Amazon.com Marketing Manager Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Amazon moves rapidly and aggressively in their recruiting process. I got an email from a recruiter the same day my referral was submitted. Two days later I had a phone interview with the hiring manager. Next day a phone interview with the skip-level manager. Next week an onsite loop. The loop consisted of five 45-minute interviews with team members and a "bar-raiser." Bar raisers are people brought in to see if a candidate's skill level exceeds that of the current team. Amazon is committed to elevating the team's performance with every hire. The loop was exhausting - rapid fire questioning with no bathroom breaks or time to take notes. I barely got any questions in of my own as interviewers were tagging in and out relay-style. I got a verbal offer by phone two days later.

Negotiation Details – Negotiation on level and base was virtually impossible. Amazon is much more flexible with signing bonuses. Standard is 2-year contingency, with about half paid on completion of the first year of employment.

Interview Details – Applied for a similar position, but was contacted by recruiter for consideration of a new position. Following phone qualification of interest and explanation of process, a phone interview was set-up with a senior manager. Senior manager promptly called on time, reexplained process, and conducted an approximately 45 minute phone interview. Interview questions related to the specifics of the position and do not really transfer to other positions.

Interview Details – you have to be the master of your own interview process otherwise it can take forever. they initially lost my application (was in the queue of someone in HR who had left the company). i reached out through my network until i found someone at amazon who was willing to drop HR a note and then the process went fast because i told them i had other offers on the table. they usually do 2 phone screens + a full day in-person interview.

Interview Details – Very in-depth questions about my marketing background. No original phone screening, met directly with hiring manager (instead of HR first). Knew quickly the job wasn't a good fit for me.

Interview Details – They are slow to move, had 2 phone interviews then asked to come in for a full day of meetings.
Then was called back for another round.
Some were great interviewers and some were not. No one seemed to talk to each other to ask different questions, found myself repeating myself multiple times in each interview as they asked the same questions.
 Many were very anti Microsoft and they stated repeatedly that they were not like it at all and then complained about their own personal experiences with Microsoft, I found it very unprofressional, as I clearly knew that I was interviewing at Amazon and not Microsoft!

Interview Details – Interviewed with a director for the marketing role, who did not find me a good fit for his requirement, but graciously put me in touch with another guy whose team was looking. Hiring manager was perpetually on leave, and I didnt hear back for more than a month after that.
Amazon restarted the process, when the manager was back. I had 3 phone interviews. One with the manager was great, other with a technical guy was good. There was one interview with a product manager, which was a complete waste of time. He was reading questions from a question bank (a friend told me about it) and asking very open ended, irrelevant questions (i.e. Describe a time when you lead a software development project - I have never ever led one, and I was interviewing for marketing role; Do you trust data? ; How do you manage, etc)
I was called for on-site interview. Scheduling, etc was great after that. Interview experience was good. I interviewed with people. They have a set of questions, and each interviewer focuses on one particular question the most. Its best to keep different stories for different interviewers, and present a well rounded picture.
From what I understood, Amazon hires MBAs for two type of roles: superstars and grunt workers. I know mine was a grunt role. Its a no-frills work environment (you have to pay for soda, no cafe in office, etc), and they work the employees like asses.
It may be a great company, but not essentially for employees, especially those who are joining now.

Reason for Declining – They offered a contract position to me, and not a full time. It still stumps me why they wd do that.... Seems they didnt like me, but needed what I could offer.

Interview Details – I applied online & received a call from a recruiter who scheduled a phone call with someone who would be a peer. The call happened in a little less then a week. The interviewer was pleasant, professional, and had a sense of humor. The next day I received an email from the recruiter and another call was setup with another (more senior) peer. The second interviewer was also professional and very to the point.

Both interviews lasted 1 hour and had an identical structure. The questions are to test your knowledge of the ecommerce business & marketing strategies, both asked why you want to work at Amazon & this team. Both asked case questions specific to the position.

The interview was a little intense (question after question after question), but it was very good practice. I can’t say anything negative about the team.

NOTE: The recruiter was not accommodating or helpful. I would ask questions in an email and receive a standardizes reply that would ignore all my questions.

Interview Details – I applied online for a marketing role with Amazon.com. A recruiter for the company contacted me and asked if I was still interested in the role about 3 weeks later. I said yes and he said he would get back to me. About 2 weeks later I got an email from an HR coordinator asking for times for a phone interview. We agreed on a time via email with someone in the department the following week. I had my first interview via phone with a peer. It went well and they were very nice, asked good questions and willing to be candid about the challenges and opportunities facing this role. Within 24 hours of the first interview, I got an email to set up a second phone interview with another peer. We met this morning and I think it went well. They were similar to the first interviewer and it gives me confidence this team is a good one. I hope to move to the next round, whatever that is.

Interview Details – I knew a recruiter there, who called and asked for me to submit my resume. Although I have solid marketing and product management experience, the bulk of my career has been in project management of complex web applications, so I expected that they would want to interview me for a Technical Program Manager position. Instead, the recruiter told me that TPMs are typically very technical and are still active coders, otherwise the developers won't respect you. He submitted me for a Marketing Manager position, which was fine because it sounded really interesting.

A recruiting coordinator soon called to set up a phone interview with the hiring manager. That call was a slam dunk. They wanted to hear about my work experience (describe your most challenging project), my knowledge of Amazon, what I would change about the site in general and their section of the site, etc. Hit it off with the hiring manager. The recruiting coordinator called the next day to schedule a flyback a few weeks later.

Had 6 one-on-one interviews. One brief on with the recruiter to hear about HR policies, then 4 with team members, the hiring manager, and the director. The last interview was with someone from another, related group. As I had read online from prior accounts, this person was called the "bar raiser," who determines if you are better than the average Amazon employee and if you will fit in.

Most of the interview questions were basic case studies (How would you determine the next country for an Amazon office? How would you go about creating a score card to judge marketing performance?), which were easy and fun. In fact, 3 of the 5 interviews went extremely well, great people, fun interviews, including the one with the hiring manager. The interview with the director wasn't bad but wasn't great. I think he was let down that I wasn't passionate about the product for that particular area. Could have done more research on that, but in the phone interview with the hiring manager, I mentioned that I wasn't an expert on their particular product, and was told the last thing they needed was another fan boy, so I focused my prep elsewhere. That was definitely a mistake; always good to be prepared with solid knowledge of the specific products and competitors within the line of business, even if someone tells you it is irrelevant.

The interview with the bar raiser was odd. This person wasn't as personable as the others, and had a delivery style that made her hard to read. Maybe it was just her delivery style, but she seemed to ask indirect questions, where it wasn't clear what she was after. For example, she asked how we typically assemble project teams at my current company. I assumed she wanted to hear about the nice process we put in place to do this, but in hindsight I think she wanted to hear my stories about scrambling to deliver with a scarcity of resources, doing whatever it took to deliver. I could have shared examples of this in spades (my background is software development, after all!). I somewhat understand the desire to have backdoor questions so as not to tip off the interviewee for the answer they are looking for, but asking more direct questions, "Describe a situation where you lacked resources. How did you handle it?" I would think that saying my division grew from 4 to 50 people in 2 years would provide some insight into my ability to handle a fast-paced environment, but because I had described a team building process that sounded perhaps too organized and buttoned up, the bar raiser may have inferred that I might not thrive in a fast paced, chaotic environment.

I went into the interviews not yet decided if I actually wanted to relocate and work at Amazon, but found myself much more interested in the job during the interview process. In the end, they passed on me but referred me for a position in another group.