Leadership questions- STAR TECHNIQUE

SITUATION
TASK
ACTION
RESULTS

WHAT QUESTIONS ARE ASKED IN AN AMAZON LEADERSHIP INTERVIEW?

Q1. Tell me about a time when you had to make a quick decision that was going to have a
significant impact on the organization?

Situation: employees for both companies- worn out eventually due to complex and long working
hours managing both jobs
Task: hire new employees for the second new company in order to have high standards in both and
also to foster productivity
Action: I found new employees in a matter of weeks and begun their training .
Result: this was a great decision for the long run because it increased productivity, decreased
dissatisfaction of those employees hired for both places, we made sure that the initial investment in
new hires payed off and also we made profit.

Q2. Tell me about a time when you found a simple solution to a complex problem?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q3. Describe a situation when you had to work with incomplete data or information?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q4. Tell me about a time when you had to take a calculated risk at work?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q5. Tell me how you would complete a project or task if you had limited time or resources?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q6. Tell me about a time when you experienced conflict within a team?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q7. Give me two examples of when you have gone above of beyond what was expected?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q8. Have you ever failed at work? If so, tell me what happened and how you reacted?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q9. When have you had to overcome a challenging situation at work?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q10. When have you had a disagreement at work, either with a work colleague or a manager?
Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q11. Give me a situation where you have previously shown one of Amazon’s Leadership Principles at
work? -frugality
Situation: Christmas presents for employees- the provider for candy bars could only provide 200
pieces and we needed 220 pieces of candy bars. They only announced that a week before delivering
them. In that week we also had to wrap everything in goody bags and announce a date when the
employees could come and pick up their presents. So actually we did not have a week but merely a
few days.
Task: I bucked up and begun to find another provider that could supply us with 20 candy bars on
around the same kind of flavors of what we already had. After a day of research and a dozen more
phone calls I managed to find a similar provider however the price was different a bit higher than we
budgeted.
Action: I really needed those candy bars and I did not have the budget to purchase all that I needed
so I just begun negociating for the exact budget I had, promising this company we will contract them
( and we did as a matter of fact) for Easter presents and other presents we used to give employees .
Result They were new on the market so they jumped at the opportunity to have such a great contract
with us and they discounted us for this 20 candybars at the budget we had. I managed to fix this
situation within a day, and in a tight deadline.

Q12. Tell me about an unpopular decision you had to make at work?

-are right, a lot

Situation: In the previous year, we did a series of innovations which were not all successful and as a
result we lost some money. As I was the leader in charge with overseeing the budget, I had to take
the unpopular decision to cut some of the budget for the next year in order to not exhaust the
available funds to much.
Task I analysed where and how the money were spent and on what for all departments and I realized
a lot of unnecessary, from my opinion, funds were spent on adverts, therefore Marketing. Therefore a
cut of 10% was suffered.
Action As you may already suspect this did not sit well with the Marketing Director which thought the
adverts should remain on because it was a great way of bringing the costumers to our product. I
begged to differ, and I did an analysis on what I saw that from the majority of adverts only 0.5% of
the customers seeing the ads went on and purchase our products online and actually what we were
achieving organically was more effective and was bringing up more funds than what we spent on
adverts.
Result: After reviewing my analysis the Marketing director agreed eventually it was a right call to cut
off the adverts.

Q13. Give me one thing you will like the most about being a leader with Amazon, and one thing you
will dislike?

I will like to be around exceptional people in an environment where innovation and ownership is
valued and appraised.

Q14. Tell me a time when you had to give bad news to a member of your team?

Situation: A couple of months ago I gave a negative feedback to an employee who was tasked with
making the content strategy for the job adverts I was supervising acting as Hiring manager for those
jobs. She used the wrong vocabulary for advertising the jobs making them sound very impersonal
and lacking a good CTA. This resulted in a poor candidate pool and a waste of money on adverts.
Task: I took it upon me to make sure we will turn this around and planed to have a chat with the
person who was tasked with the strategy.
I
know negative feedback is hard to hear, especially when it’s someone’s first attempt at a task, so I
wanted to make it a little easier. I met with this employee and started the conversation with
something good she had done.

Action I took note of a couple of strong points in the strategy. She and I agreed on how to better
deconstruct the storytelling and I gave some pointers on how to make the CTA stronger.

