20 Mar 2023

Prime Video’s Leadership Academy

Here at Prime Video, tech and innovation are instrumental to our success. We take great pride in enabling hundreds of millions of customers to be delighted by great live streaming, TV shows and movies, and it takes a lot of technological innovation to ensure this is possible. However, that wasn’t the theme of our recent Leadership Academy. Instead, we wanted to show the importance of the soft skills that are equally as valuable and worthwhile if pursuing a career in STEM.

Stemettes Amazon Prime Event

The Importance of Time Management

We started the journey with an enlightening presentation on the importance of time management and productivity, delivered by Ifeoma, a Senior Technical PM at Prime Video. Ifeoma helped to explain the importance of holding yourself accountable for each minute of your day, and the true benefit of understanding your own circadian rhythm. Are you a Night Owl or a Morning Bird? Understanding how to apply time management mechanisms into your school, work, personal life is a crucial tool to have in your belt.

 

All About Personal Branding

Next, we moved from time management to Personal Branding. Nadine, a Recruiter at Prime Video, explained how personal branding is an extension of you, whilst intentionally promoting and cultivating your highest self, values, skills and mission. We learned that in a digital-first world, personal branding is your professional value proposition and serves as a first impression; an opportunity to tell people who you are. Nadine also described the importance of ensuring you are in control of your own personal brand and gave some valuable tips on how to accelerate your career growth by defining who you are from the beginning.

 

Interviewing with Confidence

We then dove into the world of Interviewing with Confidence, in which Nicola, a Tech Recruiting Manager at Prime Video, covered understanding self-confidence and why it matters for your career and interviewing. She gave guidance on developing confidence and how to portray confidence at interviews via both verbal and non-verbal communication skills. We set our working definition of self-confidence as ‘A feeling of trust or self-assurance arising from an appreciation of your own abilities or qualities’. We established why this is important for job seekers to understand, because our levels of confidence impact what opportunities we deem possible, what we apply for, and what interviews we are willing to attend. Therefore, be wary of any ‘glass ceilings’ you are putting upon yourself, and trust that if you are invited to interview then that’s because an employer believes you have every chance of success.

Not only did we discuss the interview itself, but also the importance of what happens before that. Take time to focus on ‘you’ ahead of an interview as well as the usual preparations. This can be in the form of kindness, relaxation, positivity, recognising your achievements, and importantly, spending adequate time to prepare and rehearse.

 

The Importance of Soft Skills

In our final session we heard from Natasha, the Head of Partner Engineering at Prime Video. Natasha explained that although tech skills are required to do the work, the “soft skills” are just as important. Although, they can take time and practice to craft, soft skills can be core reasons for career progression and promotions. Natasha also shared experiences outside of work that helped her within the working world and talked about personal development as a result. She listed activities such as volunteering at events, talking at conferences and coaching people that all helped her to personally develop. Doing such activities can take you out of your comfort zone and give you a boost of confidence when you succeed.

If you are looking for opportunities to dive into the world of Amazon, please visit our Opportunities for Students page, or to find out more about the innovation that takes place within Prime Video, please visit our website.

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