I Rejected Amazon Candidates for These 5 Mistakes — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hey there I'm Nick a for Amazon bar
2. 0:02raiser and in this video I will describe
3. 0:05five big mistakes that job candidates
4. 0:08make when interviewing with Amazon and
5. 0:09I'm going to show you how to avoid those
6. 0:11mistakes if this is interesting
7. 0:13subscribe to this Channel all right the
8. 0:15five big mistakes that people make when
9. 0:17interviewing with Amazon are one repeat
10. 0:20the same answer to different interview
11. 0:22questions two reverse engineer which
12. 0:26leadership principle Amazon is asking
13. 0:28with each question three say they don't
14. 0:32have a big professional
15. 0:33failure four use generalities when
16. 0:37answering the question why do you want
17. 0:39to join Amazon and five don't have
18. 0:42prepared questions at the end of the
19. 0:44interview when their turn comes to ask
20. 0:47questions all right let's start with
21. 0:49mistake one repeat the same answer over
22. 0:51and over for different interview
23. 0:53questions as an Amazon ball raiser this
24. 0:55is by far the worst interview mistake
25. 0:57I've seen and a mistake that's very
26. 0:59common as well well you don't want to
27. 1:01sound like a broken record that plays
28. 1:03the same song over and over anytime you
29. 1:06hit play instead you want to use
30. 1:08different accomplishments and failures
31. 1:10each time you hear a different interview
32. 1:13question I'll give you an example I have
33. 1:15a 9-year-old boy and we love playing
34. 1:17with Legos together so if you ask me in
35. 1:19the interview hey Nick what is your most
36. 1:22favorite Lego creation you've made I
37. 1:24will show you this Transformer car and
38. 1:26I'd say look at how cool this is this is
39. 1:28a Transformer that's also a car this is
40. 1:31B and it's really awesome and that's my
41. 1:32favorite Lego creation and then I'd say
42. 1:35awesome great now tell me your most
43. 1:37challenging logo creation which creation
44. 1:39gave you the most headaches while you
45. 1:41made it and I would say oh it's the
46. 1:44actual same car and the challenge with
47. 1:46that was that I had to glue some of the
48. 1:48pieces together because I have to
49. 1:50transform the car and it falls apart and
50. 1:52usual Legos don't do that and then as an
51. 1:55interviewer I would say fine now tell me
52. 1:58about the Lego creation where you
53. 2:00learned the most and if I say yet again
54. 2:03well actually this is a pretty cool
55. 2:05creation and I learned a ton and I
56. 2:07learned all kinds of data about be then
57. 2:09at that point you would be pretty fed up
58. 2:12with me and you would think that I don't
59. 2:15have a diverse set of accomplishments
60. 2:17instead I should show you a bunch of my
61. 2:19other creations there's this Pac-Man
62. 2:22Lego that we put together or this
63. 2:26Nintendo TV where you
64. 2:30as Mario jump over glomas and so on and
65. 2:33so forth so the point
66. 2:36is do not repeat the same answer to
67. 2:40different interview questions the Peril
68. 2:43you walk into by repeating the same
69. 2:45answer over and over is that the
70. 2:47interviewer may think that your scope is
71. 2:50too limited for the role you're
72. 2:51interviewing for and would recommend a
73. 2:53no higher as a result do not do that
74. 2:56mistake number two is try to reverse any
75. 2:59engineer which leadership principle
76. 3:02Amazon is asking with each interview
77. 3:04question some context first Amazon has
78. 3:0716 behavioral leadership principles
79. 3:10which they examine whether you raise the
80. 3:12bar on these principles or not with
81. 3:15different behavioral interview questions
82. 3:17so for example if Amazon wants to find
83. 3:19out if you raise the bar on backbone
84. 3:22disagree and commit they would ask you a
85. 3:24question like hey Nick tell me a time
86. 3:26when you disagreed on something
87. 3:29important with your manager so lots of
88. 3:31interview candidates go online looking
89. 3:33for these interview questions and they
90. 3:35memorize how to answer them thinking
91. 3:37that doing so is going to prepare them
92. 3:38for the interview that is a big mistake
93. 3:40because of two reasons before I tell you
94. 3:42what those reasons are let me show you
95. 3:43another quick example so I have these
96. 3:45five crayons in my hand and I would ask
97. 3:48you which one of these five crayons is
98. 3:50the shortest and I'm asking you to
99. 3:52decide based on the color of these
100. 3:54crayons so my question is nonsensical
101. 3:56there's no correlation there's no link
102. 3:58at all between the color of the crayons
103. 4:00and their length so I might feel like
104. 4:02guessing and maybe today I feel like
105. 4:05green and I would say well the green
106. 4:06crayon is the shortest and lo and behold
107. 4:08I'm I'm wrong so if I show you all the
108. 4:10Crayons the shortest crayon is actually
109. 4:13the pink crayon now as you can see
