How Should I Prepare For the Amazon Online Assessment Test? — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hey there, this is Nick, a former Amazon
2. 0:02bar raiser, and in this video I'll
3. 0:04describe what the Amazon online
4. 0:06assessment test is, how you can prepare
5. 0:09for it, and how you can ace it. I'm
6. 0:11going to divide my answer into four
7. 0:13parts. Let's start with part one. Part
8. 0:16one is you can fail this test. Take it
9. 0:18seriously. I made this mistake myself.
10. 0:21Until recently, I was telling our
11. 0:23customers that, "Hey, don't worry about
12. 0:25it. This is just a touchy-feely test.
13. 0:28There's no right and wrong answers.
14. 0:29Amazon wants to see what your approach
15. 0:31is to solving problems. Chill, it's
16. 0:33going to be fine." That is definitely
17. 0:36the wrong advice to give to those who
18. 0:38are going to take the test. I have
19. 0:40talked to a number of my internal Amazon
20. 0:42connections, and they tell me that
21. 0:46they've seen success rates, pass rates
22. 0:48of the online assessment test as low as
23. 0:5020%.
24. 0:52For the most part, the pass rate is
25. 0:53still well above 50, maybe it's in the
26. 0:5660%, 65%, but the point is this is not a
27. 1:00slam dunk. It's not 85, 90% of people
28. 1:02who take the test who pass it. You could
29. 1:04fail. Take this seriously. Part number
30. 1:06two is what got you here won't get you
31. 1:09there. I'm going to explain where the
32. 1:13online assessment test falls in the
33. 1:15continuum of the Amazon interview
34. 1:16process.
35. 1:18Amazon, in general, is going to hire you
36. 1:20if you raise their hiring bar, which is
37. 1:23you are better than 50% of the current
38. 1:25Amazonians plus 1% at that level.
39. 1:28Amazon would determine whether that is
40. 1:29the case based on your fit with their
41. 1:32leadership principles and your
42. 1:34behavioral accomplishments and failures.
43. 1:36However, they start the process, they
44. 1:39start the interview process looking at
45. 1:40your subject matter expertise and your
46. 1:42functional skills, and they slowly crank
47. 1:45the dial to to move from functional
48. 1:47evaluation to behavioral and leadership
49. 1:50principles evaluation. So, at the very
50. 1:52top of the process, at the very top of
51. 1:53the funnel, they start by looking at
52. 1:55your resume. And your resume, it's all
53. 1:56about the stuff you've done. It's all
54. 1:58about your accomplishments, your subject
55. 1:59matter expertise, so on and so forth.
56. 2:01They review your resume, then if they
57. 2:02like it, the next step is they have you
58. 2:05talk to an Amazon recruiter. In the
59. 2:08screening call with the recruiter, the
60. 2:09recruiter is going to evaluate if you
61. 2:11are genuine, they're going to walk with
62. 2:14you through your resume. And in general,
63. 2:16the recruiter is not qualified to
64. 2:18determine if you can raise the Amazon
65. 2:20bar. Again, they're going to focus on
66. 2:22your functional experience. Then after
67. 2:25that, the next stage is when they're
68. 2:27going to send you the online assessment
69. 2:29test. The online assessment test, again,
70. 2:31heavily focuses on subject matter
71. 2:34expertise assessment. You're going to
72. 2:35see the initial kind of creeping in of
73. 2:39behavioral and leadership principle
74. 2:41concepts in there, but still it's a
75. 2:43functional skills show, the online
76. 2:45assessment test is. Then once you go
77. 2:48through that, you get to the next stage,
78. 2:49which is the phone screen with the
79. 2:51hiring manager. That is the first stage
80. 2:54where things start to tilt in favor of
81. 2:56the behavioral interview. You're going
82. 2:58to get maybe 50% technical functional
83. 3:01questions and 50% behavioral questions.
84. 3:03And the final step is your interview
85. 3:05loop. And during the interview loop, 70
86. 3:08or 80% of your questions are going to be
87. 3:10behavioral leadership principle type
88. 3:12questions, and that's going to determine
89. 3:13whether Amazon hires you or not. So, my
90. 3:16point is that the whole event is a
91. 3:18marathon. And the online assessment test
92. 3:21that happens at stage three is still
93. 3:24going to be very heavily focused on your
94. 3:26subject matter skills and your
95. 3:27functional skills. So, you should
96. 3:29prepare for that accordingly. Part three
97. 3:30of my answer is that there's no standard
98. 3:33format. Different teams at Amazon are
99. 3:36using the online assessment test in very
100. 3:38chaotic ways, very inconsistent ways. As
101. 3:41I said, the pass rate even is
102. 3:42inconsistent. And some of this makes
103. 3:44sense because there's no uniform way
104. 3:46with which you can evaluate different
105. 3:48functions. For example, you're going to
106. 3:50give an accountant or a finance person a
107. 3:53different type of online assessment test
108. 3:55than you would give an engineer or
109. 3:57solutions architect. That totally makes
110. 3:59sense. Now, what are some of the
111. 4:00different flavors of online assessment
112. 4:02tests that I've seen across functions?
