Amazon.com Recruiter Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – I was referred to a Technical Recruiter position by a friend of mine at Amazon. I had an informal call with a group manager who then said he would have a recruiting coordinator schedule an official phone screen with me the following week. As expected, the recruiting coordinator had me interview the following week with another recruiter. The interview lasted approximately 45 minutes and the standard questions were asked ie. sourcing tools, type of roles placed, interviews, etc.

Interview Details – Oh Dear Amazon... you can do better.

process: personal intro through existing amazon employee, one 20 minute phone call - very positive feedback. Then 3 weeks of emails suggesting I talk to so & so - but so & so never confirming a time. (The person's name changed each week, 'sorry so and so didn't make time, but actually talk to so & so instead...') Final step was on site interview for 5 or 6 hours.

Recruiters had clearly been coached on 'ownership' and 'customer experience' (yes, they consider their candidates customers) but of the 6 people I met during my onsite - only one of them gave it any heed. After an initial intro, they all laid out they would: "save 5 minutes for your (my) questions at the end"... by which point they were looking at their watches, and waving to the next interviewer hovering outside, clearly desperate to get back to their desks & get on with their work load. 4 of the 6 people I met told me they had 15 minutes of their day unscheduled that day... and it felt like your questions were biting into their desperately needed coffee break.

All but one of the interviewers sat with their laptop between them and I (hello, anyone know a thing or two about body language?!) Put it a little to the side, this is interpersonal skills 101! Most of them read their questions off their laptop screens, and as many other posters mention - their questions (all behavioral based) focused on the negative:

Tell me about a time you weren't able to deliver promised work.
Tell me about your biggest failure in your last role.
Tell me about a time you let your team down.
Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
Tell me about how you handle being overworked.

While it's important to investigate the negative, what about the positive too?! I got the sense they were totally stretched, and didn't have very understanding clients - and wanted to make sure their hires could handle the storm. Fair enough, I guess, but I came way relived to make it out the door - feeling it was nowhere I wanted to work! Not just because of the hard work, (hard work can be good) but because these people would be my colleagues & they weren't upholding the values the Jeff Bezos came up with & those values were the reasons I wanted to work there in the first place.

The icing on the cake? My point person - who they called a Closing Recruiter. We'd talked for 4 minutes the day before the interview, and he told me he was 'my recruiter' and asked if I had any questions. He spent 7 minutes with me on the day because 'he was running late for his next interview' (as the only impressive person I'd met that day had overrun). When he called to give me the feedback that 'they were going to keep looking' and he did so while on speakerphone. speakerphone!!

Interview Details – Entire process took about 3-4 weeks. Standard initial phone interview (30 minutes) followed by onsite interview (about 3-4 hours). Keep in mind that all your interviewers will be typing on their laptops the entire time in order to take detailed notes about everything you say. Do not get discouraged if they aren't engaging in conversation with you.

Interview Details – I had an onsite interview with 2 Sr. Recruiters at Seattle HQ's. I've also been contacted via email from a current Amazon HR Recruiter who never responded back after she reached me (extremely unprofessional).

Interview Details – Three phone interviews – one onsite, five hour interview “track” with six different people.

Pros: solid communications regarding flight arrangements, reasonable reimbursement of expenses incurred during my stay in Seattle, fairly friendly interviewers (some of them), they did reach out and close the loop, yet didn't provide any real feedback *Lame*, great dosage of what the culture is like from hanging out on the Amazon campus, seemed like decent pay for Seattle, the brand name is noteworthy, seemingly cool people, a great place to make the transition to corporate recruiter from an agency environment, a good gig for if you can hang for 5 years and cash in…

Cons: some of the folks I met in the interview track were downright arrogant,when I looked up the people that I interviewed with I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed with their backgrounds, endless behavioral questions…explain to me a time when you had to do this….why did you do that…what could you have done differently…by the end of the interview- I just wanted to leave…and was tired of answering the same questions over and over and over again…many of the interviewers hadn't seem my resume before they walked into the interview, asked me lame questions like write a Boolean string (really?), still not sure what type of person they were seeking…if you interview, good luck – be ready for 5 hours of behavioral interview questions…note to Amazon…maybe focus on the individuals accomplishments, check references before passing on someone, I feel my answers may have been misconstrued, but because all the interviewers were in such a rush to get back to their desks, I really didn't have time to clarify any of my answers, it seemed like they could care less about bringing new team members aboard and more focused on preaching how high the hiring bar is….PS: don’t call me on a Sunday to discuss business – if you can’t get work done M-Sat, maybe that should be a sign you guys need hire more administration peeps to assist with the process…not hating, just stating…glad I was given the opportunity to interview…best of luck to both Amazon and peeps who interview.

Interview Details – Connected with an HR recruiter via LinkedIn, who invited me for a call. Standard half-hour background screen with clear instructions on next steps. She was extremely professional. Coordinator (also great) scheduled a 2nd phone interview with a potential peer. He was energetic and informative. Contacted again in a couple days by coordinator to arrange fly-in travel for onsites on a Friday. Five interviews, two with peers, one with a program manager, two with managers. Decision on Monday. This was a challenging interview with credible interviewers who tested me. Each was engaging, respectful and great.

Negotiation Details – Do not expect to negotiate unless competing offers materialize this week.

Interview Details – Within a few days of the initial email contact, I had my first phone interview scheduled and completed. I then moved on to a second phone interview for a different role and then within two days had my onsite interview booked. It was a fairly short interview, I only met with three people however enjoyed my chat with each of them. I would have preferred a bit longer for the interviews so that I had enough time to ask all of the questions I wanted to ask. Within two days of the interview I had an offer, so overall I was pleased with the entire timeline.
The only complaint I have is that the agency did not give me proper instructions on where to go the day of the interview and at the end of the interview the last interviewer didn't know what to do.

Negotiation Details – I was able to negotiate to get closer to my ideal number and they were fairly quick about getting back to me on it.

Interview Details – Phone interview, followed by in-person interview with 4 individuals, took about 4 hours

Reason for Declining – Could work for a sane company at the same pay rate or above.

Interview Details – After 2 phone interviews fairly quickly, I was invited to fly to Seattle to interview onsite for the better part of a day. They paid airfare and lodging, very accommodating with recruiting coordinator. Onsite interview was 6 hours, through lunch, with 8 different Recruiter/HR folks, mostly one-on-one. Final person was the overal director.