How to answer behavioral interview questions at your Amazon job interview

Amazon loves to ask behavioral questions in its job interviews to judge your fit for the role.

To help you prep, I’ve created a guide that explains what behavioral questions are, how Amazon combines its leadership principles with common behavioral questions to create questions, and how to structure your answers.

If you learn this info, you’ll be able to effectively answer the behavioral job interview questions and make a strong impression on your interviewer.

What is the Amazon Behavioral Job Interview?

Behavioral interview questions are the type of questions that start with something like, "Give me an example of. " or "Tell me about a time. "

These questions will appear at every step of the interview process at Amazon and AWS, from the phone screens to the Loop. They also may appear in technical interviews.

Interviewers love this type of question because they think it will give them insights into your skills (job performance) and personality (culture fit).

What is Amazon looking for in a candidate?

Interviewers want to know:

1. Your past behavior so they can predict your future behavior.

2. How you think.

3. Whether you fit in with the Amazon leadership principles

Here’s more details about the basics of behavioral job interviews and behavioral questions.

What are the Amazon leadership principles?

The 16 Amazon leadership principles are the key to Amazon behavioral interviews. If you don't know what they are and you're about to interview at Amazon, you need to study them before your interview.

Amazon’s employees and its interviewers take the leadership principles seriously. During the interview, their behavioral questions will be common behavioral questions combined with the principles to create a uniquely Amazonian way of asking questions.

Although many other companies have what they call something like principles, they don’t usually take them as seriously as Amazon does in their interviews.

The 16 Amazon Leadership Principles:

• 1. Customer Obsession
• 2. Ownership
• 3. Invent & Simplify
• 4. Are Right, A lot
• 5. Learn and Be Curious
• 6. Hire and Develop the Best
• 7. Insist on the Highest Standards
• 8. Think Big
• 9. Bias for Action
• 10. Frugality
• 11. Earn Trust
• 12. Dive Deep
• 13. Have Backbone; Disagree & Commit
• 14. Deliver Results
• 15. Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
• 16. Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

Your interviewer wants to hear examples of your performance in past roles. How did you show similar qualities to Amazon’s own leadership principles?

Top 10 behavioral interview questions popular at Amazon

I've coached a lot of people interviewing at Amazon and have been collecting data from them for years on real questions they were asked. Here's some of the most commonly asked behavioral questions they've been asked in their interviews:

1. How did you deal with a difficult customer?

2. When did you go above and beyond?

3. Give me an example of your out-of-the-box thinking.

4. Tell me a challenge you had where the best way forward was not clear cut. How did you decide what to do?

5. Give me an example of something you tried to accomplish but failed.

6. Give me an example of a time when you showed initiative.

7. Give me an example of a time when you motivated others.

8. Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively.

9. Tell me about a time when you coached someone.

10. When have you used your fact finding skills to solve a problem?

All 16 Amazon leadership principles with explanation and sample questions

Now let’s review each principle in detail and see some questions that connect to each principle.

Read the explanation for each principle given on Amazon’s career page and then try creating a few answers yourself.

#1. Customer Obsession

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

What does this Amazon leadership principle mean?

It means customers are top priority and if you are obsessed with customers, you will:

• Collect data on and understand what your customer wants and needs
• Ask, “Is what I’m working on helping my customers?”
• Rigorously pursue customer feedback

• “WOW’ your customers
• Provide products and solutions that exceed customer expectations
• Remove steps in your process that don't add value
• Treat your customers like they’re #1

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Customer Obsession

• How do you get to an understanding of what the customer’s needs are?
• How do you wow your customers?
• When you’re working with a large number of customers, it’s tricky to deliver excellent service to all of them. How do you prioritize different customer needs?
• Tell me about a time you handled a difficult customer. What did you do? How did you manage the customer? What was her/his reaction? What was the outcome?
• When was a time you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the business? How did you approach the situation? What were your actions? What was the end result?

If you’re interviewing for a job where you deal with customers, prepare to answer these questions. A customer for you might be an internal stakeholder or an external partner if you deal with those in your job and not the product user, so keep that in mind. Here are some sample answers and a more in depth discussion of the Customer Obsession questions.

#2. Ownership

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.”

What does the Amazon leadership principle Ownership mean?