Result The end result was exceptional. We got a lot of clicks and a lot of good candidates came our
way

Q15. Give me an example when you led a team of people to achieve an organization’s goal or
objectives?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q16. Tell me about a time when you had to persuade someone to follow your course of action?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q17. When did you have to overcome a difficult challenge at work?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q18. Give me an example at work where you improved how you did something to achieve a better
outcome?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q19. Tell me about a time when you learned something new that was outside of your comfort zone?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q20. Tell me about a time when you received criticism from a manager or a work colleague? How
did you react to the feedback?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q21. Tell me about a time when you analyzed information carefully to overcome a challenging task
or project?

Situation:
Task
Action
Result

Q22. Tell me a time when you had to make an effective decision under pressure?

Situation: That would be last week when I had seen that has been an ongoing issue with the way we
give feedback to our customers regarding the phases of the project which we completed. The
deadline was tight, end of week.
Task I put together an analysis and deconstruct every step which was taken from the beginning of
the project till the end. Seeing how the phases were cascading. Was a rushed analysis due to the
lack of time but be it as it may I did found out some bugs in our processes.
Action Met with the PM responsible and sat there pinpointing what was wrong and I brought it to his
attention a few modifications here and there on making the process more efficient. I also meant that
the client was to be more involved from the start and give feedback in our timeframe in order not to
cost us the final launch.
Result This strategy I came up with is called a pre-study which is now a common method in the
company and I see it unfold really good. That client was really satisfied with how things will go on
and I actually got an opportunity to upsell for more pages in the website, thus more revenue.
Tell me about yourself
I am a determined and high achiever professional who, over the last 5+ years has built up
extensive experience and transferable skills that I think are a match for the role of Operational
Manager at Amazon. I am someone who strongly believes you only make significant progress in
an organization if everyone in the team is pulling in the same direction.

1. For example, in my last role I have automated a lot of redundant processes which were
time consuming and a real bottleneck in the way the clients were sending feedback on
the web project we were working on for them. This was a particular difficult task
because it had to be aligned with the original written agreement between their
company and us. Therefore, after the agreement was signed we attach an initial work
order based on which on a weekly basis we update it. This in turn will be assessed by the
client and has to be approved in order to continue the work. This was backed up by a
series of checklist that the production team had to comply on.
2. For example, I will always use my initiative to come up with new ideas for the team, I
will look for ways to save the business money by being frugal in my approach to tasks,
and I will challenge team decisions professionally with a view to encourage people to
think outside the box and to strive for continuous improvement and development.
A new idea which I implemented lately would be an automated system using the resources I
alredy had in the company for tracking PTOs and made it transparent for everyone to see. I only
had to link 4 systems which were already used company wide.

I understand you are interviewing lots of candidates for this position, but I genuinely believe I
am the right person for the job based on my passion, my experience and my commitment to
helping the organization I am part of be the best it can be.

Why do you want to work at Amazon?

I want to work at Amazon because in my opinion it is the greatest company in the world and I
feel I will be abel to learn, grow and develop whilst working alongside other self-motivated
people.

Amazon has led the way for many years now, not just in the quality products and services it
offers, but how it delivers its products to customers and how it always puts customers in
everything it does. I cannot think of many other companies that start with the customer and
then work backwards.
Another reason I want to work at Amazon is because of your Leadership Principles. If I
demonstrate these in my work, I will reach my full potential and I will get to achieve some
pretty amazing things while working here.

What are your strengths?

My strengths include my ability to always put the needs of the team first and my passion for
the work I am doing.
In previous roles, I often had to work with others to achieve difficult projects and tasks, and I
felt my strength was that I could turn my hand to anything if needed to help the team. No task
was ever beneath me.
Other strengths include my innovative approach to tasks ( I am always looking to improve,
always with an eye to automate bottlenecks) my fast pace of working and my understanding
that all employees must look to help a company save money, as opposed to spending it without
due care or attention.

Tell me about a time when you did something that was out of your
responsibility at work.
I can recall quite recently that during the summer vacations, we were short staffed and
encountered a problem with our website chat box. I must say that this chat box is very useful
for getting outside leads, hence, to be exact this counted for 5% of our sales. I am not an IT
person, nor do I possess any knowledge on how to code widgets.

The sales director sent an email for all available personnel to qa the chat box after a on hold
developer managed to twitch something.

Despite having 0 experience in QA and testing for that matter, I went all in and tried to help as
best as I could.

