Pre-interview questions for Amazon
March 21, 2021 9:58 AM Subscribe
I was contacted by an Amazon recruiter recently to apply for a Production Planning Analyst position in Nashville, TN. Ten days after submitting my application, I received an email asking for some additional information. Some of the questions are flummoxing me.
Assume that I would like to interview for this job if at all possible. So, frankly, I want to answer in a way that does not result in my application being knocked out of contention, even if that requires bending the truth a bit.
One of the questions is what salary range I am looking for. If hired I want as much as possible, obviously, but I don't want to quote a figure so high that they won't interview me. I am not familiar with the Nashville area, and online research so far has yielded a HUGE range in salary for that position title--70k difference between the lowest and highest! My last title was Programmer Analyst and I was significantly underpaid for Reasons, so I don't want to use that as a benchmark. What can I get away with answering?
They are also asking me to rate my skills in various areas on a scale from 1-10. I hate trying to capture anything meaningful about my abilities with a single digit and I desperately want to answer in essay format about what experience I have in each area. Can I do that? If not, how should I approach it? What are they looking for here? Do they just want someone to answer all 10's or close to it, or are they looking for honesty/a good fit for the position, which is not senior?
My real answer is that I figure out what I need to do for a given job, and that in a long-term FT position, which this is supposed to be, it doesn't really matter all that much if I have previously done XYZ, cuz I will figure it out. I have a track record of doing so, in fact at my last job I learned a new programming language, new database, and an entirely new industry. I am worried that answering like this will disqualify me and that I should exaggerate my experience and then try to cram-study before the interview if I am offered one. I am female and have noticed that men tend to overinflate their abilities, and I don't want to out myself as realistic and honest if ego and bluster is what will be rewarded here.
Finally, I am being asked when I could start if offered the position. This job is located 10+ hours away by car from where I now live, so it would be impractical or even impossible to prep and sell my house on the weekends. This prep would take real time, finding a house there would take time, moving the whole household would take time, but I am, again, afraid of talking myself out of an opportunity if I am honest about this. What can I get away with answering here? Can I be vague? What amount of time would be too much?
Thanks in advance for any feedback. I am especially but not exclusively interested in tidbits from anyone who has worked for Amazon or has some inside knowledge of some sort.
Assume that I would like to interview for this job if at all possible. So, frankly, I want to answer in a way that does not result in my application being knocked out of contention, even if that requires bending the truth a bit.
One of the questions is what salary range I am looking for. If hired I want as much as possible, obviously, but I don't want to quote a figure so high that they won't interview me. I am not familiar with the Nashville area, and online research so far has yielded a HUGE range in salary for that position title--70k difference between the lowest and highest! My last title was Programmer Analyst and I was significantly underpaid for Reasons, so I don't want to use that as a benchmark. What can I get away with answering?
They are also asking me to rate my skills in various areas on a scale from 1-10. I hate trying to capture anything meaningful about my abilities with a single digit and I desperately want to answer in essay format about what experience I have in each area. Can I do that? If not, how should I approach it? What are they looking for here? Do they just want someone to answer all 10's or close to it, or are they looking for honesty/a good fit for the position, which is not senior?
My real answer is that I figure out what I need to do for a given job, and that in a long-term FT position, which this is supposed to be, it doesn't really matter all that much if I have previously done XYZ, cuz I will figure it out. I have a track record of doing so, in fact at my last job I learned a new programming language, new database, and an entirely new industry. I am worried that answering like this will disqualify me and that I should exaggerate my experience and then try to cram-study before the interview if I am offered one. I am female and have noticed that men tend to overinflate their abilities, and I don't want to out myself as realistic and honest if ego and bluster is what will be rewarded here.
Finally, I am being asked when I could start if offered the position. This job is located 10+ hours away by car from where I now live, so it would be impractical or even impossible to prep and sell my house on the weekends. This prep would take real time, finding a house there would take time, moving the whole household would take time, but I am, again, afraid of talking myself out of an opportunity if I am honest about this. What can I get away with answering here? Can I be vague? What amount of time would be too much?
Thanks in advance for any feedback. I am especially but not exclusively interested in tidbits from anyone who has worked for Amazon or has some inside knowledge of some sort.
Amazon hires thousands of people a year and yet they still manage to have a horribly inefficient process. The devil on my shoulder says it won't matter how you answer, because they're mostly looking for other things, but you should still try to do an accurate self-assessment in case the one thing they follow up on is the thing you fibbed on. In the early screening they just want to get an idea of whether they want to spend the effort of the next steps on you. If they decide to move forward they'll send you an info dump of PDFs with leadership principles and stuff about the sorts of teams you might end up working on, and then the recruiter will basically coach you for success in the next steps. "Be prepared to tell a story where ____, and make sure you tie it in to Amazon's leadership principles."
