Amazon's interview guidance says that behavioral questions focus on how candidates have demonstrated its Leadership Principles in past work.
In the past few months, I’ve written several articles about how to prepare for Amazon interviews. In those posts, I described how Amazon’s interview process is structured, and what kind of questions you’ll get asked in each stage of the interview process.
In this post, I want to go more into depth about one particular type of question: behavioral interview questions.
Amazon uses a lot of these kinds of questions during their interviews. Behavioral interview questions are designed to assess your soft skills, by asking you to describe specific situations where you demonstrated those skills.
But why does Amazon use behavioral interviews? What do they look for when they ask you these kinds of questions?
And how should you answer them?
I’m going to cover all of this, and much more, in this post.
Why Does Amazon Use Behavioral Interviews?
In my article on Amazon’s hiring process, I wrote:
Amazon’s official interview-preparation material says that a significant portion of many interview loops focuses on how candidates demonstrated its Leadership Principles in past jobs. The balance of behavioral, functional, technical, or writing components varies by role, so candidates should use the preparation page for the specific job instead of assuming every interview follows an identical format.
In other words, Amazon uses behavioral questions to examine the “what,” “how,” and “why” of a candidate’s past decisions against relevant Leadership Principles. The format and competencies are structured, but the exact interview loop and question mix still depend on the role.
Here’s a list of some of the behavioral questions that Amazon publicly shares:
Tell me about a time when you were faced with a problem that had a number of possible solutions.
When did you take a risk, make a mistake, or fail? How did you respond, and how did you grow?
Describe a time you took the lead on a project.
How have you leveraged data to develop a strategy?
Give an example of when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What did you do? How did they react? What was the outcome?
Can you describe a difficult interaction you've had with a customer? How did you deal with it? Thinking back, what would you do differently?
Tell me about a time you had an idea that no one else believed in.
Tell me about a time when you identified errors in a project and what you did to rectify them.
These are just a few examples; there are many more.
As you can see, Amazon asks behavioral interview questions about decision-making, risk-taking, leadership, and data use. They also ask about handling peers and customers, innovation, and error identification (in SDE interviews).
The way to answer these questions is to explain what happened, what you did, and what the result was. If you follow this simple structure, you’ll probably be able to answer any question that comes up.
So, how should you prepare for Amazon’s behavioral interview questions? First, you need to know what the company is looking for. You should study the specific role you’re applying for, and learn about Amazon’s culture. Then, brush up on the relevant skills. Finally, practice your answers out loud, so that you can answer them confidently in an interview.
This isn’t something you can wing on the spot. Preparation is essential to answering Amazon’s behavioral interview questions with assurance, and differentiating yourself from other candidates.