Landing a job at Amazon is notoriously competitive—with the tech giant known to throw out some bizarre curveball questions. But it’s not stumbling on your response to Jeff Bezos’s favorite question, “how lucky are you?” that’ll cost you the job.
Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s head of AI, exclusively told Fortune at the VivaTech conference in Paris that it’s your attitude that’s make-or-break.
“Be genuine,” he advised. “If you’re not genuine, you won’t do well in an Amazon interview.”
“We take our Leadership Principles very seriously,” he adds. “If you’re looking for a job at Amazon, we look for whether you really model those behaviors. And the way to do that is essentially be, first of all, be authentic.”
And Prasad, says his own 2013 interview to join the tech giant, as its director of machine learning, is a “prime example” of that.
“I did not know about the Leadership Principles and I got hired, which means you have to have it in you, that you’re really caring about making lives better for our customers; you can deliver results; you’re a trusted person.”
“The bulk of our interviewing is very behavioral, and of course, we want you to be competent, but how you work in a team is important.”
And unlike a growing number of employers today who are sussing out cultural fit with sneaky coffee cup tests and psychological mind games, Prasad says he doesn’t use unusual interview methods to spot who is genuine.
“I think it’s very easy to tell whether you’re authentic, whether you really are passionate about why you want this job or role.”
The ‘lucky’ question Jeff Bezos always asked interviewees at Amazon
Attitude has long been as important as aptitude at Amazon. A former Amazon executive-turned-investor Dan Rose recently revealed on X that Jeff Bezos would ask interviewees whether they are “a lucky person” back in 1999 to test for exactly that.
“What a great way to filter for optimists and people who manifest success,’ Rose wrote. “Sorting for optimistic people is a good proxy for leadership potential and likelihood of success. Perceiving yourself as lucky is a good proxy for optimism.”
Bezos has of course stepped down from the company he founded. But it’s clear that the culture of hiring for culture fit has remained.
As well as Prasad’s claims that genuineness is more of an interview green flag than ingenuity, Amazon’s current CEO Andy Jassy has said that an “embarrassing” amount of young worker’s success depends on their attitude.
Now, the company is even cracking down on the use of AI in its interviews because it gets in the way of evaluating candidates’ “authentic” skills, experience, and personality.
