Amazon Prep Flashcards
Give me an example of a time you used customer feedback to drive improvement or innovation. What was the situation and what action did
you take? (Customer Obsession)
When I worked on our operational training team we often made a lot of eLearnings for flight attendants. One day I was speaking with a coworker who was an FA and he mentioned that doing the eLearnings were the worst part of job. I asked him why and he mentioned that the eLearnings were usually very text heavy so it made it resume if they had to go take care of a passenger. Some FA’s also complained about their eyes hurting and general exhaustion.
I went back to the Learning Design team and proposed that we start incorporating voiceovers into all of our eLearnings. This would not only reduce the amount learners have to read themselves, but it’s also great for accessibility. I experimented with creating animated videos to explain processes/concepts, which received a lot of praise from our inflight team.
Give me an example of your most difficult customer interaction and how you worked through it. What was the outcome? (Customer Obsession)
There was a time when I was creating a training for support center employees who volunteer to help our airport crewmembers during peak seasons. I was dealing with two sets of SME’s: Hospitality and the owener’s of BlueUnity. Hospitality was very stern about teaching the proper hospitality values while BlueUnity didn’t want to intimidate potential volunteers. They would conflicting feedback.
I brought both of them into a meeting and we broke down the learning objectives and focused on what people truly needed know to help their Crewmembers and Customers. It helped both sides see what was actually necessary so we could find common ground.
Both sides had content that met both their needs at the end, so everyone was happy. I could have simply ignored one side, but I’m glad I worked to find common ground between the two.
Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it important? What was the outcome? (Ownership)
I’ve been working on a manager conference for the past year that’s actually launching tomorrow. Initially it was an in-person conference before covid hit. Now my official title at jetblue is online learning analyst, so I’m responsible for online content, we have separate people for in-person facilitation. For this conference I as responsible for managing learning on the lms and developing any elearning prework.
When we started working on this conference it was clear we needed more hands on deck to create content for the in-person classes, so I actually volunteered and developed content for 2 sessions. This was the first time I developed content for a live session and I received great feedback. Due to people leaving our team, I’m now one of the go to people for when projects have a need for a live session.
Give me an example of a time when you didn’t think you were going to meet the commitments you promised. How did you identify the risk and
communicate it to stakeholders? What was the outcome? (Ownership)
This happened recently actually. I was working on a new hiring training that we are rolling out. On top of this I’ve had a few other projects rolling out at the same time which were equal important.
This hiring training quite long because it was a 2 live session that is now being converted into an eLearning. I knew that realistically we wouldn’t be able to achieve the “dream” end product by the deadline. So I sat down with our SME and we came to an agreement on what would be a realistic acceptable deliverable for the deadline. I then promised to make revisions and any other features we wanted to implement at a later time after all projects were launched. Time passed, projects were launched, and we were able to deliver the “dream” product in second version.
In this process I learned that the first product doesn’t always have to be the final product. Sometimes you have to set realistic goals before reaching the eventual dream goal.
Know when not to reinvent the wheel? Tell me about the most innovative
thing you’ve done and why you thought it was innovative (can also probe
with: That sounds more evolutionary than revolutionary – tell me about
something you’ve done you feel was truly revolutionary? Ask for one or
two additional examples to see if it’s a one off or pattern.)
When I first joined our team we had monthly webinars called learning labs. These were run through adobe connect and it was basically a powerpoint and a facilitator reading off slides. Honestly it was a bit boring and stale, engagement wasn’t high, we had high drop out rates.
Over the past year, i’ve been looking at ways to revamp these learning experiences and one of the ways i did that was by making these webinars more like a live stream talk show rather than a presentation. I obtained a software called OBS, created fun graphic using after effects, used music, and downloaded some overlay to drive up engagement. I also asked facilitators to pick reflective questions that participants could answer through an online poll during the session.
When we compare attendance rates to 2 years ago, there has been a 40% increase. Now some of that may be due to the pandemic and people have more time to attend, but we did send out surveys and people often call out how the graphics, better scriptwriting, and music have freshened up our learning lab experience.
People often say the simplest solution is the best. Tell me about a particular complex problem you solved with a simple solution. (Invent and Simplify)
We are running a virtual conference this week and as a team were stressing about how the same few facilitators would need to jump from session to session and present on different topics virtually. They were feeling a bit stressed and tired so I suggested prerecording their session beforehand to reduce stress so they can focus on the sessions that must be live, such as ones that require a lot of audience interaction.
