STAR Method - How to Ace Your Amazon Interview

[Music] hi I'm Cody and I'm a senior manager of town acquisition at Amazon I've had the privilege of interviewing Amazon

candidates for nearly 9 years and today I'd like to share some of my best tips to help you Ace your Amazon Interview in many interviews outside of Amazon candidates are asked hypothetical

questions for example how would you deal with a difficult customer or stakeholder or what would you do if if you're faced with adversity or business challenge these types of questions are

hypothetical and ask how you might act in the future at Amazon we like to rely on data and facts to attain that data we ask behavioral questions these questions

instead ask what you've already achieved or learned we ask candidates to share some specific examples of when they've demonstrated behaviors or skills for example tell me about a time you dealt

with a difficult customer or stakeholder or share an example of a time when you face adversity or overcame a business challenge so knowing this what do we recommend to be the best way to answer a

behavioral question the star method what is star the star method is a framework to structure answers for behavioral interview questions star is an acronym

that stands for situation task actions and results now to break that down situation explain the situation to the interviewer so they understand the

context of your example task talk about the challenge or goal of what you're trying to achieve action describe the steps that you took to reach your goal

result explain the outcomes of what you did you can even explain what you learned from that experience at Amazon we value straightforward and clear

communication star is a method to help provide a framework for Clear answers it's not something to memorize but rather a tool to clear clearly communicate your strengths and

experiences some candidates even use star terminology as they provide an answer now here's how you could use star let's pretend you're asked the question please provide an example of a time you

exceeded customer expectations here's how I might respond using star method now let's begin with the situation in 2020 I was a customer

success manager at my previous company in this role I was in charge of delivering a software implement mentation to a$2 billion company of

around 5,000 employees that operated in 36 countries now let's pause there the specific and publicly available data helps set the context for my

example task The Challenge and task ahead of that year was to successfully Implement on board and train the users in all 36

countries success would be measured in a monthly satisfaction survey as well as a joint report to their executive leadership board once a quarter now let's pause there these data points give

the interviewer a better picture of the context risks and visibility into my example now action this was not my first implementation but the first at this

scale knowing that I formulated a plan to take three actions first I created a customer feedback mechanism on a weekly

basis now this was above and be on because in the past this was collected quarterly I also had the survey translated to 10 different languages

covering all 36 countries second I wanted to make sure our users knew the why behind this change and I took the action of creating a monthly office

hours and 12 continued education sessions on the product in fact these sessions are now being used as standard practice for all future implementations

which there have been three of this size so far far and third a byproduct of the customer feedback actually revealed insights to other opportunities in their organization I delivered these insights

to the executive board in a thorough report and they were delighted to hear the strengths and opportunities of their organization let's pause there notice I broke down my plan into three main

actions and notice that I'm using ey statements for the actions that I owned okay now the result as a result the implementation was delivered with a

customer feedback score of 9.5 out of 10 and that's the highest our company's ever seen the insights report opened another Avenue business with the

customer that doubled our Revenue let's pause there here and throughout this example notice how I'm using quantifiable data to show the scale of my impact hopefully that example gave

you a good idea of how to structure answers using star there's no right or wrong way to use star but here's some tips tips it can be tempting to jump into

hypothetical scenarios focus on actual behaviors and outcomes if it didn't go as expected share the why or learning behind it pause and ask for feedback

would you like to learn more details about this or does this give you a clear picture of the situation task action or result we value quantifiable data at

Amazon share your examples with numbers timelines and quantifiable results where possible some folks bring notes to supplement their examples I don't think I've seen a job description that has perfect

memorization as a requirement for any role here remember the goal of the interview is to communicate clearly with your data star is one tool to achieving

that thank you for watching to learn more about how to prepare for your Amazon Interview check out interviewing at Amazon prep guide linked below