110. 4:17there's no link at all between the color
111. 4:20of these crayons and their length the
112. 4:22answer to the question I'm asking it's
113. 4:25the very same case when you compare the
114. 4:28Amazon interview question question in
115. 4:30the leadership principle that is hiding
116. 4:32behind that question so trying to
117. 4:34reverse engineer which leadership
118. 4:35principle is hiding behind which
119. 4:37interview question is a Fool's errand
120. 4:38it's like this very complicated equation
121. 4:41that you're trying to solve that
122. 4:42frequently does not have a right answer
123. 4:45now let me tell you the two reasons why
124. 4:47that's the case reason number one is
125. 4:50because the interview questions bank
126. 4:52that Amazon uses to help their
127. 4:54interviewers with asking interview
128. 4:56questions is just there as a suggestion
129. 4:59for the interviewers it's not mandatory
130. 5:02the interviewers don't care about the
131. 5:05individual questions they care about the
132. 5:06leadership principles Behind these
133. 5:08questions so if you've done interviews
134. 5:10at Amazon for a while you usually don't
135. 5:13use these suggested interview questions
136. 5:15because you want to be different reason
137. 5:16number two is because there's very few
138. 5:18leadership principles that are easy to
139. 5:20detect based on the interview question a
140. 5:23couple of these leadership principles
141. 5:24are have backbone disagree and commit
142. 5:26and hire and develop the best for the
143. 5:28rest of the leadership principles you
144. 5:30cannot do so it's virtually impossible
145. 5:33to decide if a question is evaluating
146. 5:37ownership or dive deep or deliver
147. 5:40results or high standards or bias
148. 5:42fraction so on and so forth you get my
149. 5:44point so what do you do instead you
150. 5:47should come up with your top
151. 5:49accomplishments and failures in your
152. 5:50career without repeating those answers
153. 5:53and make sure that the interview Loop in
154. 5:56total hears those top accomplishments
155. 5:59throughout your day of interviews then
156. 6:02what will happen with that is the loop
157. 6:05when they debrief they're going to
158. 6:07compare your answers across the entirety
159. 6:10of the interview so as long as you use
160. 6:13all your answers in the best possible
161. 6:16way match an answer that you've prepared
162. 6:18ahead of time to in every question you
163. 6:20here have confidence that the loop is
164. 6:24going to be aware that you've raised a
165. 6:27set of leadership principles with each
166. 6:29of your interview responses all right
167. 6:32this takes us to big mistake number
168. 6:33three which is saying that you don't
169. 6:36have a big professional failure as a bar
170. 6:39raiser I see that mistake all the time
171. 6:41and there's two main variants that
172. 6:43people fall into this mistake variant
173. 6:46number one is by answering that you
174. 6:48don't have a big professional failure or
175. 6:50variant number two is by describing a
176. 6:54very minute and Tiny mistake as a big
177. 6:57professional failure if you say you
178. 6:59don't have a big professional failure
179. 7:01one of two things are possible one
180. 7:03you're lying to me which lowers the bar
181. 7:05and is a red flag on earn rust or two
182. 7:08you're actually saying the truth and you
183. 7:10have rested invested in your career so
184. 7:12far which lowers the bar which is a red
185. 7:14flag on a bunch of other leadership
186. 7:16Amazon principles like high standards
187. 7:18ownership disagree and commit so on and
188. 7:20so forth customer Obsession you name it
189. 7:23do not make that mistake then variant
190. 7:25number two is if you describe something
191. 7:28trivial let's say I ask you what's your
192. 7:31biggest professional failure and you say
193. 7:33something like well I showed up late to
194. 7:35one of the meetings with my bosses and I
195. 7:37said something that was not right and
196. 7:40they looked at me funny and they went
197. 7:41with a different solution and that
198. 7:43embarrassed me so there's really no
199. 7:45material failure here that cost the
200. 7:48company any significant resources
201. 7:50instead the way you should answer the
202. 7:52tell me about a failure interview
203. 7:53question is by describing a significant
204. 7:55failure describing what lessons you've
205. 7:57learned from the failure and then
206. 8:00mention another time when you've used
207. 8:02those lessons to achieve success in the
208. 8:05future mistake number four when
209. 8:07interviewing with Amazon is using
210. 8:09generalities when answering the why
211. 8:12Amazon interview question I'll give you
212. 8:14another example you can see that there's
213. 8:17a bunch of marbles in this ZIP log bag
214. 8:21and if I asked you which one of these
215. 8:23marbles is your favorite marble and if
216. 8:25you said well I like this marble on the
217. 8:27top and this one right here and I like
