Most bad Amazon PPC hires don’t fail on the CV.
By George Barnett Reid 👀 · September 11, 2025 · Curated by George's Blog
Most bad Amazon PPC hires don’t fail on the CV.
They fail in the interview.
Too many hiring managers ask knowledge checks:
“Do you know Sponsored Brands vs Sponsored Products?”
“Have you managed large budgets?”
Almost everyone says “yes”. It proves nothing.
At Amazon, the gold standard is behavioural interviewing:
“Can you give me an example of a time when you…”
…turned around a campaign that was losing money?
…scaled ad spend by X% without wrecking ROAS?
…diagnosed a sudden ACOS spike and fixed it?
…trained a junior and improved their output?
Our team borrows directly from this playbook. One of us spent 9 years inside Amazon, scaling a team from 5 to 60 in just 18 months - and the same principles apply to PPC hiring.
Why does it work? Because real operators show their process.
They can talk specifics, timelines, actions, and results.
Weak candidates go vague or hypothetical.
If you’re hiring a PPC manager, strip out the fluff.
Don’t ask if they’ve “done it”.
Ask for the story of when they did it - and what changed because of it.
#itsalwaysdayone