Top 20 Amazon behavioral interview questions and tips to solve them

Amazon is one of the earliest pioneers of ecommerce and currently one the biggest internet company in world. Career at Amazon is one of the most sought after by every fresh college graduates and experienced professional.

Amazon hiring process consists of written test, coding test, technical interviews and HR interview. In this article, we will share you list of top behavioral interview asked during Amazon interviews. These questions are all kind of interviews like entry level hiring or hiring for mid and senior positions, across departments.

Tips for Amazon behavioral questions

Amazon has created 14 leadership principles, and it wants its employees and aspirants to be aware of them in handling different situation at work, with coworkers and customers.

Amazon 14 leadership principles

1. Customer obsession
2. Ownership
3. Invent and Simplify
4. Are right, a lot – This means leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
5. Learn and be curious
6. Hire and develop the best
7. Insists of highest standards
8. Think big
9. Bias for Action- Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
10. Frugality – Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.
11. Earn trust
12. Dive Deep
13. Have backbone, disagree and commit
14. Deliver result

Commonly asked questions in Amazon interview and how to answer them

Here we have given you list of commonly asked questions in Amazon behavioral round interviews. This round is very important for technical as well as non-technical position, as Amazon is customer centric organization. We have given pointers to some of the questions, on how to approach them from Amazon leadership principles. You can try remaining questions yourself, with Amazon 14 principles of leadership.

1. Give us an example of when you used data to make a decision/solve a problem?

Note:  Remember point no 3 (invent and simplify) and Point 12 (Dive Deep). Whenever you are struck with any problem, use data points to simplify the problem, use Machine Learning/Deep Learning to check pattern and come up with logical solution

2. Tell us about a time where you not only met a goal but considerably exceeded expectations.

Note: Remember point 1 and 14. You need to have customer obsession, and you need have penchant to deliver result.

3. Tell us about a time when you were able to deliver an important project under a tight deadline.

Note: Remember point 2 and 9. You need to take ownership of your project, and you need to develop speed for delivery.

4. Tell us about a time you obsessed over giving very high-quality service to a customer?

Note:  Remember point 1, 11 and 14. Have obsession in solving customer issue, earn their trust and deliver result.

5. How did you figure out how your customers are unhappy and what did you do about it?

Note: Point 7 and 12. Set high benchmark of customer satisfaction, and continuously get in touch with them through personally or through data, to solve their issues.

6. Tell us when you took an unpopular stance in a meeting with peers and your leader and you were the outlier

Note: Point 1 and 13. Have backbone to challenge existing situation, and even your superior, if you find something is not good for customer.

7. When do you decide to go along with the group decision even if you disagree?

Note:  Point 5 and 8. Try to visualize big picture, and continuously learn and remain curious to achieve high quality standards.

8. What’s the most innovative new idea that you have implemented?
9. What did you lean in the past years and how do you keep learning?
10. How did you solve a complex problem with simple fix
11. Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager
12. Tell us a time when you took a calculated risk.
13. If your direct manager was instructing you to do something you disagreed with, how would you handle it?
14. What was the critical piece of feedback you received?
15. Tell us the time when your decision was not liked by your team? what did you do about it?
16. What did you do when you saw your team member was struggling?
17. Tell us example when you have been unsatisfied with the status quo. What did you do to change it? Were you successful?
18. Tell us the time when you were dissatisfied with the quality of something at work and went out of your way to improve it.
19. Tell us the time you took a big risk and it failed. What did you learn? What would you do differently?
20. Tell us the time you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do something much bigger than the initial focus

Conclusion

In this article, we have shared you details of Amazon 14 principles of leadership, and have shared most commonly asked questions in Amazon behavioral interview round. Your answers should be in sync with Amazon principles, so you need to go through them once, and also try to practice some questions using amazon 14 principles of leadership. We have also shared some questions, and have shown how you can answer them during Amazon interview.

Xamnation is team of IIT IIM graduates, and we are helping candidates succeed in their job interviews. If you need any assistance for interview preparation like Amazon written test preparation, or Amazon tech interview preparation or Amazon behavioral round preparation, do get in touch with us at rakesh@xamnation.com.