I had an odd interview on my second loop with AWS and wondered if anyone has had similar. Random Sidebar thought - AWS recruiting is fast! Amazons interview process from internal recommendation to phone screens is very quick. In both cases it was 5 days at most from recommendation to recruiter screen, then 3-4 days to first tech screen. With over 500k employees that is impressive. I am told with MS it can take up to 6 months even with an internal referral. As a company with under 200k employees that should be embarrassing. First Interview Loop - AWS Team is great and my bar raiser is someone I follow: I had a first loop for TAM (as I have moderate AWS experience and initially thought that would be a logical AWS starting point) - had the phone tech screen and went onsite for the 1/2 day. The entire process was excellent, teams were great. The bar raiser and I had a heart to heart and he felt I should go ahead and apply for an SA role instead. So later that day I got the call and the team concurred. I even was surprised to meet as my bar raiser someone who i follow a lot (medium, aws vids, etc) and respect. Second Interview Loop - Tech screen great, Second call WTH just happened!!: After a week I thought I found my ideal role to get into AWS - SA for Microsoft Products. As I am deep on AD, ADFS and Okta my thinking is that this is a good fit. I have 15+ YOE Consulting, 6 with Azure on Enterprise level. I have been designing and deploying AD, Exchange, System Center, VMM and Vmware since the products first came out. The recruiter call and the initial tech phone screens were great. I got along very well with my tech interviewer and felt this could be a great fit. I was told that there would be a second phone screen on leadership with the hiring manager for another 60 min. As I have done the previous loop for TAM and been over the leadership questions I thought I knew what to expect. However…. I dialed in and waited for 6-8 min. When the HM got online he said hi and asked right away if i had any questions. I was surprised as this is normally at the end but I asked some and felt he was not really paying attention. It seemed he was stalling and looking for my info packet. He asked about my last project and a leadership question - one i had 2x before. He asked if i had any other questions. I maybe asked 1 or 2 then he said he had to go and hung up. The whole call took 22 minutes from when he joined the conference! I was hoping he was having a bad day and we would meet again onsite. But during the whole time, although he was polite, I felt he was not listening and just wanted to get off the call. As expected a day later I got the standard rejection email. I sent a detailed email to the recruiters who said they were surprised, also never got clarity on why it was 30 min and a promise to follow up with the team. I do not really expect them to do anything as he is also the hiring manager but I wanted them to know. If I fail an interview - i own it. But to have a choice made for reasons unknown based on 20 minutes was a bit much. I have interviewed people for many years and am always considerate that I am having an impact on that persons career and always treat them with respect. Also I know I am a representative of the company for this person and want them to leave with a positive impression of the company even if they do not get the job. Anyway - my question is - has anyone had this type of thing happen during an AWS phone screen?
Yes, this happened to me last year..but I got an on-site interview though
Sometimes this just happens at companies. Maybe he didn’t like your resume or had someone else in mind or was just a prick. It sucks - I’m sorry, don’t take it personally. Interviews aren’t a perfect process - often times they’re just as much of a crapshoot. Consider yourself lucky for not working for someone like that guy and try again! Def ask the recruiters if there are other opps on other teams
22 minutes? You’re done. Don’t hold your breath.
tl;dr please