As for salary, take whatever number you think you want and add 20%, then round up to the next $5K. They have a reputation for "down-ranking" in the hiring process, and they also make it really hard to get promoted, so aim high. Be honest about relocation. When they recruited me four years ago they offered paid relocation as part of the package, but I hit every cost of living calculator and looked at real estate listings (and real estate news, for that matter) before I gave them a number.
In my case, after the last part of the process they didn't make an offer and they didn't provide any feedback at all, just a vague sort of "you can apply again, but you might want to wait a year." They wasted a lot of employee hours on not hiring me, and I get the impression my experience is common. I'm talking to them again this week, four years later. I'm pretty cynical about my chances, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to talk to them.
posted by fedward at 11:06 AM on March 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
As for salary, take whatever number you think you want and add 20%, then round up to the next $5K. They have a reputation for "down-ranking" in the hiring process, and they also make it really hard to get promoted, so aim high. Be honest about relocation. When they recruited me four years ago they offered paid relocation as part of the package, but I hit every cost of living calculator and looked at real estate listings (and real estate news, for that matter) before I gave them a number.
In my case, after the last part of the process they didn't make an offer and they didn't provide any feedback at all, just a vague sort of "you can apply again, but you might want to wait a year." They wasted a lot of employee hours on not hiring me, and I get the impression my experience is common. I'm talking to them again this week, four years later. I'm pretty cynical about my chances, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to talk to them.
posted by fedward at 11:06 AM on March 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
Most of the time when you're being asked to rate skills like that, it's just to get a profile of your skillset. I would compare that list to the original job posting and make sure you are hitting medium-high on the things they explicitly listed. Be honest with a 0 or 1 if you really don't have any exposure to something and it would be obvious from your resume, be careful about going above a 7 unless you can answer like an expert, be generous with the rest of your ratings given that you know how to look things up when you need to.
For the most part, they're likely to just be looking to see if further conversation is warranted. If you're a 0 on all database and programming languages and Excel, it's not really worth calling you back for an analyst job, you know? But your lack of a forklift operator license, FORTRAN, or Photoshop is probably not a blocker.
Nobody can read the minds of the people doing the hiring, so it's impossible to say what kind of salary or date answers will or won't be okay. On the date, the only date that truly matters is the one you give them at the offer stage, and even an answer you gave in the early interview stage could be meaningless - you could give a date at any point that's 6 weeks out and then spend another 8 weeks in the interview process, so I don't think anybody expects that to be set in stone until the deal is more or less real. If you put down six months from now it will strike someone as weird if they notice, and you want to avoid seeming weird probably. When I am job hunting, my availability is pretty much always going to be 3 weeks from the offer date, so I will put a date 3 weeks out from application date the first time they ask, and then when we actually talk about it I will explain I need 3 weeks from the point I give notice at my job, whatever date that ends up being after negotiation.
But on salary, they absolutely will try to change their answer to the lowest number you give, which is why this is such a game of chicken. I think one workable strategy is to decide the lowest amount you'd accept and then bump that by at least $20K, and more if a cost of living calculator suggests that's not going to be comfortable when the actual paystub is in your hand. They'll have that hub in Nashville for airport proximity but also because land and office space and housing and the salary market are cheaper than the coasts, so you may need to look at the local and Gulf state markets to get a really good guess at what they're likely to pay.
But.
It's always bad for you to treat a job application like a lifeline, even though it may be. Going at this with a little confidence and bravado might lose you the job, but not doing so may get you the shittiest version of this job. If you get the job because you kind of showed up like a sucker or too needy to negotiate, it is VERY hard to shake that stink off - even though the whole thing is extra fraught for women, where too high can also be a liability. If your management knows you're making $20K less than your peers because you didn't ask for more, it will affect their perception of your value. So there are consequences to lowballing too.
I'd rather have someone tell me the number I'm asking for is out of reach for the position and then we all pretend that I meant total compensation with benefits and not pre-tax take-home. I'm also okay with - in the actual discussions, not worrying too much about what was written on the application so I go high there - getting to that point and saying "my research tells me this kind of position ranges from $42 to $112, and I'm looking for a responsibility set that's going to fall around the $X mark if that's an entry-level to senior range." This volleys a number back to them, but also one you've now declared pinned to responsibility and workload, so you can come back after further discussion and say "for the job you describe I'd be looking for $Y."
