Tips for Acing Amazon Leadership Principles Questions

Here are some tips to help you prep for questions on Amazon's Leadership Principles.

Predict leadership principles questions using the job description.

This first tip comes straight from Cody Nelson, Sr. Manager of Recruiting, Worldwide Operations at Amazon.

"If you can think of stories and examples related to the requirements in the job description, you will be better prepared to answer the behavioral questions in your interview.”

For example, say you’re applying for this Senior Product Manager role at Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services.)

There are plenty of keywords right in the job summary that signal leadership principles you might want to prepare stories for. For example:

“AWS is looking for an entrepreneurial Senior Product Manager to develop and scale a new productivity product...”

Write stories mapping to "Ownership", "Invent and Simplify", and "Bias for Action" to demonstrate your entrepreneurial bent, as well as "Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility" to show you know how to scale sustainably.

Don’t skimp on detail regarding the results of your projects.

“Dive deep” is one of the leadership principles - so don’t forget to do so in your interview. Since Amazon emphasizes experience-based, behavioral-type questions, you can differentiate yourself significantly by providing excruciating detail, especially around results.

“We want to know the numbers. We want to know who was working on the project and how you delivered tangible results.” - Sr. Recruitment Manager, Finance and Global Business Services @ Amazon

Prepare to talk about stakeholders...

Amazon wants to know who you worked with, and how you fit into a team environment. Reading through the leadership principles, you’ll note that elements of leadership and being a good team player are emphasized (e.g. “Hire and Develop the Best”, “Insist on the Highest Standards”, “Earn Trust”, etc.)

It can be helpful to diagram your stories so that you properly capture all important stakeholders and how your actions affected them.

To do this, note all relevant stakeholders in relation to you. Higher-ups, peers, cross-functional peers, and any direct reports should all be captured. Write notes on how you worked with them - including any disagreements and how they were resolved (great opportunity to demonstrate “Disagree and Commit!”)

...but don’t lose focus on your own contributions.

As a Senior Client Lead Recruiter, Global Specialty Fulfillment @ Amazon puts it:

"Interviewing is not the time to minimize what you have done."

If you’ve taken the time to dive deep and recorded specific details, this shouldn’t be hard. Let the results speak for themselves. You’re here to sell yourself.

Demonstrate a readiness to learn.

Another common thread you’ll notice in the Amazon Leadership Principles is an appetite for learning. “Learn and Be Curious”, “Bias for Action” and “Think Big” all require some degree of intelligent risk-taking behavior. Amazon recognizes that mistakes will happen, and they encourage you not to shy away from discussing failure - with the caveat that you can articulate what you learned.

Additionally, you have a golden opportunity to showcase your appetite for learning and make a memorable case for why you’re a good fit if you mention what you hope to learn while answering “Why Amazon?”

Practice.

We can’t stress this enough. Since you won’t be able to predict what questions you’ll face, the best thing you can do is practice these questions thoroughly. In addition to daily peer mock sessions, Exponent offers industry-leading interview coaching. If leadership principles questions have you feeling anxious, coaching can help. You will:

• Get an insider’s look from someone who’s been interviewed, got the offer, and worked at the companies you’re applying at.
• Receive an objective evaluation of where you stand as a job candidate.
• Get personalized feedback and coaching to help improve and get more job offers.

Tip: A few of our coaches have even worked at Amazon, so you can trust that they know exactly what you need to do to prepare. If you’re interviewing for PM, SWE / SDE, EM, or TPM roles at Amazon, we’ve got coaching available just for you! Review their profiles here.