Amazon Hiring/Interview process MEGATHREAD (income, income tax, living in)

[Mousetron]

My husband interviewed with Amazon in March and was offered the job a couple of days after his in-person interviews. My understanding is that it's normally a pretty speedy process. Good luck!

[LA_Mom]

I have an add on question on the topic. My husband was turned down after what he described as a great interview. His contact inside said the decision not to hire was not the hiring manager's, as he was inclined to hire (so someone else blocked it, maybe). Trying to understand the process for future reference. How soon can you re-apply?

Thanks for any insight. We were kind of counting on this.

[texastrigirl]

There is what they call a "bar raiser interview" in the process where often someone not directly on the team will interview to see if a interviewee RAISES the avg of the talent at Amazon. If you don't pass the bar raiser for whatever reason, you likely will not get hired. My husband saw a lot of great people get passed over in the process...

[ShrikeArghast]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

There is what they call a "bar raiser interview" in the process where often someone not directly on the team will interview to see if a interviewee RAISES the avg of the talent at Amazon. If you don't pass the bar raiser for whatever reason, you likely will not get hired. My husband saw a lot of great people get passed over in the process...

God, I am so glad I don't work. Well, not what most people consider work, at least.

[Verio]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

There is what they call a "bar raiser interview" in the process where often someone not directly on the team will interview to see if a interviewee RAISES the avg of the talent at Amazon. If you don't pass the bar raiser for whatever reason, you likely will not get hired. My husband saw a lot of great people get passed over in the process...

I went through another interview process at Amazon and ran into this myself. Everything else went great, except for the interview with this person. He was asking me questions that had no bearing on my job, the job description, or my past experience. I got a bit defensive and asked him how we'd even interact inside of Amazon, and his reply was "oh, we wouldn't at all..."

Honestly, a pretty terrible interview process if you ask me.

[shaylahc]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

There is what they call a "bar raiser interview" in the process where often someone not directly on the team will interview to see if a interviewee RAISES the avg of the talent at Amazon. If you don't pass the bar raiser for whatever reason, you likely will not get hired. My husband saw a lot of great people get passed over in the process...

This is interesting. My DH interviewed at Amazon last year onsite and did not get hired (despite a great interview). Same thing with Microsoft. He is getting ready to interview with Amazon onsite again and this is good to know.

Any advice on how to "up" your chances of being hired at Amazon?

[texastrigirl]

Originally Posted by shaylahc

This is interesting. My DH interviewed at Amazon last year onsite and did not get hired (despite a great interview). Same thing with Microsoft. He is getting ready to interview with Amazon onsite again and this is good to know.

Any advice on how to "up" your chances of being hired at Amazon?

Just asked my husband and his answer was "pray". Seriously...not a lot you can do. Know the core values of the company and exhibit them in your answers but bar raiser is someone who is not vested in the team and is the "check" to make sure a manager who is desperate to hire is not just putting someone in the position and hoping they will work. If you are in a technical role there are all kinds of blogs/websites etc where people talk about the types of technical questions they were asked. You will know it's a bar raiser when they start going outside the box a little more.

My husband overall had a great experience at AMZN and it has been fabulous on his resume. He landed a sweet job out of it so all the toiling was worth it. He feels for the almost 5 years he worked there he got about 8 years of experience out of it.

[shaylahc]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

Just asked my husband and his answer was "pray". Seriously...not a lot you can do. Know the core values of the company and exhibit them in your answers but bar raiser is someone who is not vested in the team and is the "check" to make sure a manager who is desperate to hire is not just putting someone in the position and hoping they will work. If you are in a technical role there are all kinds of blogs/websites etc where people talk about the types of technical questions they were asked. You will know it's a bar raiser when they start going outside the box a little more.

My husband overall had a great experience at AMZN and it has been fabulous on his resume. He landed a sweet job out of it so all the toiling was worth it. He feels for the almost 5 years he worked there he got about 8 years of experience out of it.

Thank you!!!

[RVD90277]

I know I'm a little late to this but I did recently go through the interview process.

They were pretty slow during the phone interview process but got faster as time went on. For me it was something like:

time to schedule 1st phone interview: 1 week
2nd interview: 3 weeks later (recruiter said that the 1st interviewer took a long time to give his feedback)
in-person: 1 week later
phone call from recruiter: 2 days later (saying that he didn't have an answer for me yet but didn't forget about me)
another phone call from recruiter: 3 business days after that (1 week after the in-person)

in my case, it ended with a ding. however, i was also asking for a lot so i don't know if that had anything to do with it. like some of you, the feedback was that i was a great fit for the team but not a good fit for the open position (i didn't really have that much direct experience in the same product).

at the in-person, recruiter asked me what i wanted in terms of benefits, pay, etc. and i really asked for a lot because i would have to move the family away from relatives, etc. although i don't know the regular compensation packages there, i believe i was asking for more than their standard package so it would have required a lot of additional approvals, etc.

interestingly enough, they did contact me again so we'll see how this round goes. only problem now is that i already accepted another job when this one fell through and i'm supposed to start in 3 weeks. i don't really want to start a new job and quit immediately so we'll see how this works out.

[texastrigirl]

Originally Posted by RVD90277

I know I'm a little late to this but I did recently go through the interview process.

They were pretty slow during the phone interview process but got faster as time went on. For me it was something like:

time to schedule 1st phone interview: 1 week
2nd interview: 3 weeks later (recruiter said that the 1st interviewer took a long time to give his feedback)
in-person: 1 week later
phone call from recruiter: 2 days later (saying that he didn't have an answer for me yet but didn't forget about me)
another phone call from recruiter: 3 business days after that (1 week after the in-person)

in my case, it ended with a ding. however, i was also asking for a lot so i don't know if that had anything to do with it. like some of you, the feedback was that i was a great fit for the team but not a good fit for the open position (i didn't really have that much direct experience in the same product).

at the in-person, recruiter asked me what i wanted in terms of benefits, pay, etc. and i really asked for a lot because i would have to move the family away from relatives, etc. although i don't know the regular compensation packages there, i believe i was asking for more than their standard package so it would have required a lot of additional approvals, etc.

interestingly enough, they did contact me again so we'll see how this round goes. only problem now is that i already accepted another job when this one fell through and i'm supposed to start in 3 weeks. i don't really want to start a new job and quit immediately so we'll see how this works out.

You might be surprised at what people ask for and what they get. We made a long list and after a bit of negotiating, got it all. If you're a good fit they will generally make it work.