How long a STAR story should take during Amazon interview?
Mar 24, 2021
8 Comments
Question is specifically for Amazon. not other companies since Amazon cares STAR much more than others.
I am watching famous Amazon interview coaches on youtube. they talk very opposite. one of them Holly lee says "it shouldnt be more than 1minute. nobody will listen more." and another one Amazon interview whizz (ex bar raiser), she says " 7 minute is the best. story should provide all necessary details". both of them has huge success rate for coaching and people getting offers. but it makes me so confused about how I should prepare my stories...
Amazon's current interviewers suggestions highly appreciated.
comments
“Okay, so my customers are business users in San Francisco. I had one customer mention over the phone that he had nightmares while he sleeps. I wanted to improve his experience, so I looked up his address, went to his residence, and hid in his closet. That night, I watched over him as he slept. No bad dreams for him!”
*Interviewer mindlessly types your story.*
“And what metric did you use to show how effective your changes were?”
“The number of nightmares went from 1 to 0. That’s a 100% decrease.”
*Interviewer types “100”*
“Okay. Now I have a coding question for you. Say you have a linked list where each node has a random pointer...”
- A 2 mins story will not have enough depth for the interviewer to ask follow-up questions. This means a good chance your interviewer will ask another question for the same LP - so you would have to tell another example! You might also get feedback that you don’t have enough depth and not the right fit for this level.
- A 7 mins story is a drag
- 4-5 mins allows you to cover the LP appropriately and throw in enough details for follow-up questions. You’ll most probably get 3-4 follow up questions which’ll take another 10-12 minutes. Overall, 15-20 minutes for the entire LP.
Additional notes
- Don’t worry if a few of your stories are 3-4 minutes (that also works). Anything shorter that might not show enough depth.
- More importantly keep it conversational - take 1-2 second pauses in between to give space to the interviewer in case they want to clarify some details. Good luck!
I've interviewed almost 100 people. Good candidates have a memorable end to end story that touches multiple LPs.
You can create an excel spreadsheet where you map out a story and see how it aligns with the LPs.
A good hint that you're on the right track is followups.
However, 1 minute is way too short. Just imagine filling up 3LP interviews with 1 minute stories. Do you have 180 examples that you want to share?