I was submitted to the position as an employee referral, was contacted for a phone screen by a Recruiter less than 24 hours later, then Recruiting set up a phone interview with a Compliance team member for the following week. In the meantime, I was given a questionnaire in which I had to describe my qualifications in more detail, as well as a detailed writing assignment. The writing assignments took a total of about 3-4 hours, since I had been informed that Amazon is mostly interested in the quality and accuracy, and I wanted to ensure everything I returned was perfect. I was also sent links to the Amazon Leadership Principles and was told to study the principles to prepare for the phone interview. All in all, I probably spent about 24 hours total preparing for the phone interview, researching Amazon interview tactics, and discussing the process with Amazon employees to make sure I was extra prepared.
The phone interview ended up taking about 45 minutes. It didn't feel like an interview, but more an interrogation - the interviewer essentially introduced himself, then right off the bat, started listing off questions to "test" me on previous experiences in the workplace. He showed little to no personality, and I could tell it was because he was typing/taking notes while I was speaking, which made me more and more nervous as the interview went on. I tried to inject a little personality into the interview, and my enthusiasm was not reciprocated. The questions were fairly basic "tell me about a time when..." questions. I did have stories prepared for the responses. Upon reflection, I feel that my responses could have been more cohesive (who doesn't feel this way after an interview?), but I do think that I performed well. Overall, I left feeling fairly confident - I had more than they were asking for in terms of qualifications, was an employee referral, and did well in the interview.
They say on the website that you are supposed to receive a response after 2 business days. I received my response almost a week later, and that was only after I pushed my recruiter. All I got in response was "unfortunately it's a no at this time", and when I asked for feedback, the recruiter never responded. So rude.
I told my contact at Amazon, and they were shocked I didn't move forward to the in-person "loop" interviews. I hired an interview/career coach, went over my responses with her, and she thought I did very well. It wasn't until I researched the other Compliance team members on LinkedIn that I realized all the people I could find with my desired title all had J.D.'s. I don't know if this is ultimately the reason I didn't move forward, or if someone was hired internally. I may never know why I didn't move forward. Regardless, this is not a way to treat your applicants.
Fast forward to January 2019, and I was contacted by a staffing agency for essentially the same position at Amazon, but it's a contract role, and paying $20/hour. Ha! No, thank you.
The hiring process at Amazon seems to be broken. I've seen recruiting coordinators there who have zero experience prior to working at Amazon except for bar tending. I've seen others whose only experience is working as a missionary. And yet, for someone like me, who is qualified and performs well in the interview, I don't even get a second glance. Why put me through that whole process?
I didn't make it to the in-person "loop" interviews, but in a way, I'm glad I didn't. I would have prepared for another 24 hours, and who knows if I would have made it past their infamous "bar raiser". My advice to anyone applying here would be: if Amazon is your dream company, be prepared to spend hours and hours preparing stories for the interviews, completing their writing assignments, and researching interview tactics online, and know that you may not even receive a second glance after all is said and done.