A very organized and meticulous interview process from start to finish.
After applying online, I was contacted by an Amazon Talent Acquisition Rep who conducted a standard phone screening interview. After passing the screening interview, I was sent an email with a link to the Amazon web-based application for an Area Manager. This process required me to answer several personality based questions. In general, Amazon is trying to find out if you have leadership skills, can make independent decisions, or if you have the tendency to defer to management or others. In my opinion, none of the answers reflected what you will do in the real world. They key is to choose the answer that best reflects you are a leader, who can make independent decisions.
The next section of the application process is a virtual (video) job test. You are given a scenario where you are a manager, with four direct reports, each who supervise a team of associates (hourly employees). You are also given a spreadsheet with multiple tabs. The tabs have professional information about your direct reports, performance/efficiency data about each of the teams, and performance/efficiency data showing how your teams compare to other teams in the same facility. You have to answer several questions based on the data and information provided in the spreadsheet. This "test" is not timed, but the instructions say you should work as quickly as possible. Pay attention to the example questions given at the beginning of this section. There are efficiency formulas and information in the footnotes on several tabs that you must use to answer a few of the questions.
If you complete the application "test" successfully, you will be notified by Amazon within a week and given an interview prep packet. I waiting six weeks for my onsite interview. Amazon is very efficient, so they wait until a certain number of candidates are ready, and interview all of them on the same day. In my situation, they interviewed candidates for the Area Manager positions in the morning and candidates for the Operations Manager positions in the afternoon.
On the interview day, you are told to arrive at least 20 mins early. You start with a 45 min tour of the facility and then begin the interviews. The Area Manager will have three interviews. There is no logistics math flow test question for the Area Manager interview as mentioned in the interview prep packet. The math flow question is for candidates interviewing for the Operations Manager position. As mentioned in other write ups, Amazon asks behavioral type questions in their interviews. Each interviewer asked the "tell me about yourself" question, and then asked 4-5 questions based on Amazon's 14 leadership principles that are listed in the interview prep packet. Your answers should be given in the STAR format. Questions and answers are from the point of view of a team leader and not an individual contributor , ex- "Tell me about the time when your team.....".
Overall, the interviewers were very nice and it was a casual environment. The interviewers took notes on their lap tops during the interview, so it was a bit different that other interviews I have done. In the end, Amazon did not make me an offer and I was not surprised.
General Comments
The Area Manager position is a first line supervisor position. It is a good position for someone switching from a comparable position with another company or a first/second tour officer or NCO separating from the military. If you are a mid/senior career professional, who is making a career change, this is not a position for you! You are over qualified and Amazon will probably not make you an offer! You should focus on the Operations Manger or Sr Operations Manager positions, if you have the experience.
Throughout the entire interview process, Amazon asked about experience supervising large teams of people (~100 to 300). This seemed to be a very important metric to them. It did not seem to matter what type of smaller teams you lead/managed in the past or the scope of your responsibility, they always focused team size.