Amazon Financial Analyst Interview Guide
Walk through the stages of the Amazon financial analyst interview process with helpful insights and sample interview questions.
Introduction
In this article, we’ll walk you through the general finance interview process for entry-level finance roles at Amazon. We’ll start with the different programs and opportunities available, then cover the typical interview stages with a particular focus on helpful insights and sample interview questions.
Financial Analyst Roles and Programs
There are several different entry-level finance roles and programs that welcome applications from university students and young professionals.
- AFRP - Amazon Finance Rotation Program
- Finance Internships
- Financial Analyst
Amazon Finance Rotation Program (AFRP)
The Amazon Finance Rotation Program is a 2-year program that typically consists of (2) six-month rotations and (1) full-year rotation within one of the company’s four main tracks: Accounting, Business Unit Finance, Operations Finance Rotation Program, and Treasury Rotation Program.
Accounting: Rotation members will be exposed to internal accounting controls, financial reporting, month-end closing procedures, accounting analytics, and new business launches.
Business Unit Finance: Rotation members will be exposed to key finance operations within four key business units: Amazon Web Services, Consumer, Devices, and Operations.
Operations Finance Rotation Program (OFRP): Rotation members will start their first year supporting site finance and learning the ground-level details at a specific fulfillment center. Following this experience, members will move to a more central supply chain role.
Treasury Rotation Program: Rotation members will work in either the Treasury Group or Global Risk Management Group. Treasury members will be exposed to foreign exchange and fixed-income trading, cash management, and other financing solutions. Risk Management members will rotate through various company insurance teams (Corporate Insurance, Captive Insurance, and Insurance Finance).
Finance Internships
Amazon also offers a range of business, finance, and accounting internships. Well-performing interns are typically fed into the Amazon Finance Rotation Program following graduation or into other full-time business and finance roles.
Financial Analyst
Amazon also posts opportunities for non-rotational full-time financial analyst roles. The recommended previous work experience will vary depending on the seniority level of the role (financial analyst I, financial analyst II, senior financial analyst, etc.).
Interview Stages
The typical entry-level finance role will have the following interview process:
- Resume submission
- Workplace Simulation & Work Style Assessment
- Finance Case Study
- Final Round Interview
Resume Submission
Like most job applications, a finance role at Amazon will require a resume submission. Anyone is welcome to submit an application on the company website, but most will better their chances of moving on to the next stage with an employee referral. For tips on how to obtain an employee referral, check out our article on networking cold email templates.
Applicants can also better their resume chances by using action verbs on their resume and quantifying as many experiences as possible. Amazon is a company that uses data to make logical investment decisions, so be sure to emphasize any relevant quantitative skills and experiences.
Workplace Simulation & Work Style Assessment
Following the submission of your resume, you may be invited to complete an Amazon workplace simulation and work style assessment.
Critical Tip: It will be extremely important to be well-trained on Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles, as many of the presented problems and scenarios will evaluate how well a candidate matches the company’s principles.
Workplace Simulation
The workplace simulation is designed to test your decision-making skills and your ability to apply Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles in a professional work setting. The simulation will create test scenarios using mock emails, direct messages, video prompts, and data visuals (charts, graphs, tables, etc.).
Sample Questions:
- You noticed a calculation error in a colleague’s model that is presenting a slight overestimation of the customer’s shipping cost. Rate the following responses.
- You are evaluating a handful of potential packaging suppliers. One supplier is clearly the cheapest provider. Rate the following responses.
Work Style Assessment
The amazon work style assessment is a behavioral fit test that will measure your responses against the Amazon leadership principles. The assessment will present you with 2 personal statements and the candidate will have to select which statement best represents their work style.
Sample Questions:
- It’s easy for me to remain calm during high-pressure situations.
- I prefer to tackle my tasks independently as opposed to using a team effort.
- I tend to avoid smaller details to focus on a project’s bigger picture.
Finance Case Study
If you pass the resume screen and the various online assessments, then you’ll likely move on to the next stage where you’ll be responsible for completing a finance case study in Excel. You’ll be asked to submit your case study file after a couple of days and then you’ll be asked about your case study in one of your following interviews during the final round.
At the surface level, this exercise will test your Excel skills (being able to use simple formulas: VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, etc.) and your fundamental finance knowledge (Income statement, balance sheet, etc.).
Relevant Excel Functions & Formulas:
- VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP
- INDEX MATCH
- SUMIFS
- IFERROR
- Text-to-Columns
- Pivot Tables
When looking at the case study at a closer level, you’ll see that the exercise was designed to test your ability to clean raw data and turn the data into logical and insightful business decisions.
Most likely, your prompt will include a mock business scenario where you will be in charge of using a dataset to make an argument for why a certain business decision would generate a higher or lower return on investment.
Case Study Tips:
- Clean your data using the most simple methods possible and note the steps you took to clean the data. A messy and complicated Excel file will make it hard for your interviewer to trace and understand your work.
- Make and write down your assumptions if you are stuck and don’t know how to move forward with what is given in the file.
- Connect your quantitative work to qualitative insights. Sometimes a good answer is not the most straightforward as the most profitable solution on paper may not result in the best customer experience (important via Amazon’s leadership principles).
- Be familiar with income statement line items and common metrics (gross margin, net margin, average sales price, etc.).
- Leave room in your analysis to write about any further investigations or considerations that you might make if you were given more time to work on the project.
Final Round Interviews
The final round of interviews will likely consist of 1 technical interview and 3-4 behavioral-focused interviews. The technical interview will expand on the finance case study that you have submitted prior to the start of your final round of interviews.
Technical Interview
Stick to your case study decisions and insights, but also be sure to explain why you’re answer may change depending on other tests that you could run given more data. For example, you might propose asking the warehouse teams for additional data on employee output to make sure that your proposed changes won’t have any unforeseen inefficiencies.
Behavioral Interview
Prepare some background stories from classes, school clubs, previous internships, and extracurricular activities that can be used to answer questions on problem-solving, teamwork, and other common behavioral themes.
Question Preparation: Why Amazon and why this role?
With this question, you might talk about the number of different opportunities that you will be exposed to with its traditional online commerce business and all of its interesting subsidiaries (Ex. Wholefoods). Or, perhaps you are more intrigued with the company’s forward-looking attitude and innovation with its successful cloud and web services. You will want to find a way to say how this type of work exposure, particularly at the junior level, will provide an extremely valuable working experience.
Other Sample Behavioral Questions:
- Tell me about a time you missed a deadline.
- Tell me about a time when you faced conflict in a team project.
- Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the required ask for a task.
- Tell me about some of the weaknesses that you are working on.
- Tell me about a time you used data to make an important decision.
Additional Resources
If you're looking to better prepare your technical skills for any competitive business or finance interviews, consider checking out our Complete Finance & Valuation Course and more using the get started button below!
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