Crazy! Amazon's operations written test questions are comparable to postgraduate entrance exams and civil service exams

As the traditional peak recruitment season, March and April are also very important to the cross-border e-commerce industry. Many cross-border companies will rush to recruit operational talents during this time, and workers also hope to find a good job during this time.

Now that the "golden March" has passed, the "silver April" recruitment market is still hot. However, although the demand for Amazon operation-related positions has soared, many operations still say it is difficult to find a job, and even encounter problems such as "pitfalls" in interviews.

Operations are going crazy. A set of written tests may take two hours to complete.

Due to the large demand for recruitment, employers usually conduct a written test before the interview to save time in screening candidates, so as to understand the approximate level of the interviewee. This practice is understandable, but recently an operator broke the news that he was "shocked" by the situation he encountered during the interview.

Generally speaking, the written test in the interview process only takes 10-20 minutes, and a longer one of 30 minutes can be completed. However, considering the recent complaints from operations, things do not seem to be that simple.

According to an Amazon operator who is currently looking for a job, he recently interviewed with several cross-border e-commerce companies, many of which required him to take written tests. One of them was the most exaggerated, as it gave him a thick stack of written test questions.

It is understood that after the operator arrived at the company, the HR first gave him a written test and asked him to complete it before the next interview. He thought it was just some routine basic operation knowledge questions, but after a closer look, he was dumbfounded. These questions were not only related to operations, but also some logical reasoning questions that you would only encounter in civil service examinations. There were even MBTI personality test questions.

The operator roughly estimated that if he wanted to finish the written test seriously, it might take at least one hour, and if he wrote slowly, it might even take two hours. Thinking of this, the operator decisively made an excuse to leave and shared this experience on his social media.

Unexpectedly, after this incident was shared online, it quickly aroused heated discussion among netizens, and many people said that they had encountered similar experiences.

"I was asked to do so many questions right from the start. If you didn't know me, you would think I was going to take the postgraduate entrance exam."

"If you encounter this kind of situation, just go ahead. There is no shortage of this kind of job."

"It is said that this is a test of experience. Generally, serious companies will not let you do so many questions."

Some netizens said that they did not even enter the interview stage. They were bombarded by HR during the chat stage of the recruitment software, and the questions asked were very specific: 1. Are you familiar with the A9 algorithm? Can you briefly describe it? 2. Is your previous work experience white hat? If you are doing evaluation, how to find evaluation resources? 3. What category do you do? What are the data of product orders, natural conversion rate, advertising exposure, clicks, etc.? 4. What are the total sales, total gross profit and profit margin? 5. Do you have experience in promoting hot products? If so, how many hot products have you promoted?

After asking these questions, the other party added one more sentence, "Please answer the above questions. After you answer, the company will arrange an interview." Seeing this, the netizen couldn't hold it anymore, so he also replied to the other party with a long paragraph:

"Then please answer the following questions: what are your main products? How competitive are your products? How is their quality? Do you have any evaluation resources? Do you have any off-site social media promotion resources? Is your CPC budget generous? How many people are in your operation team? Do you have any experience in promoting popular products? Does your company have two days off a week? Is there a probation period? If so, how long is it? Is the basic salary during the probation period a no-liability basic salary? Is there any commission? Do you buy five insurances and one housing fund upon joining?"

After all the comments, the other party was left speechless, and it also helped the majority of netizens vent their anger.

Although most workers are rather disgusted with this, some netizens expressed their understanding of the company's approach. After all, recruiting people is a very important decision. On the one hand, you have to examine whether the other party has the ability and cannot take advantage of the situation. On the other hand, you have to see whether the other party fits the company's culture and atmosphere, etc.

When both parties insist on their own opinions and neither can convince the other, is the written test part of the interview process useful?

Is it necessary for Amazon operations to take a written test?

Some senior sellers believe that for teams that really understand Amazon, there is no need to take a written test to understand the strength of an interviewee. Just chatting with them can basically understand the other party's situation. Those sellers who set test questions are likely to want to gain experience. Of course, it does not rule out that some large companies have a hard requirement for written tests.

However, some industry insiders believe that if it was a few years ago, companies that required written tests might have wanted to gain experience. But the situation is different now. Platform policies are constantly changing, and the so-called experience and black technology are no longer feasible.

Therefore, most cross-border companies now require interviewees to take written tests, which are more to test the other party's logical ability rather than operational ability. This also explains why many operations have recently said that they were asked to do logical reasoning questions during interviews.

However, the industry insider believes that one must strike a balance when setting questions. If there are too many questions, it may cause the interviewee to be disgusted and cause the entire interview process to be very protracted, which will have the opposite effect.

From the perspective of job seekers, in fact, most operations are opposed to written tests, especially those with a huge number of questions but of very low level. You can tell at a glance that the HR copied them from some unknown website. There is no point in spending time on such questions.

Many operators believe that instead of spending time on written tests, it is better to focus more on face-to-face communication so that they can show themselves more comprehensively. Secondly, job seekers and companies should have an equal relationship. Both parties need to make a two-way selection based on the actual situation, while written tests are more like a unilateral "inspection" of the company on the applicant.

In general, whether a written test is required depends on the size of the company, the position being recruited, and the decision of the leadership. Generally speaking, it is not necessary for small and medium-sized sellers to set up a written test, which will not only delay the rhythm of the entire interview, but also leave a bad impression on most interviewees.

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