I can’t speak lowly enough about this interview process. What probably started out as a good idea has been so distorted and twisted that it results in an interview experience that is worse than most root canal procedures. First, the process itself – a phone screening by recruiting, a phone interview with the hiring manager, a written essay about how you exhibited one of their “14 Leadership Principles”, and finally the all-day in-person interview loop. Everything was going well until that last part. Hoo boy... where to begin? Amazon workers have clearly been indoctrinated into some very unusual and horrendous interview techniques. First, they each are assigned one of the “14 Leadership Principles” and they don’t veer from that topic. Second, apparently they each need to have oodles of information about each candidate for some lengthy write-up after they’re done with you that they must defend to others, so they each explain how they’re going to be “quickly typing” the entire session but that they’re “really listening! Really!”. As if this absolves them of the fact that it’s extremely rude and ineffective when interviewing a potential worker. They each made very little eye contact, often cut off my responses, and seemed distracted by many things on their laptops. To make matters worse, I was interviewed by one person, a “bar raiser”, who has god-like powers over your interview process, doesn’t even work on the team, is easy to spot (they’re the rudest of them all), and asks no questions about your ability to actually do your job. In fact, that’s the overarching theme – since they all have to strictly stay within bounds of the “14 Leadership Principles” (which are suspect to say the least with not one of them being ‘collaboration’, and one is actually ‘Is always right’! I kid you not – look it up). So nobody – not one person – actually asked me anything about how I would do my job. I got so numb by the end of it that I was just drolly repeating my stories, hoping to just get out of there with some semblance of my sanity left. They all share their opinions of you in advance with each other instead of waiting until the end, and they even share these opinions real time while you’re sitting there (did I mention how rude and humiliating this entire process is??), so by the time the last person interviewed me, he actually asked to offer me advice on my resume! I told him, sure, why not, and his advice was absolutely idiotic. The same resume I used to get their attention also worked at a place that I’m so grateful to be working now with a normal interview process. If you ever get the chance to avoid interviewing at Amazon.com, take it!