Eventually we managed to find what was causing the chat box to fail sending messages. It was
not the widget itself but actually it was due to the firewall which was installed recently. By I
think it was 9 pm that evening, the chat box started being functional, which was a really great
news for the company.

Even if it was something out of my responsibility or even so my knowledge, I will still take on
the task because I believe while you are on this Earth you must grab every opportunity to learn
something new and maybe to develop new skills.
How would you react if the people in your team do not agree with your
opinions or ideas?
This would not phase me at all. Providing I had explained my ideas or opinions in a concise
manner, and I had challenged them professionally I would then commit to the team consensus.

The team must always come first, and while I do believe I am good at what I do, I am not
perfect, and I still have lots to learn.

In a recent team meeting we were discussing ways to promote a new way of doing brand
strategy for our clients and I put forward some suggestions for trying our social media channels
to market this organically. I felt it is a great way to spark interest if it is marketed the right way
and with the right tools. Also, we could have reach new and fresh audience online, but nobody
in the team thought it is the right decision.

I challenged them to think about it as beneficial and I had explained why but they still did not
wanted to cave.

Although I disagreed with them, I positively committed to the overriding team opinion and the
agreed marketing strategy.

Tell me about a time when you took a risk at work

I was working on a task that had a tight deadline which my supervisor approved. To meet the
task deadline, I was asked to work over the weekend for it, but while being plugged a discharge
of electricity crashed my work laptop which made it impossible for me to continue my work on
it.

Thankfully I am really careful about work and everything was stored in OneDrive, but be it as it
may I did not have the equipment to finish my task.

Now purchases of over 300 euros has to be approved by my supervisor. Trouble was that he
was in his annual holiday and I could not reach him. I decided to take the risk and just buy a
new laptop that day because if I would have waited to get approval from my supervisor the
deadline would not be met, and this would reflect negatively on the business.

Whenever I take a risk it is always calculated and I will only take one if I feel it is to the benefit
of the company.

Tell me about a time when you showed initiative at work

In my current company I am working on we have a relatively high turn-over of staff due to the
nature of the work.

Each time a new hire joined the team, they needed to be trained up in how to use our company
systems. This training took time and it meant a member of staff had to be away from their
normal duties.

I decided to use my initiative to create training videos that included information and clear
instruction on how to use company systems, where to find certain information, who to ask
about what. At the end of the training modules, I created a short quiz that tested the new hire’s
ability to operate the systems competently and diligently.

The CEO of the company loved the idea I come up with because it saved a lot of time on
onboarding and it actually ensured the information will be applied.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I see myself still working here at Amazon, either in the same role or having gained advancement
to a higher level. Amazon is clearly not going to stop improving, innovating, developing and
growing and I want to be a part of this journey.

I am also someone who is keen to continually improve and develop professionally so in 5 years
form now I see myself as fully competent and loyal Amazon employee who has a diverse set of
skills and qualities that can be used to help the team I am part of achieve its goals.

CUSTOMER OBSESSION- FIRST LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE AND

THE MOST IMPORTANT
1. Describe a time when you went above and beyond what was expected to help a
customer?
Situation: I remember several different occasions when I went above and beyond for a
customer. One comes right now to mind is when I was working in the gaming agency, and we
implemented a new event for players for Christmas. This event allowed players to purchase in
game some products which would boost their level. One player purchased the in game object,
the payment gateway rejected his card BUT it cashed in the money he paid without giving him
the object purchased. More to this, the event was to be live just 2h, and it was just one time
event. Now the increment was that he purchased, did not get the object, money was cashed in,
and the event was about to finish soon and he could not benefit from it.

Task: I put myself in the shoes of the customer and I could genuinely feel the frustration he
felt and decided to take ownership of this situation ( though I was acting as a Chief Operating
Officer for the company) and resolve the situation for the customer as it was not his fault for
this increment.

Action: I kept the customer in the loop while I contacted the payment gateway to solve the
situation. I was able eventually to discuss with someone from that company after actually
calling every contact person I had from them. After getting to the right person, they unlocked
manually that the payment was successful. After this was implemented, I informed the
customer that the payment was manually unlocked and he will receive the item he bought just
in time to level up in the game.

Result: After the event passed I contacted the customer to get his input about how
everything went. I am pleased to say he has been a regular and the most high spender in the
game ever since.

