Behavioral

[Amazon Leadership Principles] Most Important Questions to Prepare For /  by Lewis Lin

Amazon Employees Reveal Their Favorite Leadership Principles at the Interview

Yong Sohn, who runs the excellent Career School channel, recently polled 103 Amazon employees and asked them:

What are the top 4 Amazon Leadership Principles that you assess during the Amazon interview?

Here are the results:

  1. Ownership 67

  2. Cust Obsession 57

  3. Deliver Results 47

  4. Bias for Action 39

  5. Dive Deep 39

  6. Invent & Simplify 36

  7. Learn and Be Curious 33

  8. Think Big 27

  9. Earn Trust 24

  10. Insist on the Highest Standards 17

  11. Are Right, A Lot 13

  12. Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit 9

  13. Hire and Develop the Best 4

  14. Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility 0

  15. Frugality 0

  16. Strive to be Earth's Best Employee 0

My Takeaways from the Data

This is an exceptional data set, especially if you’re interviewing at Amazon. As many of you are aware, Amazon loves to ask behavioral questions about the Amazon Leadership Principles for ANY Amazon role.

Takeaway #1. Prepare for the top 12

You’ll feel more confident if you prepared responses for popular Leadership Principles vs. attempting to improvise on the spot. This dataset tells you exactly which ones to prepare for in an efficient way.

To help you prepare, use the format I prescribe in my Amazon interview spreadsheet.

Takeaway #2. Ignore the bottom 3.

Amazon never asks questions about frugality. It’s tacky and unflattering to ask that during the interview.

And the two newer leadership principles — Success and Scale as well as Strive to be Earth’s Best Employees — are too new for employees to embrace.