I needed to wrap up as I had a hard stop he just kept right on talking. In the end I cut across him and said that I had to go.
They asked me to come in for second round but I declined.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jun 2011
Interview
The recruiter reached out to me quickly to scehedule a phone interview after an employee referred my resume to the team and applied on-line - within a week if I remember.
The first phone interview was with the hiring manager. It was focused on my experience and my performance review experience. Very professional and cordial.
The second phone interview was scheduled about a week later with a peer of my hiring manager. It was focused on my customer support and management experience, with several what-if scenarios. Also professional and cordial.
There was delay in scheduling my on-sites due to a critical issue the team and holidays. When the loop was scheduled it was with 6 managers, including the hiring manager, director, another manager in the team, and three other managers within the organization and team. One of course was the bar raiser. All the questions were behavioral and situational - mainly focussed on personnel and customer management. There were several questions on situations where I saw an issue and took the lead to resolve, and examples of where I implemented a best in class process. There were no puzzle questions or in depth technical questions, as I used examples from previous roles to show I had a technical background (though my technical background was not related to the role).
I received a call back from the recruiter and offer within two business days.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
I walked into a trap about my management ability ie. I explained my strengths in such a way it looked like a weakness. I spent a few minutes having to backtrack.
Have examples of how you failed and recovered. I had a few in mind but had to think of one that involved personnel. Of course, you also don't want to have too many examples of failures!
Tell me a time when you took the initiative to improve a process or procedure. What was it, what did you do, what was the outcome, and how did you measure success (ie. metrics)?
