When I explained that I would need to wear a mask during the interview due to the rules at my university library, my first interviewer said something disapproving like “that’s really too bad”. During my portfolio presentation, he rushed me through parts of the presentation he felt were irrelevant, saying that he had already seen these things in my portfolio and didn’t need to see them again. Thus, I had to adjust my presentation on the spot and rush through certain parts. Amazon uses its own web conferencing software Chime for the interviews, instead of something candidates might be familiar with such as Zoom or Skype. This was especially challenging when I had to share my screen during my presentation and wasn’t able to see my interviewer’s video via the default settings so I felt like I was presenting blind. I also felt that the interviewers were asking questions that were not the most appropriate considering my current experience as a bachelor’s level candidate with around a year of experience. For example, one of my presentations was on a school project and my first interviewer asked me many different probing questions about my methods. (It’s a school project—the reason why I didn’t do another round of tests is because that wasn’t assigned. No, I didn’t do initial user interviews, because that wasn’t part of the project.) I did my best by talking about things I could have done during the assignment, but I left feeling like I had failed to meet the interviewer’s expectations. It’s worth noting that this project was the first UX project I ever did. The second interviewer was more aware of this issue. For example, she first asked me to talk about when I had been in a situation where a client and I might’ve disagreed on an aspect of a project. But I had worked with only one client outside of my university, ever. She slightly broadened her question to include times when I was working on a team with someone with a different personality and I was able to answer the question then using a university club situation. Overall not the best interview. During the student programs webinar some of the staff emphasized that Amazon hires on potential, but they seemed to have pretty high expectations. Maybe it was a mistake that I got an interview in the first place with my amount of experience, and the position is only suited to undergrads with lots of experience or master’s candidates.

Two back to back 45 min interview. One is behavioral and one is technical. Behavioral part consists of three “tell me about a time when you…” type of questions. Technical part is a standard portfolio review.