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    Amazon Area Manager Interview Questions

    Updated Jul 10, 2017
    382 Interview Reviews

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    Helpful (904)  

    Area Manager Interview

    Anonymous Employee
    Accepted Offer
    Positive Experience
    Difficult Interview

    Application

    I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in January 2014.

    Interview

    A compilation of all the behavioral questions on this website.

    1. Tell me about yourself
    2. Strengths
    3. Weaknesses
    4. Why Amazon?
    5. How can you translate your skills towards Amazon?
    6. What experiences do you have that separate you from the rest?

    Groups/ Leadership
    1. Tell me about a time when you were leading a group, were assigned a goal, and did not reach it
    2. Tell me about a time when you had a group conflict and how did you overcome this conflict?
    3. How did your actions in a leadership role increase productivity?
    4. Tell me about a time when you dealt with an employee with poor performance
    5. What is your take on leadership?
    6. Tell me about a time when you had a group conflict and how you overcame this conflict?
    7. What kind of roles have you done that were leadership roles?

    Behavioral Leadership & Safety & Customer Service
    1. Tell me about a time when you dealt with ambiguity?
    2. How important is safety to you? Rank Customer Service, Quality, Safety
    3. Do you go against a supervisor who made a decision that goes against corporate policy and is a potential safety issue for one of your employees
    4. How would you handle an employee who showed up to work drunk? (not very relevant)
    5. Name a time you had to convince someone to do something they did not want to do
    6. Tell me about a situation where you directly impacted customer satisfaction
    7. What type of leader are you? Explain your leadership style. What does it mean to be a leader?
    8. How do you motivate people?
    9. What did you admire most about one of your previous supervisors

    Negativity
    1. Tell me about a time you failed and how you handled it?
    2. Tell me about an ethical conflict with your boss and how you’ve handled it
    3. How do you deal with stress?
    4. Have you ever proposed an idea to a superior and were ignored despite knowing that it would produce a positive result? How did you handle it?
    5. Explain a time when you had to deal with poor job performance
    6. Name a time you screwed up
    7. What frustrates you

    Continuous Improvement/ Problem Fixing
    1. Tell me about a time when you leaned out a process
    2. Tell me about a time you had a difficult job to solve
    3. Walk me through a different scenario of a process you invented or improved
    4. Tell me about a time you attempted to refine a process and failed
    5. Give an example of a time when you found a simple solution to a seemingly difficult problem
    6. How has your past experiences included lean management, six sigma, kaizen

    Interview Questions

    • Tell me about yourself. Don't say something typical   13 Answers

    Other Interview Reviews for Amazon

    1.  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon.

      Interview

      Applied online through the career website they transported me out to interview site. I had three different interviews they were informative and honest. They provided a tour of the facility and contacted me within 72 hours with a decision.

      Interview Questions

      • Tell me about a time when you had an employee that was not performing tasks to standard?   Answer Question

    2. Helpful (2)  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Ventura, CA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Ventura, CA) in June 2017.

      Interview

      I applied online and waited several months for an reply. Overall pleasant experience. Flew me out to interview and was treated nicely. The interviewers were very nice and helped create a positive experience. They focus a lot on the STAR method and like to hear numbers. Overall interview time was a little less than 2 hours.

      Interview Questions

      3. Join the Amazon team
      See Our Latest Jobs

    3.  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Seattle, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Easy Interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in June 2017.

      Interview

      Interview process went well. Had to interview on Chime with two different interviewers. Interview starts off with a panel of other candidates and then you move on to your interview portion by yourself. I also did a interview before where I had to record my answers to questions that are preposted. I prefer the face-to-face interview over anything else.

      Interview Questions

    4.  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Las Vegas, NV
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Las Vegas, NV) in June 2017.

      Interview

      I applied in April of 2016 and was invited to do an online assessment. The assessment took about 2 hours. It tested you on how you would handle certain situations and how well you analyze data(I would recommend looking at their leadership principles prior, otherwise its just knowing how to properly read data). Right after I finished, I got an email 30 minutes later stating that I did not get the position. Fast forward to March 2017, I received an email with a survey on it. They asked me if I was still interested in a position with Amazon. They said if you are, please fill-out the survey to let us know what positions you are still interested in. I filled that out and a month later I received another email stating that I was invited to interview. They were extremely good at filling you in on everything and keeping in touch, even though its been a lengthy process.

      Once I knew I had an interview, they continued sending email updates and would send us any other prescreening things necessary prior to interview. It was very helpful and made me respect their HR team.

      The interview I had was on Amazon Chime. I really enjoyed the experience and everyone was very supportive. The first interviewer had a very nice vibe and made me feel very comfortable. The second one was also very nice, but he definitely was a tad bit more intimidating. The questions were behavioral, so its extremely important to prepare.

      Interview Questions

      • Tell me about yourself and the normal ice breaker questions.   Answer Question
      • Behavioral Questions. Tell me about a time... etc. Its really important to have a time of failure, hard employee, challenging situation, etc. Use STAR method.   Answer Question

    5.  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in San Francisco, CA
      Declined Offer
      Negative Experience
      Easy Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3+ months. I interviewed at Amazon (San Francisco, CA) in June 2017.

      Interview

      I was flown to California for my 3rd interview with Amazon. It was the most unprofessional, unstructured experience I have ever encountered. All of the interviewers were under 25. They were eating hamburgers and using profanity during the interview . The interview started 35 minutes late. I am totally confused and shocked that this is the leadership of Amazon. I immediately knew I wasn't a fit for that culture..

