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Got an interview with Amazon within their Advertising department. I hear working for Amazon can be great if you get into the right department. Anyone have insights to their advertising department? Good or bad? Also, would love some interview tips if you have them! (It’s for an Executive Assistant position) thank you!
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“How have you dealt with a situation where a mistake was made on your team? “
This. They should be able to explain a situation where a mistake was made, and where they assumed responsibility bc it’s their team. That’ll rule out the ones who throw everyone else under the bus.
“Basically just want to know they aren’t a jerk to staff” - if that’s the most important thing you want to take away from interviewing, I think you’re all set. The best way to judge that is to have them do a lot of talking, you’ll know.
Since you are part of such a small team, ask questions about who they are as a person so you can tell if you’d get along well.
“What do you like to do for fun” is a simple question but will tell you a lot about the person! When I worked in a small office of five people, we always asked this question and it really did help us evaluate people.
Good luck with the interviews!
https://hbr.org/2016/02/how-to-hire-without-getting-fooled-by-first-impressions?fbclid=IwAR1YOplWRBqtp4D8RClEk903va6DwNAEiHJa232LEd-S-xCm1926HcWMguw
“If I called previous paralegals whom you’ve supervised, what would they say about you? How would they describe you?”
“Tell me about the type of legal department culture you’d like to help cultivate?”
These are my “how will you treat me questions,” and I asked my prior supervising AGC these questions.
Where can I send my resume? Remote work? Type of company?
Unfortunately not remote. We are based in Atlanta. Our team is flexible for the occasional day here and there but the company as a whole doesn’t really encourage it.
And it would primarily be arbitrations and then other random stuff - ndas, employment stuff, etc. GC is a corporate attorney so he handles the M&A stuff.
And the type of company is too hard to explain but it’s basically equipment leasing. And the arbitrations are with the locations that lease the equipment.
Have your admin sit with them for a few minutes. Doesn't have to be a full blown interview but have them ask some questions, offer coffee, etc. They can usually tell...
We don’t really have a person like that. And our receptionist would just pick the one he thought was prettiest (he is a whole other issue).
Pro
Ask about their management style - do they like lots of questions and run everything by them? Do they usually want the paralegal to take stuff and run with it? (And see how that matches with your personal working style).
A question about how they dealt with a past staff mistake or about whether they have managed a project before can show you a lot. Do they blame the staff person entirely? Do they acknowledge any of their part in the problem? (Eg. Original instructions not clear, supervision, did they learn from the issue, etc). I also ask a couple tech questions to gauge whether they're more self sufficient, or if they need someone to hold their hand to send an email. Lawyers that dictate and require staff to do their own time entries are resource heavy. Tech savvy lawyers like to figure stuff out on their own.
See if the candidate treats you with the same level of respect during the interview (eg. Are they focused equally on both you and the partner, or do they have eyes only for the partner?). I vetoed a couple candidates when they focused mostly on the partner. Even though I'm only the associate, I would be managing them on projects so I didn't want to deal with the types that favored partner over associate.
The best hire I've made was only an average interview candidate. I could tell from her answers she hadn't interviewed a lot, but I could tell from the personal questions (eg. What do you like to do in your spare time, tell me about your favorite subject in school and why) that this person was passionate, kind and smart. She had nerdy interests and talked a lot about her favorite subject in school beyond generic answers. Be a little wary of the folks who interview really well or seem like they have a prepared response for common interview questions. Many generic answers like "My biggest weakness is that I'm a people pleaser and love taking on too much responsibility" is a red flag for me. People who will tell a personal story like, "I found my supervision skills could use improvement on a complex file and so I took steps to learn more- still an ongoing process, I'm focused on improving project management skills" is something I would be more comfortable hearing because it shows the candidate has some actual insight into an issue and they are trying to improve. Young lawyers are usually not perfect managers right off the bat, it's a skill they have to learn and improve. Usually with some mistakes.