Amazon HR Manager interview questions

The hiring manager seemed irrated to deal with me. He was "told" to call me because I was a referral. We set up a time to do a phone screen and he was 30 minutes late. He made sure to let me know that I was lucky to get this as I was not his choice. This was interesting to me as I was more than qualified for the position and a loyal customer. The interview was odd at best and he did everything in his power to make sure I knew how I would not fit with Amazon. They only wanted to hire "techy" HR people. I happen to have a varied HR background and was just exploring my options because of all the great things I heard about Amazon and I was asked to apply. At the end, he begrudgling stated that I actually had a lot of what they needed and he would move me on. I never heard back. I was a great experience for me since I use it as a training "what not to do during an interview" segment for all of my new managers. Thanks guy, you rocked it! I hope Amazon figures out you are not their kind of guy.

I was contacted by an in-house recruiter. Had a few phone interviews which went pretty well. They wanted me to respond to a few questions on paper which I gladly obliged. Then they arranged for me to fly over for a round of video-conferencing and face interviews - that was when things started going downhill. I have done recruiting for over 8 years so I should know that building rapport with candidates is very important. At Amazon there is none - the in-person interviews were the most impersonal I have ever experienced. And get this - the interviewers were talking to me from behind their laptop screens, all except one of them. As I spoke, they were busy typing into their computers and there was minimal eye contact. I could not believe this was how they interviewed candidates. I should also add that I was interviewed by their executive recruiting team. No personal questions were asked, I didn't feel like they were interested in getting to know me as a person, or there was no attempt to get to know me as a person. By the end of the session, I was glad to get on the plane home and file this away as a bad interview experience.