      Interview Questions

    6.  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Pensacola, FL
      No Offer
      Negative Experience
      Easy Interview

      Application

      I applied in-person. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Pensacola, FL) in June 2017.

      Interview

      Group interview with multiple candidates in San Francisco, which is not where I applied. Interviewed with 3 people. Questions were all behavioral based, "tell me about a time when...". What was surprising was the process was very unorganized and not very professional. Amazon stated they wanted us to wear business casual, which I did, and I looked like I owned the place compared to the other candidates, who were wearing t-shirts, shorts, and generally looked like bums. The interviews went very well and my answers were very good. I was somehow not offered the position, despite being clearly more professional than the other candidates; however I would have turned down the job anyway. The position is basically supervising a bunch of low paid hourly worker who, by my interviewers own admission, regularly miss work. No thanks. A current co-worker of mine did the same process for the same position, but at a different location and had the exact same option as I do. Other reviews were pretty accurate in terms of the entire process. I would not recommend the role for someone unless it was their first job out of college, anyone with even a couple of years of experience and education is way over qualified, despite what Amazon may think.

      Interview Questions

    7. Helpful (3)  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Romeoville, IL
      No Offer
      Positive Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3+ months. I interviewed at Amazon (Romeoville, IL) in May 2017.

      Interview

      A very organized and meticulous interview process from start to finish.

      After applying online, I was contacted by an Amazon Talent Acquisition Rep who conducted a standard phone screening interview. After passing the screening interview, I was sent an email with a link to the Amazon web-based application for an Area Manager. This process required me to answer several personality based questions. In general, Amazon is trying to find out if you have leadership skills, can make independent decisions, or if you have the tendency to defer to management or others. In my opinion, none of the answers reflected what you will do in the real world. They key is to choose the answer that best reflects you are a leader, who can make independent decisions.

      The next section of the application process is a virtual (video) job test. You are given a scenario where you are a manager, with four direct reports, each who supervise a team of associates (hourly employees). You are also given a spreadsheet with multiple tabs. The tabs have professional information about your direct reports, performance/efficiency data about each of the teams, and performance/efficiency data showing how your teams compare to other teams in the same facility. You have to answer several questions based on the data and information provided in the spreadsheet. This "test" is not timed, but the instructions say you should work as quickly as possible. Pay attention to the example questions given at the beginning of this section. There are efficiency formulas and information in the footnotes on several tabs that you must use to answer a few of the questions.

      If you complete the application "test" successfully, you will be notified by Amazon within a week and given an interview prep packet. I waiting six weeks for my onsite interview. Amazon is very efficient, so they wait until a certain number of candidates are ready, and interview all of them on the same day. In my situation, they interviewed candidates for the Area Manager positions in the morning and candidates for the Operations Manager positions in the afternoon.

      On the interview day, you are told to arrive at least 20 mins early. You start with a 45 min tour of the facility and then begin the interviews. The Area Manager will have three interviews. There is no logistics math flow test question for the Area Manager interview as mentioned in the interview prep packet. The math flow question is for candidates interviewing for the Operations Manager position. As mentioned in other write ups, Amazon asks behavioral type questions in their interviews. Each interviewer asked the "tell me about yourself" question, and then asked 4-5 questions based on Amazon's 14 leadership principles that are listed in the interview prep packet. Your answers should be given in the STAR format. Questions and answers are from the point of view of a team leader and not an individual contributor , ex- "Tell me about the time when your team.....".

      Overall, the interviewers were very nice and it was a casual environment. The interviewers took notes on their lap tops during the interview, so it was a bit different that other interviews I have done. In the end, Amazon did not make me an offer and I was not surprised.

      General Comments
      The Area Manager position is a first line supervisor position. It is a good position for someone switching from a comparable position with another company or a first/second tour officer or NCO separating from the military. If you are a mid/senior career professional, who is making a career change, this is not a position for you! You are over qualified and Amazon will probably not make you an offer! You should focus on the Operations Manger or Sr Operations Manager positions, if you have the experience.

      Throughout the entire interview process, Amazon asked about experience supervising large teams of people (~100 to 300). This seemed to be a very important metric to them. It did not seem to matter what type of smaller teams you lead/managed in the past or the scope of your responsibility, they always focused team size.

      Interview Questions

      • Tell me about the time when your team had to overcome a problem   2 Answers

    8. Helpful (2)  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No Offer
      Neutral Experience

      Application

      The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Amazon.

      Interview

      Internal hire. First there is a pre-loop where you would have to answer basic math questions with follow ups and case studies. Next interviews are pods where a total of 3 interviews will be done. Each one takes about 2 hours.

      Interview Questions

    9. Helpful (12)  

      Area Manager Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Seattle, WA
      No Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA).

      Interview

      After my application was accepted, I was asked to participate in a virtual interview through HireVue which consisted of only five questions. Essentially, I video recorded my answers on my laptop. Each question has a time limit of about 3 minutes, but you can take as much time as you need to prepare because you are allowed unlimited recordings before submitting your final answers.

      Interview Questions

      • What are you doing in your current position to develop your employees?   1 Answer
      • Tell us about a time that you solved a complex problem with a simple solution.   1 Answer
      • Tell us about a time you had a disagreement with your boss. How did you handle it?   Answer Question
      • Tell us about a time when you failed. What did you learn from it?   1 Answer
      • Tell us about a time when you had to confront someone for poor performance.   1 Answer
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