Featured Image Credit: Mark Wilson / Westend61 / Getty
Few things are more nerve-racking than the prospect of being interviewed by one of the world's most successful businessmen, but the process might be simpler than you think.
After all, Jeff Bezos apparently only uses two questions when interviewing prospective employees.
That's according to Ann Hiatt, who interviewed for a role at Amazon back in 2002 - and was hired on the spot when her answers were deemed satisfactory.
While answering just two questions might seem too good to be true, of course there's a little more to it.
Advert
At this time, Bezos was nearly a decade on from setting up Amazon, and well on his way to becoming a global figure in business - while he's no longer the company's CEO, he's still the executive chairman of the board.
Hiatt - who was interviewing to be a Junior Assistant - had to do a series of smaller interviews before speaking to the top dog.
And the questions Bezos asked weren't exactly a walk in the park, she revealed on the CNBC show CNBC Make It.
The first was a simple brain teaser that began with Bezos saying: "I'll do the math."
The query? "I want you to estimate the number of panes of glass in the city of Seattle," he said.
Yikes. We're not sure how we'd even begin to attack something like that - not even counting the pressure to perform in front of the future richest man in the world (he now holds the third spot).
Luckily, Hiatt - who has since left Amazon - was a bit better equipped to answer the question.
She told Bezos that the best way to establish a number would involve taking the city's population, and then creating a figure depending on whether they had a home, transportation, an office and a school.
"So I suggested that we base the estimate on averages of those," she said.
Hiatt and Bezos then worked together to go through 'every possible scenario, group, anomaly and ways to account for these exceptions'.
When they came up with a number, the Amazon boss was clearly satisfied. Hiatt recounted him as saying: "That looks about right."
Once that was out of the way, Bezos' second question was a lot more in line with what you'd expect from a traditional interview.
"What are your career goals?" he asked.
Hiatt explained that she wanted to work at Amazon because, in her opinion, the company was comprised of ambitious, passionate people who she wanted to learn from and emulate.
Bezos was obviously sold by her answers, and after asking just two questions he hired her on the spot.
Looking back on the interview process, she concluded: "He was measuring my potential by asking questions that would explore whether I had the grit, courage and motivation to run at his pace and be brave enough to consistently jump with him and level up."