OWNERSHIP- ANOTHER LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE

As a leader you have to take ownership of the situation-> lets sort it out because we are all
collectively working for Amazon

When working for Amazon be responsible, take ownership and have the customer at the heart
of everything you do.

You are working for an organization where everybody is working to achieve the same goal.

1. Tell me about a time when you failed at work?

Situation: I do not like failing, but when I do and if I do , I will always be accountable to be
the one who puts things right, and above all, view it as an opportunity to grow, to learn and to
develop.

During a challenging and exciting project at work in a previous role, I was a part of a young and
ambitious full of talented people who were working on creating the branding and web design
company.

Task: The task required us to work together as a team and use our combined expertise and
experience to create this product for the client within very strict timescales and specifications.
The project should have been a breeze simply because we had done this type of work together
many times before.

Action: We started out as usual with the project manager giving the team the usual brief. I
can remember thinking the brief was perhaps not clear enough for the specification required by
the client, but I chose not to say anything, which ended up being a huge mistake.

Part-way through the project, it became apparent we had missed a very important specification
off the product which ended up putting us two weeks behind schedule.

Result: Although the client was forgiving and he allowed us additional time to complete the
project, we had failed to deliever on our promises as a team. During a team debrief I disclosed I
had concerns during the initial team briefing, but I chose not to say anything. I apologized for
not doing so. As a team, we learned a lot from that experience and moving forward the same
mistake never happened again.

DELIVER RESULTS- LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE:

Delivering Results is all about overcoming probls and obstacles with vigor, resilience, and
determination. To work for Amazon, you need to be a Results Driven leader who can overcome
difficult challenges and problems.

1. Describe a time when you overcame a difficult challenge at work?

Situation: In my previous job, a long-standing client who had brought in good business for a
number of years, made contact with us to say he was moving to a new service provider and that
he no longer required our services.

Task: This was bad news for the company, and I saw it as my responsibility to try and keep hold
of his business. Although this would be a difficult challenge, the impact of losing the customer
would be significant for our company from a financial perspective

Action: I reached out to the customer by telephone and asked him to meet me the next day
over lunch. He agreed, and in the tiem period between the telephone call and the meeting, I did
my homework, looked a how we could improve the service we currently provided for him and
also looked at the options surrounding what he was paying for our services.

At the meeting, I asked a lot of questions about how our service could be improved and what
we could do to keep his business. It quickly became apparent he no longer felt valued as a
customer with our company.

Result: After a couple of hours of discussions I managed to keep hold of his business by offering
a new tailored service that would mean we provided a closer working relationship with him.
When I returned to the office, I immediately implemented a review of all clients to make sure
we never had the same situation again, where a client felt devalued.

HAVE BACKBONE, DISAGREE AND COMMIT

If you think something is wrong, challenge it in a constructive and professional manner.
It is ok to disagree, but always make sure you are fully committing to the decision made.

1. Tell me a time when you had a disagreement with somebody at work?

Situation: I was working in an office and a customer emailed the team to complain about the
errors that they had found in one of our company newsletters. The newsletter was created
periodically by another department within the organization and it’s purpose was to generate
new business for the company. I took a look at the newsletter and I was shocked at the number
of errors that were contained within it.
Task: I felt it was my responsibility to raise the issue with the department responsible for the
creation of the newsletter, so we could explore ways in which it could be improved. It was my
view that the newsletter, in its current format was letting the business down.

Action: I spoke to the manager of the department, and I was met with an immediate defensive
attitude. I was basically told to mind my own business and she disagreed with my suggestion
the newsletter should be improved.

However, I persevered and I outlined the benefits of what a strong newsletter could bring to
our company. I also offered to proofread the newsletter before it went out, as this would then
enable me to suggest different ways in which we could improve the newsletter and use it to
leverage new business.

Result: After some perseverance and tacful relationship building skills, the manager agreed for
me to work with them to improve the newsletter. Six months after I initially made contact, the
newsletter was seen as an integral part of the business and it was responsible for helping to
promote new products and also offer incentives and discounts for our loyal customer base.

QUESTIONS TO ASK IN AN INTERVIEW:

1. What are the plans for the newly formed unit in Amazon over the next 5 to 10 years and
how could I help you achieve them in this role?
2. Amazon is always bringing out new products and services, what are the next great
innovations Amazon is concentrating on right now?
3. What is the first thing you would like me to concentrate on in this role?