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The Amazon Work Simulation Assessment
The Work Simulation Test is a real-world simulation that evaluates your critical thinking, judgment, and decision-making skills – and focuses on Amazon's culture and Leadership Principles.
Each scenario on the assessment starts by receiving an e-mail, a voice message, or participating in a virtual meeting, which includes instructions and useful info to continue.
As you answer the questions in the scenario, new e-mails and useful info will appear, culminating in another question.
See the following sample question from our practice pack, which highly resembles a question from the actual test. In this scenario, you're an Amazon Program Manager who's in charge of the Black Friday deals, and you run into a problem. What would you do?
Remember - the way you respond to these dilemmas will determine your score.
To give the best answers, you’ll need to have three things:
- Healthy judgment and strong decision-making skills.
- Deep knowledge of Amazon’s 16 leadership principles (or LPs as Amazonians call them).
- The ability to determine which LP outweighs the others in each scenario.
In the question above, for example, you need to consider at least three Leadership Principles when choosing your response: Customer Obsession, Earn Trust, and Deliver Results.
The detailed solution to this question, as well as to all other Work Simulation practice questions, is found in the preparation pack. You’ll submit your calculated response, and in return, you’ll get instant feedback and full explanations made by assessment center experts based on those 16 leadership values.
Amazon Work Simulation Tips
- Don’t worry about time: The Amazon Work Simulation test is pretty much untimed (there's a running clock but it is 2 hours longer than needed). Also - some questions take longer to answer than others.
- Study Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles: They take it seriously and expect you to do the same. it is important to familiarize yourself with Amazon’s 16 leadership principles.
- Find somewhere quiet: The questions ask you to deal with complex work scenarios, and that requires concentration. Find somewhere where you won’t get distracted.
- Practice in advance: Like with any test, practice is the surest way to pass. With this test, it’s even more meaningful – The Amazon Work Simulation is a one-of-a-kind test that feels unfamiliar to many. Take practice tests before taking the real assessment; This might really help you to gain an advantage over other candidates on your way to getting into Amazon.
The Amazon Work Style Assessment
In most cases, you'll need to take the Amazon Work Style Assessment immediately after completing the Work Simulation.
The Work Style Assessment takes about 15 minutes to complete, and it's used to evaluate certain qualities and work styles to see if they fit Amazon’s unique culture and Leadership Principles.
So, for each of the statements in the assessment, you'll need to think deeply about which qualities you'd like to emphasize AND what Leadership Principle "hides" behind the statement.
See this question from the practice pack, for example:
Both of these statements highlight the Leadership Principle 'Earn Trust'. But what statement should you choose? This greatly depends on your personal strengths and the qualities you'd like to present.
Being self-motivated is required at Amazon rather than being a person who needs others to prompt them before considering desirable actions, such as expressing thanks to others.
That's why the desirable response would be choosing 'MOST' or 'MORE' on the right statement.
To access 40 additional practice questions (with in-depth explanations) that resemble the actual Work Style Assessment, get the practice pack on this page.
The Amazon Hiring Simulation Test
There is a reason the Work Simulation test goes by many names (job simulation and hiring simulation). In the past, Amazon used a different kind of assessment, based on the same ideas. From our experience, you are less likely to get the "Amazon Hiring Simulation Test", but should still practice it in these cases:
- You received an email telling you that you must take only a work simulation test and a work style assessment. In that case, you should practice both the work and the hiring simulation tests.
- You got an email specifically indicating that you need to pass a hiring simulation test.
After receiving an invite from Amazon to take an online Hiring Simulation assessment, you’ll have seven days to complete the task (including another work-style assessment).
Hiring Simulation Test Structure
The test is split into four sections. In each, you'll be given three questions about an occurring work scenario. In each question, you'll need to either rank or rate possible responses to the scenario.
The first two sections are more analytical. In these sections, you'll be given hard data that you'll need to base your responses on, such as graphs and tables.
In the last two sections, you'll get scenarios that focus on your compatibility with Amazon’s values, or “Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles” as Amazon likes to put it (formerly known as Amazon's 14 LPs).
In these sections, the data you'll be given will be vaguer so you’ll need to make a decision based on Amazon's principles. For instance, Amazon sees customer obsession as a core value, so your answers should reflect that on the test.
Hiring Simulation Sample Question
Let's see a sample question that depicts the questions in the first two sections. Start by reading the memo, and then take the data below it into account before proceeding to rate the possible responses -
Based on the available data, rate the following options from 1 to 4. Rate "1" for most needs to be improved and "4" to least needs to be improved (each rating option can be used more than once).
In this question, your goal is to identify trends and rate them according to their urgency for improvement. When we rate, we judge an option in relation to itself and not in relation to other options, but we keep the same scale for all our ratings.
What is a trend? A trend is a general direction in which something is changing.
Try to recognize trends by looking at the given data.
Referring to the first option, there are two factors which we should check their trends when determining how to rate it. The first factor is the number of transactions, and the second is the percentage of crashes of the server. We can identify the trend for each and check if there is a correlation between them. We can see that while the number of transactions goes down (100 → 85 → 70) the % of crashes of the server goes up (+1% → +1% → +1%). Option 1 says that the problem is that the server crashes due to many transactions, but according to the data, the percentage of crashes stays positive- so there is no correlation between the two factors; therefore, this option is not relevant and we can rate it "4".
Referring to the second option, the relevant row which we should look at is row three. According to the data, the percentage does not change so much (+1% → +1% → +1%), but the fact that it stays positive means that there is a growth of the problem. If you try to look at it on a graph, it looks like this:
There is a slight linear growth of the problem, thus we should rate it "2".
Referring to the third option, in the first row (% Payment method was not accessible to a customer), there is a noticeable upward trend from 3% on the first week, to 5% on the second, and 9% on the third. This trend shows an escalation in a bad situation, and thus it needs to be improved immediately. We can rate the third option to be "1".
Referring to the fourth option, on the second row (% Payments declined for an unexpected reason) we see the opposite: a noticeable downward trend. The meaning of this trend is that every week there are fewer situations that payments are declined for an unexpected reason. This is a totally positive thing thus we can rate the fourth option to be "4".
As you can see, this work simulation question requires great judgment and logical skills. But there's another main reason understanding it is crucial - The way you choose to answer helps Amazon assess your prioritization and way of thinking as a potential worker.
Inside the Amazon Hiring Simulation preparation pack, you’ll be able to practice the same questions with full explanations and feedback. That way, you can ensure you are truly prepared for this unique assessment and proceed to the next steps in the hiring process.
What is the difference between the Amazon Hiring Simulation and Work Simulation?
The Hiring Simulation, as opposed to the Work Simulation, not only evaluates your critical thinking skills and use of Amazon's Leadership Principles but also assesses your analytical and numerical skills using various tables and other graphic elements.
Read About Other Popular Amazon Online Assessments
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