Jenny recently joined Amazon’s subsidiary the Book Depository to work on website development. Lately, she has seen a steady rise in the responsibility given to her with more and more of her work requiring her to add or edit client-facing content. The work she is doing varies from producing new banners for website pages to creating and adjusting pop-up ads to server management. It is the client-facing work that Jenny is enjoying the most with much of her work being viewed by customers to the website. With each task our Bright Network alumnus leaves her own imprint upon the website, a visible reminder of the excellent work she does day in and day out.
During her internship for Amazon, in the summer of 2017, Jenny worked in the advertising team creating, monitoring and driving targeted ads. The work she did was fairly experimental as she spent time testing different ad campaigns trying to determine which were successful and which were slightly less so. This internship gave Jenny autonomy from the start encouraging her to experiment and innovate in order to find the best advertising solution. It was off the back of her fantastic work that she was offered a job with Amazon, the start date being in 2018, after her graduation from Imperial College London.
It was the interview phase of her application to the Amazon internship that Jenny found the most difficult. Prior to this she had to submit an online application alongside her CV before completing a coding test and answering several competency-based questions online. The final stage consisted of 3 different interviews two of which were based around technical questions with the third being a competency-based interview. During her interviews Jenny faced many questions but she felt the hardest question she was asked was one concerning computer processes. The interviewer had asked her to explain the processes that enable users to click through from a Google search page to a company’s website. It was a question that required her to think back to what she had learnt during her computer science degree.
When speaking to Bright Network Jenny gave three top tips for job applications:
- Apply to anything because it is good to practice the application process, for example, all interviews are good interview practice!
- Be nice and try to smile, it’ll help relax you and you’ll come across as an easy to work with and likeable person.
- Practice coding challenges online and in your own time when you get the chance!
