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How to Crack the Amazon
Behavioral Interview
Behavioral interviews are an integral part of Amazon’s recruitment process. Whether you’re applying for a junior role or a managerial one, you have to go through a mandatory behavioral round, where recruiters evaluate the core attributes of your personality. The main purpose of asking behavioral questions is to understand candidates’ psychological and behavioral traits and assess if they are a good fit for corresponding roles. Amazon’s behavioral interview is modeled on the company’s 14 leadership principles (spearheaded by Chairman and Founder Jeff Bezos). It is very different from interviews at other FAANG companies, mostly because of its emphasis on diverse leadership principles. In this article, we’ll look at what to expect at Amazon’s behavioral interview and how you can make a lasting impression. Here’s what we’ll cover: ● Why do recruiters ask behavioral questions? ● Behavioral interviews at Amazon and the 14 leadership principles ● What type of questions should you prepare for? ● Structuring your answers for the Amazon behavioral interview ● 35 Amazon behavioral interview questions
Why Do Recruiters Ask Behavioral
Questions?
At big tech companies, the focus on behavioral interviews has been steadily increasing over the years. That’s primarily because these companies have come to acknowledge the importance of having a workforce that reflects diversity, tolerance, integrity, and ownership.
Recruiters ask behavioral questions to understand how you would react to specific situations in a workplace environment. They also evaluate you against the 14 leadership principles to gauge how well you’d satisfy your role. Moreover, these interviews serve as the perfect sieve to identify candidates with the right attitude.
Behavioral Interviews at Amazon and the
14 Leadership Principles
The idea behind Amazon’s leadership principles is to create a novel model that can be used every day. These principles provide an expedient frame of reference for integrity, ownership, and leadership. Employees at Amazon are urged to use these leadership principles every day — be it while discussing new project ideas or charting an approach to a problem. Behavioral questions can be asked at any stage of the interview. However, the on-site round has a dedicated behavioral round where your personality and behavioral traits are evaluated. Below are the 14 leadership principles that are centric to behavioral interviews at Amazon: ● Ownership ● Customer obsession ● Leaders are right, a lot ● Invent and simplify ● Be curious ● Employ the highest standards ● Hire the best and develop them ● Build trust ● Think big ● Have a spine — disagree and commit ● Take calculated risks ● Be frugal ● Dive deep into tasks ● Deliver results
Amazon’s behavioral interviews can have a good number of questions around how you dealt with challenging situations in the past and how you overcame them. Deploying the STAR method to answer such questions gives recruiters the right context and understanding of the situation, and most importantly, your learnings and takeaways from it. Let’s break it down: ● Situation: This part should essentially answer the “When, Where, and Why” of the situation. It should focus on giving recruiters a fair idea of the premise of your answer. ● Task: This part should answer what your role in the situation/circumstance was. ● Action: The “Action” component should describe what the primary action items were and what actions you took. It should aim to give recruiters context about the “What, Who, and How” of the situation. You should also aim to provide the rationale for your actions and what prompted you to take a particular course of action. ● Result: End by talking about what results were delivered by your actions. Also, specify learnings that the project/situation imparted.
The CAR Method
Another method to answer behavioral questions is the CAR method. CAR here stands for Context, Action, and Result. This method is very similar to the STAR method. In the CAR method, the “Situation” and “Task” aspects of STAR are clubbed to form the “Context.” The CAR method focuses on citing relevant examples from your past experiences and using them as learnings for future experiences.
Examples: Amazon Behavioral Interview
Questions
At Amazon, behavioral interviews are an important part of the selection process for positions across the board. Depending on the role you’re applying to, you’ll be asked questions around specific leadership principles. As such, you can determine which principles are applicable to your role and accordingly prepare answers to questions.
Below are some behavioral questions you can start preparing for:
- Tell us about a time when you faced a problem that had multiple solutions. How did you go about the situation?
- Tell us about a time when you took a calculated risk and failed. What were your learnings from it?
- Tell us about a time when you had to take the lead in a project. How did you fulfill your role?
- Tell us about a time when you had to work with an uncooperative colleague. How did you go about it?
- Tell us about a time when you leveraged massive chunks of data to build a strategy. How did you execute it?
- Tell us about a time when you had to learn new things in a short time to satisfy the requirements of a project?
- Why do you want to work at Amazon? How do you think Amazon will impact your life in the coming years?
- What would be your stand if your supervisor asked you to do something outside the purview of the company’s policy?
- Tell us about a time when you didn’t get along with your superior. 10.Tell us about a time when you imparted your learnings from a project to the entire team.
- Tell us about a time when you dealt with a particularly challenging customer. How did you navigate the project? 12.Describe a time when you had to make an important decision without adequate data or information. How did you handle it? 13.Are you aware of the 14 Amazon Leadership principles? Which of the principles resonates most with you? 14.Have you applied any of Amazon’s 14 leadership principles at your workplace before? 15.Tell us about a time when you had to take the lead in a project? What were the things you did to make it a successful attempt? 16.Tell us about a time when you didn’t receive the feedback you’d expected from a superior. How did you deal with it? 17.Have you ever witnessed a coworker stealing a workplace item in the past? What was your reaction to it? 18.Have you been in a situation where a coworker needed help but was hesitant to ask for it? What was your approach to the situation? Did you help the coworker out? 19.What do you do to keep up your energy and excitement at work? 20.Have
prep strategy.
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