If you show ownership, you will:

• Ignore boundaries between jobs and departments if necessary to get your project done. If you see a problem and it’s not in your department, you will try to fix it.
• Along the same lines, you will manage every dependency and won’t make excuses if something goes wrong. You won't say, "That wasn't my job to take care of."
• Think about the impact of your decisions on other teams, sites and the customer over time.
• Consider future outcomes (scalable, long-term value, etc.)
• Coach and mentor your team to understand the big picture, how their role supports the overall objectives of Amazon, and how it ties to others.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Ownership

Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it important? What was the outcome?

Tell me about a time you went above and beyond.

Provide an example of when you personally demonstrated ownership.

Describe a project or idea (not necessarily your own) that was implemented primarily because of your efforts. What was your role? What was the outcome?

Give an example of when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the situation and what actions did you take? What was the outcome?

#3: The Invent and Simplify

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Invent and Simplify mean?

Amazon wants people who are curious and well informed and can be creative in thinking of solutions. They want people who can easily generate multiple ideas for problem solving. They want people who know how to find answers by looking into how other departments or other industries do things. Above all, they want people who will try to improve things, not just accept the status quo blindly.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Invent and Simplify

• Tell me about a time when you invented something.

• What improvements have you made at your current company?
• Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.
• Tell me about a time you had to think outside the box (think creatively) to close a sale or sell your product.
• What is the most innovative project you’ve worked on?

#4. Are Right, A Lot

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Are Right, A Lot mean?

You shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. You have to learn from your mistakes, develop specific insights into the reasons for those mistakes, and share those insights with the rest of the company.

3 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Are Right, A Lot

This is the most complicated principle because it’s about judgement, and that’s a big topic. I think of it as having 3 separate categories of questions: the mistake/failure questions, the conflict questions, and the judgement/data questions. Here’s a sample question from each category:

• When did you make a mistake?
• When did you have a disagreement with a colleague?
• When did you have to dig down several layers into a problem to solve it?

#5. Learn and Be Curious

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Learn and Be Curious mean?

Are you the kind of person who is always learning and improving? How do you keep up with the trends and new developments in your field? Do you try to do things a new way even if there’s no “need” for it? Are you open to learning new things?

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Learn and Be Curious

• How do you keep up with industry trends and what your competitors are doing?
• What is the coolest thing you’ve learned on your own that has helped you better perform your job?
• Tell me about a time you learned something new from your peer or your direct report at work.
• Tell me about a time you took on work outside of your comfort area and found it rewarding.
• Tell me about a time you found you needed a deeper level of subject matter expertise to do your job well.

#6: Hire and Develop the Best

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Hire and Develop mean?

It means that hiring the right people, ones who can do the job exceptionally well but who’re also interested in growing, and then helping them learn, is a huge aspect of a managerial or leadership role at Amazon.

6 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Hire and Develop

• What is your management style?
• Give me an example of one of the best hires of your career. How did this person grow throughout their career? What did you identify during the hiring process that drove her success?
• Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop and leverage the strengths of someone on your team. Were you able to positively impact that person’s performance? What were your most effective methods?
• How do you manage your top performers differently?
• What is the composition of your current team, and how is your team organized?
• Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock preventing your team from making progress.

#7: Insist on the Highest Standards

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders have relentlessly high standards – many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high-quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Insist on the Highest Standards mean?

If you want to show your interviewer that you insist on the highest standards, you should demonstrate that you:

• Set SLAs for everything, and don’t take shortcuts on instrumentation.
• Continually self-critique your work to make sure the quality is the best it can be.
• Accept and seek coaching and feedback from your manager and others about improving the quality of your work.
• Demand that your team delivers high-quality products, services, and solutions.
• Coach employees about setting their own high standards and exceeding customer expectations.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Highest Standards

• Tell me about a time you wouldn’t compromise on achieving a great outcome when others felt something was already good enough. What was the situation?
• What measures have you personally put in place to ensure performance improvement targets and standards are achieved?
• Describe the most significant, continuous improvement project that you’ve led. What was the catalyst for this change and how did you go about it?
• Give me an example of a goal you’ve had where you wish you had done better. What was the goal and how could you have improved on it?
• Tell me about a time when you worked to improve the quality of a product / service / solution that was already getting good customer feedback? Why did you think it needed more improvement?

#8: Think Big

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

What does the Amazon leadership principle Think Big mean?

The term “to think big” means to be ambitious or to set no limits on your thinking and goals.

If you think big you will:

• See problems as challenges and opportunities
• Think of things you can do, not things you can’t
• Plan what is possible, not worry about what is impossible
• Be fearless
• Be able to dream and visualize what you want

6 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Think Big

• Tell me about a time you took a calculated risk in order to achieve a professional goal. What were the tradeoffs? What was the outcome?

