Acing Amazon’s Behavioral Interview Questions (2022)

If you want to get a tech job at Amazon, you’ll need to have a successful behavioral interview. In the following we’ll show you want you need to do to “pass” this test.

Amazon, like other big tech companies, incorporates behavioral interview questions into their interview process. In fact, Amazon isn’t shy about its research-backed behavior-based approach to interview questions with these examples:

These may look intimidating now, but you should be able to ace Amazon’s behavioral interview questions after reading through this guide.

Amazon Leadership Principles and Workplace Diversity

Whether you want to work as a software engineer or as a remote executive assistant, Amazon makes preparing for the interview a very transparent process.

Amazon is also very transparent on its hiring trends:

Amazon workforce by gender
Amazon workforce by ethnicity

How is this data relevant to preparing for Amazon’s behavioral interview? This shows that Amazon is committed to diversity and unbiased in its hiring practices after no longer relying on AI software for hiring. Now, it’s easier to prepare for the questions of “Why Amazon?” for a company that no longer has biased hiring practices.

Diversity and inclusion are part of the customer obsession that Amazon pushes with its leadership principles. Amazon uses these leadership principles questions when evaluating interview candidates. All this information and data is what Amazon wants you to research when looking into its culture, as Amazon cannot ask Amazon leadership principles questions without having values of its own.

The 14 Amazon Leadership Principles

There are 14 Amazon leadership principles to learn. Fortunately, you do not need to memorize all 14, but it helps to understand these principles, and some Amazon leadership principles questions posed during an interview.

Amazon leadership principles

Preparing For Amazon Behavioral Questions

Amazon does not do trick questions. While big companies, such as Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn like to throw brain teasers into their interviews, Amazon shies away from that practice.

“Our interview process is geared toward finding true examples of the work you’ve performed.” -Stacy Milgate, Senior Client Lead, Amazon Web Services

Jeff Bezos quote on hiring the best talent

Here are some tips:

Much like other companies, such as Stripe, Amazon uses the STAR methodology.

STAR Method Amazon Examples

Amazon themselves details the structure of their behavioral interview: The STAR method:

STAR methodology

Cody Nelson recommends you look at the job description of the position you’re applying for. Now that you know what’s expected of you between Amazon leadership principles that include the STAR methodology, let’s look at examples of Amazon’s behavioral interview questions and answers.

Keep in mind, these may not be exact questions that Amazon could ask during an interview, but it will help you structure your answers when preparing for the behavioral interview.

Question 1. “Can you tell me about a time you were told the current direction of your project needed to change?”

What Amazon is looking for here is your ability to adapt. What action did you take under pressure?

“After a project update, a client was not happy with the current direction and gave my team new requirements. I sat down with my team to put together a new course of action and how we can quickly implement these changes. With our new approach, we adapted quickly to these changes and met all of our client’s demands.”

Question 2: “How did you handle conflict at work?”

What the interviewer is looking for here is how you can deal with conflict or a team member with opposing ideas. Did you get upset? How did you resolve the conflict?

“I remained calm when a team member became defensive over my constructive criticism of his work. Instead of fighting back, I asked him what I could do to help him improve. When he realized I was on his side, he calmed down and we collaborated on the project to deliver quality results.”

Question 3: “Tell me about a time you dealt with a crisis during a project?”

A crisis or emergency question is handled the same way you would handle the first question, except you’re dealing with a lot more pressure.

“COVID-19 struck when we were on a very tight deadline for a project. Not only were multiple team members getting sick, but others who picked up their work experienced intense burnout. It became increasingly difficult to not only manage a team but to bring in additional team members and catch them up to speed on our project.

Fortunately, I’m not the type to panic. I sat down with my team and went over clear expectations. I was flexible and filled in any roles I could for the team. I provided direction and balance until we were able to get back up to full working capacity.”

Each of these questions mentions a situation, a task, an action, and a result to touch every base of the STAR method. Be clear and concise but deliver results with your answers. Whether you’re looking for remote work with Amazon or want to work on the logistics side, following these tips will help you ace Amazon’s behavioral interview questions. Good luck! 💪

This article was original posted on 4 day week — remote jobs with a better work life balance 🎉

--

--

Founder @ 4dayweek.io - jobs with a better work / life balance.

Get the Medium app

A button that says 'Download on the App Store', and if clicked it will lead you to the iOS App store
A button that says 'Get it on, Google Play', and if clicked it will lead you to the Google Play store