113. 4:05So, let's start with sales and account
114. 4:08executives. So, for those functions, the
115. 4:10online assessment test is roughly 90
116. 4:12minutes. You're going to have a working
117. 4:14at Amazon section that is going to be
118. 4:17very heavy on multiple-choice questions
119. 4:20with different emails that you're going
120. 4:22to have to interpret and different
121. 4:24answers you're going to have to provide.
122. 4:26There definitely is a right and wrong
123. 4:27answer to these questions. So, you
124. 4:29should take it seriously. If you're a
125. 4:31solutions architect, the test is going
126. 4:33to be slightly longer. There's going to
127. 4:35be a working at Amazon section, but
128. 4:36there's going to also be a technical
129. 4:38section that evaluates your system
130. 4:40design skills. There's going to be a
131. 4:41section that tests your communication
132. 4:44and your way of working with customers.
133. 4:47If you are a finance person, you're
134. 4:49going to have to brush up on modeling,
135. 4:51on crunching numbers, on solving
136. 4:54equations, and so on and so forth in
137. 4:55real time. If you're an engineer, the
138. 4:59online assessment test is going to take
139. 5:01multiple different steps. In the
140. 5:02beginning, for about 90 minutes, you're
141. 5:04going to be given two separate, usually
142. 5:06two separate coding questions. Then
143. 5:08after that, that's a separate part,
144. 5:10you're going to be asked to provide a
145. 5:11system design response to a problem.
146. 5:14Then you're going to have a working at
147. 5:15Amazon section again, so on and so
148. 5:16forth. If you're a product manager, PMT,
149. 5:20program manager, you're going to go back
150. 5:22to the 90-minute format primarily, and
151. 5:25you're going to have to answer again
152. 5:26lots of multiple-choice questions.
153. 5:28Recently, I got access to some audio
154. 5:30recordings from one of my customers in
155. 5:32the product management vein, and I'm
156. 5:34going to share a brief excerpt of these
157. 5:36recordings with you.
158. 5:37I am so pleased you've invited me to
159. 5:39learning to discuss our learning
160. 5:40management system. I'll do a quick
161. 5:42review of our services and packages.
162. 5:44After that, I'll to it over to you to
163. 5:46ask questions review what you've heard.
164. 5:48Okay, so you see how this is almost like
165. 5:50a listening comprehension test where
166. 5:52you're going to hear a few different
167. 5:53scenarios with multiple people talking,
168. 5:56different viewpoints made, then you're
169. 5:58going to have to provide your responses
170. 5:59in a verbal format in some cases, in a
171. 6:01written format in other cases. Okay, and
172. 6:03now this gets us to part four. How do
173. 6:05you get ready for this whole thing? How
174. 6:07do you prepare for the online assessment
175. 6:09test? I have published another video
176. 6:11recently on this channel of how you get
177. 6:14ready for your functional interview
178. 6:16questions with Amazon. That applies very
179. 6:18well here as well. You can go through
180. 6:20that video. The point is that in
181. 6:22general, you should just lean on your
182. 6:25expertise throughout your career, your
183. 6:27functional, technical, subject matter
184. 6:29expertise. You can brush up on certain
185. 6:32skills, particularly if you work in a
186. 6:34more hard-based scientific function,
187. 6:37such as engineering or solutions
188. 6:39architect or finance. There you can
189. 6:41brush on certain concepts, equations,
190. 6:44computer science algorithms.
191. 6:46But for the most part, you can practice
192. 6:48with an AI chatbot, brush up on your
193. 6:50foundational concepts, and just be
194. 6:52yourself. I hope this was useful to you.
195. 6:54If it was, please like this video and
196. 6:57follow this channel. But most
197. 6:59importantly, please let me know what was
198. 7:00useful to you from this video. Let me
199. 7:02know what other questions I could answer
200. 7:04for you, and the very best of luck in
201. 7:06your Amazon interviews. You've got this.
202. 7:09Chin up. Talk to you soon. Bye.