Interview Preparation: Building Your Career Success Library
If you're in the midst of a job search, interview preparation is one of the most important things you can do to set yourself up for success. I recently had an interview with Amazon, and one of the key pieces of advice they provide is to review their Leadership Principles and prepare behavioral answers using the STAR method. This exercise made me realize something critical: I should have done this much earlier in my job search.
Why Build a Career Success Library?
Amazon’s approach to interview preparation is incredibly structured, but it’s also universally valuable. By preparing STAR-based responses for each of their leadership principles, I essentially built a library of career success stories. This helped me articulate my experiences more clearly—not just for Amazon’s interview, but for every other interview I’ve had (or will have).
Had I done this earlier, I would have had a well-organized set of examples ready to go for all the different questions that come up in interviews. Instead of scrambling to think of relevant examples on the spot, I could have simply pulled from my pre-prepared library. Lesson learned.
The STAR Method and How It Helps
The STAR method is a structured way of answering behavioral interview questions by breaking them down into four components:
Situation – Describe the context of the challenge you faced.
Task – Explain the responsibility you had in that situation.
Action – Detail the steps you took to address the situation.
Result – Share the outcome of your actions.
For example, one of Amazon’s leadership principles is “Dive Deep.” Using the STAR method, I prepared a response like this:
Situation: Our vulnerability management program had thousands of findings, but leadership wasn’t getting a clear picture of risk.
Task: I needed to find a way to aggregate and communicate key insights effectively.
Action: I built dashboards that categorized vulnerabilities by criticality, age, and business impact, making it easier for leadership to prioritize remediation efforts.
Result: Our remediation timelines improved by 30%, and leadership gained better visibility into our security posture.
By crafting answers like this for each leadership principle, I had a structured way to demonstrate my experience and impact.
How You Can Start Building Your Own Career Success Library
Identify Commonly Used Leadership Principles – Even if you’re not interviewing with Amazon, most companies have core values or leadership principles that guide their hiring decisions. Research them.
Create a Spreadsheet or Document – List out key principles, competencies, or soft skills required for the roles you’re targeting.
Develop STAR Stories for Each One – Reflect on your past roles and document your best examples that align with each competency.
Review and Refine – Regularly update your success library with new experiences and polish existing responses.
Practice Out Loud – Saying your responses out loud helps reinforce them and makes it easier to recall in high-pressure interview situations.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in the job market, don’t wait until a big interview comes along to start preparing your success stories. Build your career success library now. Not only will it make your interviews smoother, but it will also help you see the breadth of your own accomplishments more clearly.
If I had done this at the beginning of my job search, I would have felt more confident and prepared for every interview along the way. Don’t make the same mistake—start today!