I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jul 2013
Interview
The interview process was not as intense as I have heard it would be. I did have many interviews, and the interviewers did ask many detailed questions about my work. However, the questions were not too difficult, because I had in depth knowledge of the projects I used in my examples.
The first phone interview I had was with a recruiter. He asked several basic questions. He explained the job, but did not go into detail at all. He said that he was unable to disclose too many details about what I would be doing. He basically gave me a description of a job that did not match the job description of which I was applying. However, the job description was vague. A certain aspect of my resume had got his attention and he told me the interviewers would be focusing on that. I was also surprised when the recruiter asked how much I was making at my current job, what my salary expectations were, and if I'm renting or own a home.
The next phone interview was with a senior manager. He dug deep into my work. When I would explain a project, he would ask several questions about it. He also made suggestions to my work of alternatives routes, and I explained why or why not that would work.
The next phone interview I had was with another manager. She asked questions that were more behavioral.
The next interview was at Amazon headquarters in Seattle. I flew in the evening before the interview. The day of my interview, I was scheduled to meet with five different people. The first two interviews were with the same people I did my phone interview with. They asked similar questions. The third interview was with the recruiter. Mostly he did the talking. The fourth interview was difficult. The interviewer honed in on one specific skill set and we talked about that the entire 45 minutes. I'm not sure I did well on that part. The final interview was with human resources. HR asked questions about how I've improved customer experience and behavioral questions.
The first week went by after my interview, and I heard nothing. The second week went by. The first day after two weeks went by, I sent my recruiter an e-mail thanking him again for opportunity to interview and asked if they had a timeframe of when they will contact candidates. I was originally told in my interview that they would have an answer to me in two weeks. Another week went by and I heard nothing. I called my recruiter and left a voicemail and also sent an e-mail basically inquiring again.
It's been over two months now and I never heard back from them. I even check the hiring portal every day and my status is still "Under Review". I find this almost insulting that a company of their stature would not provide an e-mail, letter, or phone call to candidates after the interview process. I spent a large amount of time preparing my resume and prepping for my interviews. Not to mention I had to take hours of vacation time to make the phone calls and in-person interview happen. I've never heard of a company doing this, but after looking at some blogs and articles from Forbes, I have found that some companies do this as a way to avoid confrontation. That's sad.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was your most innovating idea at your present job?