Tips for a successful referral at Amazon (Abhishek's guide)

tips-for-successful-referrals-adivekar.md

I am always happy to provide referrals for folks applying to Amazon for a variety of roles. Amazon is a FAANG, so I know that landing a job there can make a big difference to someone's career, and I am happy to spend the time to provide a referral.

If you are interested, please read the points below very carefully before reaching out (either on LinkedIn or on [email protected]). This is to save time on both sides 😄 I will not entertain requests from those who have clearly not read these points, regarless of how great your profile is.

1. It is up to you to visit amazon.jobs and search for open positions.

2. ‼️ Once you find a job, DO NOT apply for the job yourself; if you do so, the portal does not allow me to refer you for the same job‼️. I will not go forward with a candidate who has done this.

3. I can manage upto 5-6 referrals per person, for at most 2 different roles (e.g. Software Engineer and Data Scientist). Beyond this does not make sense. Pick jobs which best fit your profile and were recently posted. A 1+ month old job is probably already filled (or has many candidates in the late stage of the hiring pipeline).

4. Below are important rules to decide if a job is right for you. These are my personal rules, created because I receive several requests which are inappropriate for the level/job given the candidate's background.

   • I will NOT refer for non-Tech roles (e.g. Associate, Human Resources, Legal, Sales, Business Analyst, etc). I have no influence in non-Tech roles. If it has the word "Engineer", "Developer" or "Scientist" in the title, it is a Tech role and I am okay to refer.
   • If you are transitioning to Tech or freshly out of undergrad/Masters, look for positions asking for 0-3 years work experience. If it says "1+ year of non-intern experience", understand that this is a hard requirement by the hiring manager. No exceptions.
   • If you're applying for an entry-level position and you are already working, I will only refer if you have been working for 1+ years (non-internship experience). No exceptions unless you already work at a FAANG or equivalent company.
   • If you've held a software/data science job for 3+ years, you can look for mid-level positions. No exceptions unless you already work at a FAANG or equivalent company.
   • Multiple referrals must be for different teams (i.e. different manager). Ideally, they should be for different departments, since then the recruiters may also be different.
   • I will only refer for Applied Scientist on a case-by-case basis (e.g. if you have ML research publications). I am okay to refer for Data Scientist without research experience, provided you currently work as a Data Scientist.
   • ‼️ Once you find a job, DO NOT apply for the job yourself; if you do so, the portal does not allow me to refer ‼️ I will not go forward with a candidate who has done this.

5. Resume: You should have your resume ready before you DM me. Take care to include the following:

   • Must include: your (a) city (b) zipcode/pincode (c) phone (d) email. These are necessary fields I must enter on the internal referrals portal. I cannot proceed unless your resume has all 4.
   • 👨🏻‍🎓 If you are a Masters/PhD student, make sure you include the expected graduation date. For folks in a part-time degree like UT's MSCS online or GaTech's OMSCS, please additionally mention that the degree is "Part-time" and that you are available to work full-time.
   • 🧑🏻‍💼 Unless you have 10+ years of (industry experience + grad studies), your resume should be ONE page long. Cut out stuff which are not relevant for the job you are applying to. This is perhaps the biggest thing you can do to optimize your resume.
   • Keep only the most impactful stuff you have done. It's better to have 3 strong, impactful points described in detail, rather than 5 weak points. Cut out irrelevant content ruthlessly. If you were swim captain or led the debate team or general treasurer of XYZ etc, it's not relevant to the job, so remove it. Hackerrank/Leetcode scores are okay to keep for a Software Engineer role, since it is relevant.
   • For Scientist roles, add any Publications in a separate section, underlining your name on the author-list.
   • Include the word "sublime" when your reach out so that I know you have actually read this. I will ignore you otherwise, or just send a link back to this post.
   • Add details to quantify/qualify your impact.
     • You will be very surprised how impactful your work might be, when you actually sit down to measure the impact.
     • It's okay to use back-of-the-envelope calculations here, so long as they are grounded in reality and describe your impact, not your team's/department's. Don't make up impact numbers; make the effort to measure them.
     • This helps you stand out from other candidates, simply because when someone reads a line like:"solution improved model accuracy from 70% to 85% (1500 bps)" it is objectively impressive and clear that your work is impactful.

6. You understand that a referral does not guarantee an interview or that the recruiter will reach out. The hiring process is messy at every company, and not in my control.

7. (Optional) It helps to keep a small blurb of your most impactful achievements ready (3-4 lines). If there's a role for which your background is a great fit, I am usually happy to email the hiring manager to make sure your profile is surfaced. I will only do this for candidates with 3+ years experience, or those with published research papers.

Thank you @adivekar-utexas, I really appreciate it. Does a referral from India work in the USA?

@gramprasadreddy yes, if you yourself are currently working in the US.

Cross-country referrals do not work, in my experience.

Thank you for the advice!