Be passionate; look at the big picture: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s tips to land a job 

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy gave out a few pieces of advice for successful interviews at the US tech giant. Jassy, who took over founder Jeff Bezos’ role in July this year, was speaking at a virtual event for Amazon’s Career Day on Thursday. The firm had said it is hiring for 8,000 roles in India.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s advice for interviewing successfully at the US tech giant:

• Be yourself:  “You want to work at a company who values who you are. Faking it means having to continue to fake it.” He says it’s a better idea to stay to true to yourself and see if the position is a natural fit rather than trying to be something else just to get the job.
• Answer the questions:  “Instead of directly elaborating on the answer (to a question in an interview), people spend 5-10 minutes warming up and end up getting lost and never actually addressing the question,” he said.
• Be passionate about customers: Jassy says Amazon looks for people who are passionate about building what customers want. “Start with customers at the centre and work backwards,” he advised.
• Be inventive and creative:  People who are inventive and creative in their approach and also in the way they answer open-ended questions in an interview find favour at Amazon.
• Look at big picture + details:  It’s important to have a big picture view of any issue, but you also have to be detail-oriented, he says. “Where the rubber meets the road is in the details. From the junior roles to the senior-most, you have to be good at executing details,” he added.
• Have high standards: Jassy said, “We like people with high standards because customers have high standards.”
• Be a missionary: Missionaries put the goals of the team above themselves, unlike mercenaries, he says.
• Stay humble: People who are humble know that they don’t know it all and are willing to learn, he adds. 

Jassy, who took over founder Jeff Bezos’ role in July this year, was speaking at a virtual event for Amazon’s Career Day on Thursday. He reiterated that they are hiring 55,000 technical and corporate employees across the globe for software development, marketing, design, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and research scientist roles. Amazon had earlier announced this would include 8,000 roles in 35 Indian cities.

Jassy, who headed the AWS vertical before becoming CEO of the online retail giant, said he did not have a master plan for his career when he started out in his twenties, but a couple of traits such as not worrying about trying new things, trying to go with your passion and what you can imagine to be exciting as well as fully committing to whatever jobs you do irrespective of how different it is to your background have held him in good stead.

He also said his understanding of mentorship is a combination of modelling behaviour, coaching and “then just giving people significant opportunities to stretch, and being there for them when they need you”.

The event has 140 Amazon recruiters conducting 2,000 free, one-on-one career coaching sessions with job seekers in India. Amazon said recruiters will advise attendees on the job search process, resume-building and interview tips.

Also read: COVID-19 impact: 68% jobseekers looking to switch industries, says Amazon India survey
Also read: Amazon to host first-ever Career Day in India, hire over 8,000 new employees