Amazon leaders are encouraged to 'Learn and Be Curious.' Give me an example of when you stepped outside of your comfort zone to learn something new.
Amazon's 5th Leadership Principle is 'Learn and Be Curious.' This principle states, 'Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.'
Amazonians are okay with acting counterintuitively and jumping outside of their comfort zone. The interviewer wants to hear evidence that you are the type of person to approach a new situation with enthusiasm and curiosity. Show that you enjoy taking on a new perspective while growing professionally and personally.
For this behavioral-based question, choose a real-life example of when you did something that you were uncomfortable with at first but knew was essential to your personal or professional development. Amazon asks that when you answer behavioral interview questions, you try to follow the STAR answer method. STAR is an acronym for Situation, Task, Action, Result.
- Situation: Provide the contextual information the interviewer needs to know to make sense of your story.
- Task: Continuing to set the stage, give the interviewer an idea of your role and responsibilities in this story.
- Action: Next, offer a detailed description of the steps you took in this story.
- Result: Last, talk about the specific, measurable outcomes that resulted from your actions.
If you have work experience, it's best to provide an example from your professional life. If you are new to your career, consider an example from your post-secondary education, a team sport, volunteer commitment, or a club-based activity.
"(Situation) During my final year of university, I landed a highly-coveted internship at Company ABC. For 12 weeks, I held the role of Marketing Assistant Intern. The experience was incredible, and I was thirsty to learn as much as I could during the 3 months; however, being new to my career, it was intimidating at first to ask questions and jump into tasks without some trepidation. (Task) After the first week, I reflected on the experience and decided that I needed to make more of the remaining weeks. I concluded that this could only happen if I were incessantly curious and ready to explore tasks without fear. (Action) Every Friday for the remaining 11 weeks, I asked my direct supervisor for feedback on my work, weekend homework focused on making improvements, and a new task that I could take on for the upcoming Monday. He thought it was a great idea and agreed to provide me with that mentorship. I spent every weekend studying ways that I could better my performance. I learned about optimizing copy for marketing materials, preparing persuasive proposals, crafting engaging presentations, and learning social media channels new to me, such as TikTok. Every day of this internship took me out of my comfort zone. (Result) As a result, I received rave reviews from Company XYZ after my internship was complete. Best of all, I gained many new skills that I could include on my resume, which brought me to this interview with Amazon today! If you choose me as your next Brand Specialist, rest assured I will continue my commitment to being curious and continually learning."
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