• Tell me about a time you went way beyond the scope of the project and delivered.
• Give me an example of a radical approach to a problem you proposed. What was the problem and why did you feel it required a completely different way of thinking about it? Was your approach successful?
• How do you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How do you know how well your idea or vision has been adopted by other teams or partners? Give a specific example highlighting one of your ideas.
• Tell me about time you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do something much bigger than the initial focus.
• Tell me about a time you looked at a key process that was working well and questioned whether it was still the right one. What assumptions were you questioning and why? Did you end up making a change to the process?

#9. Bias for Action

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

What does Bias for Action mean?

Having a bias for action means you’re not afraid to make decisions and then act on them, even when (especially when) you face uncertainty. Maybe you’ve worked with someone or a team who didn’t have a bias for action. In the face of uncertainty, these individuals freeze and can’t make a decision. They’re afraid of getting it wrong and being held accountable for making a poor decision.

Amazon wants you to look at data and make sense of it and use it to form your plan, but they don’t want you to get stuck looking at the data. They want you to move past research and analysis into action.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Bias for Action

• Tell me about a time you had to make a decision with incomplete information. How did you make it and what was the outcome?
• Describe a time you had to make an important decision on the spot to close a sale.
• Tell me about a time when you had to analyze facts quickly, define key issues, and respond immediately to a situation. What was the outcome?
• Give an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide between moving forward or gathering more information. What did you do? What information is necessary for you to have before acting?
• Describe a time when you saw some problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

#10: Frugality

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.

What does Frugality mean?

If you’re frugal, you try to save money. You’ll want to show you can do the job without spending more and that having not enough time or resources is fine. Resource constraints are not a huge problem that will stop you from succeeding; it’s something you can deal with.

You can be “frugal” with more things than money. You can also save time or other resources, including person hours.

2 sample Amazon behavioral interview sample questions: Frugality

• Tell me about a time when you had to work with limited time or resources.
• Tell me about a time where you thought of a new way to save money for the company.

#11. Earn Trust

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

What does Earn Trust mean?

Leaders at Amazon embody this principle by:

• consistently making good decisions
• keeping commitments
• treating others and their ideas with respect
• adhering to high ethical standards
• admitting failures
• listening, communicating, and delegating to help employees get the right things done

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Earn Trust

• Tell me about how you’ve effectively built trusting working relationships with others on your team.
• Give an example of a time where you were not able to meet a commitment to a team member. What was the commitment and what prevented you from meeting it? What was the outcome and what did you learn from it?
• Describe a time when you needed the cooperation of a peer or peers who were resistant to what you were trying to do. What did you do? What was the outcome?
• Tell me about a time when someone (peer, teammate, supervisor) criticized you about a piece of work/analysis that you delivered. How did you react? What was the outcome?
• Tell me about a time you had to communicate a big change in direction for which you anticipated people would have a lot of concerns. How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?

Here are some sample answers for Earn Trust and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

#12. Dive Deep

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

What does Dive Deep mean?

Leaders should keep a careful eye on what they own, and know ways to audit their space. If something doesn’t make sense, they need to have the ability (and interest) to dive in and figure out what’s going on.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Dive Deep

• Give me an example of when you used data to make a decision/solve a problem.

• Have you ever leveraged data to develop strategy?
• Tell me about a time you were trying to understand a problem on your team and you had to go down several layers to figure it out. Who did you talk with and what info proved most valuable? How did you use that info to help solve the problem?
• Walk me through a big problem in your organization that you helped to solve. How did you become aware of it? What info did you gather, what was missing, and how did you fill the gaps? Did you do a post mortem analysis and what did you learn?
• Can you tell me about a specific metric you’ve used to identify a need for change in your department? Did you create the metric or was it readily available? How did this and other info influence the change?

Here are some sample answers for Dive Deep and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

#13: Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit

This is how Amazon explains this principle:

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

What does Have Backbone mean?

What does the phrase “to have backbone” mean? It’s an English idiom that means to have strength, particularly in the face of adversity. If I “have backbone,” it means I will stand up for my ideas.

Do you fight for your ideas or do you give up on them if someone challenges you?

What if you fight for your idea (meaning you "disagree" with someone) and don't win - what do you do then? Do you support the person who did win ("commit" to their idea) or do you try to work against them because your idea didn't win?

