I received a job lead from my commanding officer. I contacted the head of Amazon military recruitment directly via email. Inside the email I included my resume. We exchanged emails for a few days, but I felt that my general want to stay in the North East ended my employability.
A new recruiter contacted me a week later to set up a on the phone interview. Several days later, we spoke on the phone for about 30-40 minutes. She was very pleasant and gave me positive feed back. She expressed that I fit the needs of the company, and wanted to fly me to Phoenix, Arizona for an on sight interview.
Amazon has a whole program set up for interviewing Area Manager candidates. They took us out with 3 recruiters, 2 area managers and 15 candidates to a local area restaurant. I sat down with the area managers and had a great conversation. They were there to literally there to give us the answers to the test. They were receptive to our questions, very friendly and encouraging.
The next day, I was placed with the second group of interviewees. The shuttle was late for our pickup, by about an hour. We arrived at the facility and sat in a holding area for about 25 minutes.
Both groups entered a conference room and completed a work flow problem, basic algebra, they provide you a calculator. Our group went on a tour of the facility with an experienced Area manager.
The tour was hands down the most positive experience, the area manager was very friendly and helped calm our nerves. We toured the building for almost 2 hours. I asked a lot of questions and stopped to speak to several of the hourly employees.
The employees seemed content and happy with their work. The hourly pay is very good for the job they are doing. I even thought to myself that if I knew about this during college, I would've gotten a job with Amazon.
We returned to the conference room and we were placed in our 1 on 1 interviews. My first interview was with a Operations manager. We went over my resume, he asked a few questions about my experience and how I can translate my skills to Amazon.
The conversation went well. We then went over my math problem. I presented my side of it, and then he threw me a curve ball. He seemed to struggle to communicate the problem to me, but he was kind enough to work with me a reword it. After the math problem, we were cut short by the recruiter who needed to get me to another interview and out the door.
I felt unsure after the first interview but I entered the second one with confidence. The second interview was with a younger gentleman, an area manager in his mid twenties. He was kind and a little more friendly than the first interview. He asked all leadership based questions and was interested in hearing your take on leadership.
I got the feel that they wanted to create stress in one interview and see if you could recover for the second, good cop bad cop routine. Amazon does a great job overall. I was motivated to start the job. They really want military leaders from all branches.
I received a phone call several days later from a recruiter who told me they were all impressed and wanted to offer me a position.