Again, just don't put anything wild in that box - don't ask for 30K or 200K. For the range above that I found on a quick google, if you can put in a range I'd say if you consider your careerpoint/skillset to be in between Jr and Sr you could do $70-90 or $80-100 on the confident side and to break the six-figure theoretical barrier.
You're likely going to get or not get this job for reasons that have nothing to do with this application and may have little to do with your further interviews with them if they happen. Amazon is a behemoth employer, "analyst" is one of the most vaporous job descriptions around (I'm one too, so I'm saying that from experience), the perfect candidate exists in somebody's head but could very well be a former rodeo clown with 23 years of SQL experience and a forklift license who once worked with a terrible BI solution that the hiring manager also once used, and you will never have had a shot at the position.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:20 AM on March 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
For the most part, they're likely to just be looking to see if further conversation is warranted. If you're a 0 on all database and programming languages and Excel, it's not really worth calling you back for an analyst job, you know? But your lack of a forklift operator license, FORTRAN, or Photoshop is probably not a blocker.
Nobody can read the minds of the people doing the hiring, so it's impossible to say what kind of salary or date answers will or won't be okay. On the date, the only date that truly matters is the one you give them at the offer stage, and even an answer you gave in the early interview stage could be meaningless - you could give a date at any point that's 6 weeks out and then spend another 8 weeks in the interview process, so I don't think anybody expects that to be set in stone until the deal is more or less real. If you put down six months from now it will strike someone as weird if they notice, and you want to avoid seeming weird probably. When I am job hunting, my availability is pretty much always going to be 3 weeks from the offer date, so I will put a date 3 weeks out from application date the first time they ask, and then when we actually talk about it I will explain I need 3 weeks from the point I give notice at my job, whatever date that ends up being after negotiation.
But on salary, they absolutely will try to change their answer to the lowest number you give, which is why this is such a game of chicken. I think one workable strategy is to decide the lowest amount you'd accept and then bump that by at least $20K, and more if a cost of living calculator suggests that's not going to be comfortable when the actual paystub is in your hand. They'll have that hub in Nashville for airport proximity but also because land and office space and housing and the salary market are cheaper than the coasts, so you may need to look at the local and Gulf state markets to get a really good guess at what they're likely to pay.
But.
It's always bad for you to treat a job application like a lifeline, even though it may be. Going at this with a little confidence and bravado might lose you the job, but not doing so may get you the shittiest version of this job. If you get the job because you kind of showed up like a sucker or too needy to negotiate, it is VERY hard to shake that stink off - even though the whole thing is extra fraught for women, where too high can also be a liability. If your management knows you're making $20K less than your peers because you didn't ask for more, it will affect their perception of your value. So there are consequences to lowballing too.
I'd rather have someone tell me the number I'm asking for is out of reach for the position and then we all pretend that I meant total compensation with benefits and not pre-tax take-home. I'm also okay with - in the actual discussions, not worrying too much about what was written on the application so I go high there - getting to that point and saying "my research tells me this kind of position ranges from $42 to $112, and I'm looking for a responsibility set that's going to fall around the $X mark if that's an entry-level to senior range." This volleys a number back to them, but also one you've now declared pinned to responsibility and workload, so you can come back after further discussion and say "for the job you describe I'd be looking for $Y."
Again, just don't put anything wild in that box - don't ask for 30K or 200K. For the range above that I found on a quick google, if you can put in a range I'd say if you consider your careerpoint/skillset to be in between Jr and Sr you could do $70-90 or $80-100 on the confident side and to break the six-figure theoretical barrier.
You're likely going to get or not get this job for reasons that have nothing to do with this application and may have little to do with your further interviews with them if they happen. Amazon is a behemoth employer, "analyst" is one of the most vaporous job descriptions around (I'm one too, so I'm saying that from experience), the perfect candidate exists in somebody's head but could very well be a former rodeo clown with 23 years of SQL experience and a forklift license who once worked with a terrible BI solution that the hiring manager also once used, and you will never have had a shot at the position.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:20 AM on March 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
I’ve interviewed for an relocation-necessary position at Amazon before. I got an offer, but ended up deciding not to move.
For the salary question, if you can, appeal to the differences in markets. For me, I was interviewing for an SF position from Ohio, so even what seemed like an unreasonable range was probably below market value in SF. I told my recruiter that. “I know so little about the market that anything I say would probably be a mistake.” Their goal is to get you to give a number first, so after you’ve made your caveat, you can throw anything out, then follow it up with “but that might not make sense in the Nashville market, so I’m relying on you to help me be more accurate”.