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Have Backbone

• Describe a situation where other members of your team didn’t agree with your ideas. What did you do?

• Tell me about a situation where you had a conflict with someone on your team. What was it about? What did you do? How did they react? What was the outcome?
• Tell me about an unpopular decision of yours.
• Tell me about a time when you had to step up and disagree with a team member’s approach.
• Describe a situation where you thought you were right, but your peers or supervisor did not agree with you. How did you convince them that you were right? How did you react? What was the outcome?

Here are some sample answers for Have Backbone and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

#14: Deliver Results

This is how Amazon explains this principle:

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

What does Deliver Results mean?

In many ways this is the most important Amazon leadership principle.

Delivering results is the one thing you must do if you work at Amazon. The other principles are important, but they’re merely building blocks to this one.

So how do you actually show in your answers that you’ve delivered results? You need to tell stories about successes.

You can use a phrase like this to show your investment in delivering results:

“I was able to have a lot of responsibility and decision-making ability for X project, and by doing Y tasks, I delivered results in Z number of launches.”

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Deliver Results

• What’s the most complex problem you’ve ever worked on?
• What was a situation where you had to face a particularly challenging situation while working on a project and what you did to overcome it. (Note: The challenge could be with respect to timeline, scope, people, or a combination thereof.)

• Tell me about a time when you were able to persevere through setbacks and overcome obstacles to deliver outstanding results.
• Tell me about a time where you not only met the goal but considerably exceeded expectations. How were you able to do it?
• Have you ever worked on something really hard and then failed?

Here are some sample answers for Deliver Results and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

#15: Earth’s Best Employer

This is how Amazon explains this principle:

Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.

What does Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer mean?

This new principle is related to leadership principle #6, Hire and Develop the Best, but takes the ideas in #6 a few steps further. Hire and Develop says that a leader will “recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others.” “Hire and Develop” says that a leader should care about an employee’s success and be working with high performers to grow their careers. The new principle expands the duties of a leader.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Earth’s Best Employer

• Describe a time you constructed a team. What factors did you consider? Did you factor in diversity? How did you balance work requirements, team skill composition, and team stretch opportunities? How did you allocate work? How did you ensure team members were able to work effectively together?
• How have you made your employees excited about coming to work?
• Tell me how you help your team members develop their careers. Can you give me two to three examples of a specific person in whom you invested and how you helped them develop their careers, including one who wasn’t being successful but in whom you saw potential and chose to invest?
• Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop and leverage the strengths of someone on your team. Were you able to positively impact that person’s performance? What were your most effective methods?
• How have you been successful at empowering either a person or a group to accomplish a task.

Here are some sample answers for Earth’s Best Employer and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

#16: Success and Scale

This is how Amazon explains the principle:

We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.

What does Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility mean?

The “Success and Scale” principle is Amazon recognizing its immense impact, on its customers, its employees, its partners, and the larger community. The principle challenges leaders at Amazon to acknowledge and account for this impact as a normal part of doing business.

5 sample Amazon behavioral interview questions: Success and Scale

• Tell me about a time you had to evaluate a potential strategic partnership. What approach did you take? Did you perform your evaluation using any particular framework?
• When did you have a difficult situation with a partner? What was the problem and how did you resolve it?
• When have you done something to improve the process for your partner ?
• Tell me about a time you worked with a partner to achieve scale that would have otherwise been impossible.
• As you conduct internal and external business activities, how do you promote and maintain social, ethical, and organizational norms?

Here are some sample answers for Success and Scale and a more in depth discussion of the principle.

What is the STAR method and how can you use it in your Amazon behavioral interview?

To answer behavioral questions, use a story, also known as an example.

The story should be about something that happened to you at work that shows the skills you've been asked a question about.

So you have a good story to tell. Now how exactly do you tell it so that it's clear?

The STAR technique is a common system used to answer behavioral interview questions. It provides a structure for you to remember so that you include the correct data in your answers.

These are the 4 steps:

S – Situation - background info

T – Task - what you had to do

A – Activity - what you did - this should be the longest part of the answer

R – Results - positive; quantifiable; what you learned; what you would do differently next time

If you get asked a behavioral question, answer by going through the letters in order.

First give the S part (explain the basic situation). Then give the T (what was your job/task in this situation) .Then A (show what you did). Last, give the R (outcome).

This is the basic STAR method but here is more information about STAR, including sample answers to some possible questions.

Sample answer for a common behavioral question

This is a common behavioral interview question that you might be asked in an interview. I've marked it with the STAR sections so you can see the structure of the answer.

Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.

S - Last year at my quarterly review my boss explained to me that I needed to improve my public speaking skills, since I'm in marketing and give presentations to my colleagues and clients frequently. He said that I speak too softly and too quickly and don't explain my ideas clearly.

T/A - I didn't know how to get better at this, so I hired an executive coach. I worked with her for a month, and then joined a group of her former clients who meet once a week to give speeches in front of each other. With her help and all of their comments and support, I learned to see what my weaknesses were.

R - After working on my skills for several months, I could see that my presentations were better. At my next review, my boss agreed. Now I'm continuing to meet with the group so that my skills keep improving. I want to be even better than I am now so that I give excellent presentations.

Why is this answer good?

• It talks about a skill that will be relevant in the job she is applying for
• It follows the STAR structure
• It keeps to the details that are needed but doesn't add more
• It references the Amazon principle "insist on the highest standards" although you'll notice she doesn't use those words

Try to do the same things when answering your questions.

How to prepare for an Amazon behavioral interview

1. Understand the company’s culture. Be sure you’ve done some reading about the culture. Fortunately, the internet is full of resources for that. Start with the leadership principles, but also read more so you can understand where the principles come from and what they mean for employees. Do you know what I mean by saying “Amazon has a culture of sharp elbows?” What about “Amazon has a Day 1 mentality?” You need to know the culture so you can show you’re a good fit for it.
2. Plan your answers. In the onsite interview the interviewers will divide the principles up and each take two or three, so in one interview you may have more than two questions about a principle. What will you do if that happens? Most people say that you should have two examples for each Amazon leadership principle. That’s a good benchmark, but what if you get asked four Deliver Results questions? Will you have enough stories to answer them all? It’s a better idea have a group of answers you can tailor for the different principles depending on what you get asked, instead of two answers that will only work for one principle and two that will only work for another principle, and so on. In other words, I suggest you don’t tag a story for only one principle. You’ll have a better chance of answering any question you get asked if you tag a story for more than one principle and practice adapting it to many different questions. Can I repeat my stories? That’s not a good idea. If you can avoid it, don’t repeat because they will be keep track.
3. Prepare for behavioral questions even if you’re in a technical role. Don't assume that you'll only get asked behavioral questions if you're applying for a role with managerial responsibilities. It pays to prepare for behavioral questions even if your job is technical. But if your job is technical they'll ask you different types of behavioral questions than they would ask a manager candidate. For instance, if you write code all day they probably won't ask you about your leadership abilities but they may ask you about your ability to meet deadlines and take ownership of problems.
4. Use the job description to figure out what questions they’ll ask you. Everyone wants to predict their interview questions. It would be so much easier to interview if we knew what they would ask. you can use the job description or your knowledge of the role to give you a good idea of the possible questions.
5. Practice your answers. Once you’ve learned about the interview process and company culture and planned your answers, you should start practicing. You can practice by yourself - record yourself on audio or video and see how you do. You can also practice with a friend or colleague - someone who’s actually worked at Amazon would be useful - or practice with me.

4 tips for your Amazon behavioral interview prep

1. Prepare for follow up questions. Even if your answer was excellent you’ll probably get asked follow up questions. They might stop you in the middle to ask clarifying questions or wait til you’re done and ask them then. Don’t be surprised if you get them and think about them ahead of time.
2. Make a cheat sheet to practice with. You should definitely use notes during your interview. It won’t create a bad impression; it will make you look prepared. If you write out a long doc to work on your stories, try condensing it to something that’s just a page or two that you can look through quickly as they ask you a question.Related topics:
3. Keep your answers the right length. Answers for behavioral questions should be about 3 minutes long.
4. Focus on you. Don’t talk about what your team did, talk about what you did. It’s your interview, not theirs.
5. Don’t forget the intro questions. You’ll probably get asked some intro questions at the beginning, like “Why do you want to work at Amazon?”

Jennifer Scupi is the founder of Interview Genie, where she’s worked with thousands of clients preparing for job interviews. They appreciate her honest feedback and say it’s obvious she used to be a teacher because she’s good at explaining the best way to prepare answers. Her clients have landed roles at FAANG companies like Amazon, Fortune 500 companies, startups, and more. Recruiters who work at Amazon routinely refer her clients to increase their chances at success.

For advice about Amazon interviews, visit the Amazon resources page or read her book about Amazon behavioral interviews.

If you need to prepare for your interview, let’s get started.