218. 8:31this top marble because it's blue and
219. 8:33because it's round and because it's made
220. 8:36of glass that's a nonsensical answer
221. 8:38because the answer applies to all the
222. 8:40other marbles just as much as to the
223. 8:42marble on the top instead I would say I
224. 8:45don't know if you can see it on the
225. 8:46camera but this marble here it tends to
226. 8:48be blank the other ones have all kinds
227. 8:50of streaks and Hues on top of them this
228. 8:54marble is completely blank so I could
229. 8:57say instead hey this is my favorite
230. 8:59marble right here because it has nothing
231. 9:01on it and I'm a minimalist and I like
232. 9:04things simple and that helps me
233. 9:06declutter and that's why this is my
234. 9:07favorite marble so similarly when you
235. 9:11answer the Y Amazon question you should
236. 9:13use answers that make no sense when
237. 9:15applied to any other company mistakes
238. 9:18you can make in this regard are using
239. 9:20answers such as I want to work with
240. 9:21super smart people or I want to work on
241. 9:25things that change the trajectory of
242. 9:27humankind and amazing technology
243. 9:29or I want to work on problems with huge
244. 9:32scope these are all good answers but
245. 9:34they show laziness they show that you
246. 9:36have not done your homework you've not
247. 9:38prepared for the interview these answers
248. 9:40apply to any other major technology
249. 9:43company like Facebook or Microsoft or
250. 9:45Google or what have you they don't just
251. 9:47apply to Amazon instead all of your why
252. 9:51Amazon Interview responses need to apply
253. 9:53just to Amazon and they need to be
254. 9:54nonsensical when applied to any other
255. 9:57company good examples in this case are
256. 10:00answers when you describe how well you
257. 10:03respond to Amazon's leadership
258. 10:04principles when you talk about how
259. 10:06you're an Amazon customer when you talk
260. 10:08about how you love using AWS if you are
261. 10:11a B2B customer of Amazon when you
262. 10:13describe how you've been impressed by
263. 10:14Jeff Bezos in their career so far and so
264. 10:17on and so forth so use answers that do
265. 10:21not make sense for any other the company
266. 10:23to show that you've done your homework
267. 10:24and you deeply care about Amazon that
268. 10:26you are a missionary not a mercenary all
269. 10:29right and the fifth and final mistake
270. 10:32that we'll cover is not having prepared
271. 10:35questions for the interviewers when it
272. 10:36comes your end to ask questions at the
273. 10:39end of each interview you should be
274. 10:40prepared at the end of each interview to
275. 10:43ask one or two questions for each person
276. 10:45who speaks with you if you've come all
277. 10:48the way to the end you've done a
278. 10:49fantastic job with your interview Loop
279. 10:52you've impressed each person you've
280. 10:54spoken with and then at the end they say
281. 10:56great Nick thanks a lot we maybe have a
282. 10:58couple of minutes do you have a question
283. 11:00or two for me and if I say no I don't
284. 11:02I'm good thanks a lot that's a big Miss
285. 11:05that's a big whiff and it again shows
286. 11:08that you are not curious enough for this
287. 11:11job you don't care about it enough maybe
288. 11:14it shows that you're more of a mercenary
289. 11:16than a missionary again and that's not a
290. 11:19mistake that's not a trap you want to
291. 11:20fall into instead you have to prepare as
292. 11:23I mentioned at least two questions one
293. 11:25or two questions for each interviewer
294. 11:27prepare those questions ahead of time
295. 11:29do your research on the person do your
296. 11:31research on the team who's interviewing
297. 11:33you and make sure to ask those questions
298. 11:35boldly at the end another good approach
299. 11:38here is to listen to the information
300. 11:41that other interviewers have given you
301. 11:43throughout the interviews earlier in the
302. 11:45day and take that information turn it
303. 11:47into a question and ask it to a
304. 11:49different interviewer when it comes your
305. 11:51turn to ask questions all right we have
306. 11:54covered the five big mistakes that
307. 11:55interviews make when they interview with
308. 11:57Amazon one using the same answer over
309. 12:00and over again two reverse engineering
310. 12:02which LPS hide behind which interview
311. 12:05question three saying that you don't
312. 12:07have a big professional failure four
313. 12:10using generalities when answering the Y
314. 12:13Amazon question and five not preparing
315. 12:15your own questions for the end of each
316. 12:17interview now that you know what those
317. 12:19top five mistakes are and how to avoid
318. 12:21them you're ready for the next step
319. 12:23which is watching this video here next
320. 12:25where I'm going to take you on a 7-Day
321. 12:27challenge of how to get hired by Amazon
322. 12:30and change your life for good watch this
323. 12:31video I'll see you there next