Would love advice on self-evaluating my Amazon interview
I just had an amazon behavioral interview. I'm a new grad SWE and interviewing for a non technical customer success role.
The interview was 3 behavioral questions. I tried to use STAR as much as possible but the interview was really like 15 ish minutes for the 3 behavioral questions. The interviewer did not follow up for 2/3 questions. At the end I asked 3 questions. total time was 20 minutes. Is it a red flag that my interview was only 20 minutes?
I think I was able to answer the behavioral questions and I mentioned the impact of my work/results at the end though I will admit I didn't go into super depth on the results part and focused more on the actions I think. This was my first real behavioral interview as well.
![Mid-Level Software Engineer [SDE 2] at Amazon company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Famazon_logo.jpg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Dff5f2302-08be-43bc-b7b1-d381ba508d99&w=48&q=75){kind=logo}
Discussion
(4 comments)- 0
6 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroI'm a bit confused: Did you just have 1 round with 1 interviewer and they asked you 3 behavioral questions?
Since this is a non-technical role, it's hard to say if this is bad or not. You are generally given an interview schedule before you go into a round. So the recruiter will tell you if the round is 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. And for onsites, you usually get an actual schedule of the rounds (i.e. length of each round, type of round, person giving the round).
So my question to you is: What was the interview schedule given to you?
If the recruiter told you it was supposed to be 30 or 45 minutes long and you spent just 20, that's definitely a bad sign. Interviews are only ended early if the candidate is doing quite poorly. If the recruiter told you that it was going to be around 20 minutes, you probably did okay (not necessary a pass, but probably not a complete fail).
That being said, an interview round that is just 20 minutes long is a bit strange to me, but again, I'm thinking of SWE interviews. SWE interviews are notoriously long as engineers are paid so much money, so companies need to be careful. I know that non-technical interviews tend to be much shorter and way less intense than SWE interviews.
- 06 months agoJunior SWE [OP]Taro Community
So I was scheduled for an initial phone interview with a senior leader. I am guessing this is the loop im in: https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/vendor-manager-interview-prep
The interview I just had was the first interview in the loop.
I was just told I have a phone interview with HM for 30 minutes. no other information was given. I am being interviewed for a very specific role+team they have an opening for.
Yes it was a 30 minute interview with 1 interviewer and they asked 3 behavioral questions and 2 functional questions (just basic yes/no questions). It was supposed to be with HM but was swapped last minute to someone else bc the HM couldnt make it
I was not given any interview schedule. They literally didnt give me any information on what to expect or even what loop it is. I still dont know what loop it is -- definitely not SWE loop. I used the guide in Taro to politely reach out to the recruiter and ask for a schedule. The recruiter said they'll get back to me and I followed up and still didnt hear anything back.
- 06 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Yeesh, looks like their process is pretty disorganized... Kudos to you for following the advice in the job searching course though! What's important is that you tried.
As the course also mentioned, a lot of interview loops are just sort of a mess, even at top companies like Amazon. Don't take things too personally, keep your head up, and move on.
Regardless, I hope you did well on that weird round and made it to the next stage! 😊
- 06 months agoEng @ Taro
I would wait to see what the results are before looking too much into it. It's possible the interviewer could be asking standard questions without paying too much attention about your answers.