People were a bit hesistant to this idea at first because they felt like they were cheating, but everyone was eventually on board and everything is set to launch this week with much less stress than normal.
Tell me about a decision for which data and analysis weren’t sufficient to
provide the right course and you had to rely on your judgment and
instincts. Give me two to three examples. They don’t have to be big
strategic decisions – could be big or small. (ARE RIGHT ALOT)
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Tell me about a time you made a difficult decision and how you knew it was the right solution (probe on how they evaluated the options, if they received input, what data they reviewed, etc.) (ARE RIGHT ALOT)
One time we were looking at incoprtating VR Into one of our training programs for a new plane.
Now keep in mind that I’m a huge vr geek and this is something that I was really excited to work on, as well as my coworkers.
We attended the demo which I felt good about but not wowed, some of my other colleagues were wowed because this was the first time they used vr goggles in general. I realized this product that the vendor was trying to sell could be easily be recreated in Adobe captivate a much cheaper software than what we were about to pay. Basically the product they were trying to sell us was a 360 video viewer with hot spots you could click on.
After the demo, we debrief and my team was actually shocked that I switched sides. I felt that since we are a frugal company we shouldn’t be tossing money for something that was subpar.
Additionally I pointed out that while vr training is effective there isn’t a lot of data out there that says it’s more effective than a standard elearning which we can produce for less than a fraction of the cost.
My team eventually ended up agreeing with me and we agreed it could be a passion project that the team could work on on the side.
Overall I saved our company
Tell me about a time when you have been unsatisfied with the status quo.
What did you do to change it? Were you successful? (Have High Standards)
When I first joined 2 years ago our L&D team our primary audience was supervisors and above. There wasn’t really any PD training for IC’s.
I recognized that while we were training leaders when they were leaders, we lacked any content that trained IC’s to become future supervisors and managers.
I brought this issue up to my team and explained my thoughts. They agreed that we needed this content, but we simply lacked time.
This is when I started doing research and found LinkedIn Learning - which is a professional development learning platform that offers over 14,000 courses. I was able to convince our director to consider purchasing licenses for our company and because our technology team was also working on a deal with Microsoft products I was able to work with the right people to get LinkedIn for a reduced cost for our team.
Right now we have over 2,300 registered Crewmember using LinkedIn to develop their skills.
Tell me about a time you wouldn’t compromise on achieving a great outcome when others felt something was good enough. What was the
situation? What measures have you personally put in place to ensure performance improvement targets and standards are achieved? (Have High Standards)
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How do you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How do you know how well your idea or vision has been adopted by other teams or partners?
Give a specific example highlighting one of your ideas. (Thinking Big)
Usually, when I have an idea I like to make low-fidelity prototypes to sell people on an idea. I learned that people often tend to be more judgemental of an idea that hasn’t been materialized yet.
I do this often when I create eLearnings, I’ll often create a storyboard or prototype in adobe XD and send it the SME.
One specific example that I can think of is when I explained the sme that I wanted to create a series of rooms that the user could click on and then the user would listen to an interview to determine whether the interviewer was following proper protocol.
When I explained it initially they had a hard time picturing it and they recommended a written scenario but I went ahead and created the prototype and they were very impressed. We’ve now added this type of scenario layout to our template library.
Give me an example of how you have helped save costs or eliminate wast within your operation. (Being Frugal)
This may be a small example but as an instructional designer we use a lot of graphics and videos in our content. Alot of instructional designer end up buying these assets from a graphic library or image site. Our team used to spend about $1000 a year in graphics.
I took the time to learn how to use most of the adobe apps. Now i can grab free graphics online and alter them to my liking or start from scratch.
1,000 may not be a lot for some people, but we’ve been in major cost savings mode for the last year so anything helps.
Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical. What was the situation and how did you handle it? What
steps did you take to mitigate the risk? What was the outcome? (Bias for Action)
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Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager. What was the situation and how did it turn out? (Bias for Action)
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Describe a time when you significantly contributed to improving morale
and productivity on your team. What were the underlying problems and
their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the
team in the future? (Earn Trust of Others)
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