I don’t remember if they ask you the 1-10 stuff before they schedule the interviews or not. If you’ve got an interview scheduled, just give an answer and don’t worry too much. If you don’t, answer as best you can but make it clear to your recruiter that there were some where you don’t think the question accurately captured your abilities. It won’t matter though. Amazon is super-dedicated to their process and expects that those who don’t fit the process won’t fit the company. If you want the job, it’s a hoop you have to jump through.
One thing that Amazon does have going for them is that they seem pretty understanding about relocation. They’re recruiting you, so they know you’re not local. They have relocation services that you could probably take advantage of, no I’ve also heard of them allowing temporary remote work until relocation is possible (probably even more likely now).
One thing to keep in mind during your interactions with your recruiter: Amazon has these fourteen “leadership principles” or something like that, and they’re pretty culturally devoted to them. If you can couch your objections in the language of those 14 principles , they’ll be more likely to listen and be impressed with you.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:26 PM on March 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
For the salary question, if you can, appeal to the differences in markets. For me, I was interviewing for an SF position from Ohio, so even what seemed like an unreasonable range was probably below market value in SF. I told my recruiter that. “I know so little about the market that anything I say would probably be a mistake.” Their goal is to get you to give a number first, so after you’ve made your caveat, you can throw anything out, then follow it up with “but that might not make sense in the Nashville market, so I’m relying on you to help me be more accurate”.
I don’t remember if they ask you the 1-10 stuff before they schedule the interviews or not. If you’ve got an interview scheduled, just give an answer and don’t worry too much. If you don’t, answer as best you can but make it clear to your recruiter that there were some where you don’t think the question accurately captured your abilities. It won’t matter though. Amazon is super-dedicated to their process and expects that those who don’t fit the process won’t fit the company. If you want the job, it’s a hoop you have to jump through.
One thing that Amazon does have going for them is that they seem pretty understanding about relocation. They’re recruiting you, so they know you’re not local. They have relocation services that you could probably take advantage of, no I’ve also heard of them allowing temporary remote work until relocation is possible (probably even more likely now).
One thing to keep in mind during your interactions with your recruiter: Amazon has these fourteen “leadership principles” or something like that, and they’re pretty culturally devoted to them. If you can couch your objections in the language of those 14 principles , they’ll be more likely to listen and be impressed with you.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:26 PM on March 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
A friend went through this with Amazon, gave a salary number that was apparently too high (after he had no clue what to ask and consulted with me and others who had an idea of the going rate for his position)- he got an email back that was essentially "clearly our expectations aren't in line so maybe you want to back out" and then had to do some back and forth to get to a number and do the interview. (He did not get the position.)
posted by damayanti at 1:49 PM on March 21, 2021
posted by damayanti at 1:49 PM on March 21, 2021
I’m in a completely different field and this is anecdata but I will never give a salary number or range until the absolute last possible minute. For my first industry job they asked three separate times, to which I always responded ‘negotiable’, before finally naming a number as they were about to make me the offer. Likewise for being asked for my salary history — they don’t need to know it and in my experience they will either continue to pressure if they really want it (in which case you can just choose to answer after all) or they will kick it down the road until they are much more invested in you as a candidate. The ideal situation is to get them to give YOU a number instead. Sometimes they will just keep asking until you cave, but at that point you’ve hopefully had more time and one or two interviews to get a better idea of what’s reasonable.
Just a random thought. If I were asked this, I would probably generously ballpark the 1-10 section, answer honestly that you would need to relocate (but maybe, if it works for you, give a realistic start date to begin remotely?) and answer the salary inquiry with ‘negotiable’, or if you feel like you need to say more, ‘negotiable depending on the responsibilities of the position’.
posted by caitcadieux at 3:36 PM on March 21, 2021
Just a random thought. If I were asked this, I would probably generously ballpark the 1-10 section, answer honestly that you would need to relocate (but maybe, if it works for you, give a realistic start date to begin remotely?) and answer the salary inquiry with ‘negotiable’, or if you feel like you need to say more, ‘negotiable depending on the responsibilities of the position’.
posted by caitcadieux at 3:36 PM on March 21, 2021
Patrick McKenzie on salary negotiation.
