Job Search Step 7: Preparing for Amazon
To my surprise, I am preparing for an Amazon Hiring Manager screen. This is actually great, because behaviorals are best practiced before case question. You need behaviorals for hiring manager screens, even for companies that like case questions. Since Amazon is the “gold standard”, I believe everyone should prepare for behaviorals as if they are preparing for Amazon. Every other company is easier than Amazon when it comes to behaviorals.
Note: My approach is informed by my own learning style and life experiences. This will not work for everyone, and my method may skip a few steps because I have prepared for Amazon interviews in the past. I already have my audit mostly complete. This is my next step after the audit.
My Methodology
I like to dive into each leadership principle and try to answer specific questions. I don’t go to my audit list, that was just for jogging my memory. I take each question as it comes and try to think of a story. (this replicates the terror of the interview for me, even if I am working on my
This is VERY DIFFICULT. It often takes me a while to get warmed up and started. The wording of questions can catch me off guard.
For example:
Time you have gone above and beyond for a customer. That is my job, so very little feels above and beyond. I have to start by determining something that is good enough to claim “above and beyond.”
Time you delighted a customer. Here I am balancing my best story with what I worry the interviewer needs to hear within a particular space, for example Ads. I need a lot of Ads stories for some interviews but I don’t want to use up all my Ads stories at once.
The Exercises
Because there are 16 leadership principles and I need to practice at least 13 of them (excluding frugality and the two new politically correct principles if I am in a hurry), I will write a different post for each principle. These are imperfect, I am basically sharing my notes in blog form. Some of the shorthand will not mean much to you. the idea is to inspire, not for you to copy.
Cadence
I am trying to work on 2 to 3 principles per day. If I get booked for say Wednesday of next week, I will have to double down and focus on all principles in one or two days.
I am preparing for a hiring manager screen, so if worse comes to worst, I will focus on the top 4 principles for a product manager:
Ownership
Bias for Action
Earns Trust
Note: For some hiring managers, the top 4 are different. But generally speaking those are frequently the top principles for product managers and so likely to be asked during hiring manager screen.