Interviewing is a numbers game. You will likely get better results (in terms of being able to negotiate an attractive market-rate salary or land a job with better conditions) if you have a number of different job opportunities in the pipeline. Rather than putting 25 hours into a single job application, it is probably better to put 1 hour per application into 25 job applications. Even better if you can discover and pursue some of those opportunities through your network of people who can vouch for your skills, rather than going in the front door of a company's hiring process and having to put numbers into HR's boxes.
re: start time & salary, ideally you don't discuss those details until after you & the company decide you are a good mutual fit and want to come to a deal. You could then investigate to see if the company was willing to pay a higher salary or cover relocation costs in return for an earlier start date (moving is stressful and takes time, but money can solve a number of problems).
posted by are-coral-made at 3:52 PM on March 21, 2021
Interviewing is a numbers game. You will likely get better results (in terms of being able to negotiate an attractive market-rate salary or land a job with better conditions) if you have a number of different job opportunities in the pipeline. Rather than putting 25 hours into a single job application, it is probably better to put 1 hour per application into 25 job applications. Even better if you can discover and pursue some of those opportunities through your network of people who can vouch for your skills, rather than going in the front door of a company's hiring process and having to put numbers into HR's boxes.
re: start time & salary, ideally you don't discuss those details until after you & the company decide you are a good mutual fit and want to come to a deal. You could then investigate to see if the company was willing to pay a higher salary or cover relocation costs in return for an earlier start date (moving is stressful and takes time, but money can solve a number of problems).
posted by are-coral-made at 3:52 PM on March 21, 2021
One of the questions is what salary range I am looking forAsk them to share the salary range for the position and level in that location, as well as how total compensation is structured (base salary + stock grant + any bonuses, etc). Glassdoor salary reports can be hit or miss. For engineering roles Amazon is known to pay relatively lower base salary and relatively higher stock grants, not sure if that is true for other areas of work.
Finally, I am being asked when I could start if offered the position.You should have some flex here especially since you are relocating. People that have gone through the process tell me that Amazon's relocation assistance is both smooth and very comprehensive, so understanding specifics there will help you figure out your timeline. Speaking very broadly, anything in the few weeks to couple of months range is probably fine—all things being equal starting sooner is better, but as a hiring manager I'll prioritize getting the candidate I really want and work around their start date within reason.
posted by 4rtemis at 3:55 PM on March 21, 2021
I'm going to take the counterpoint here, and don't get me wrong I love Patio11 but if a recruiter is reaching out to you, a person with a job that is most likely hundreds or thousands of miles away from Nashville Tennessee, and it's a company known for putting candidates through a huge ringer...I'm going to state my price up front and they can decide to proceed or not.
I'm reallllllly tired of working with recruiters and whatnot that say they're "negotiable", only to finish a 2-3 day interview cycle (taking personal time all the while, natch) and find out their best offer is -20% what I'm making now. Or, even better, they use the bullshit phrase "we're willing to go higher for the right candidate".
Know your price, state your price first, and if they don't blink then move ahead. If they do blink? Hang up the phone and go back to your better paying job.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:59 PM on March 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm reallllllly tired of working with recruiters and whatnot that say they're "negotiable", only to finish a 2-3 day interview cycle (taking personal time all the while, natch) and find out their best offer is -20% what I'm making now. Or, even better, they use the bullshit phrase "we're willing to go higher for the right candidate".
Know your price, state your price first, and if they don't blink then move ahead. If they do blink? Hang up the phone and go back to your better paying job.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:59 PM on March 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
> Know your price, state your price first, and if they don't blink then move ahead. If they do blink? Hang up the phone and go back to your better paying job.
Reasonable advice for people with a strong negotiating position, who get contacted by recruiters reasonably often. OP's post is ambiguously worded, unclear if OP is currently employed or what the fallback position is if a deal isn't reached.
posted by are-coral-made at 4:05 PM on March 21, 2021
Reasonable advice for people with a strong negotiating position, who get contacted by recruiters reasonably often. OP's post is ambiguously worded, unclear if OP is currently employed or what the fallback position is if a deal isn't reached.
posted by are-coral-made at 4:05 PM on March 21, 2021
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They definitely do NOT want an essay for the rate your skills section. I don't know how Amazon does things specifically but that will likely be used as a prompt for questions in your interview. What they want to know is what parts of the job position are your strengths and weaknesses, and you will need to back up your strengths with examples. Putting all 10s will be very suspicious, and putting all 5s will make you look incompetent. I would pick the one or 2 areas that you think are actually your strengths and you can back up with examples and put 9s there, and fill in the rest relative to that. Of course this depends on how specific the strengths list is, it's generally safer to put higher numbers on less specific things.
I have no insider Amazon knowledge, but that position is pretty metric and spreadsheet heavy so they're going to want someone who can look at data, analyze it, and come up with a plan to fix things. Emphasize the parts of your experience relevant to that. I don't have an answer for the time to start question, this differs from company to company. If you give a date in that section they will expect you to be ready on that exact date and you would probably need a good excuse for them to not be upset. Good luck!
posted by JZig at 10:31 AM on March 21, 2021