From Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

From Amazon’s Core Leadership Principle, Hire and Develop the Best

Amazon has 14 core leadership principles. Number six on the list is Hire and Develop the Best. In order to achieve this, Amazon has instituted key policies to eliminate urgency and personal biases and aim higher with designated ‘Bar Raisers’ in the interview process.  

From the start, Amazonians lean on the Bezos mantra of wanting ‘missionaries, not mercenaries.’ They want a process to identify people who are bought into the long-term vision of Amazon, and not the typical Silicon Valley tech bros that jumps from company to company. 

This impacts the culture and has helps scale their recruitment process. The authors share several anecdotes about how this mantra has protected the culture during several of its high growth phases (from 100 employees to 500 in a year to nearly a million employees today)! 

Who are the Bar Raisers?

The Bar Raisers are an elite group of interviewers at Amazon, armed with additional interview training, an impartial view, and ultimate veto power. They hold their own interview session with the candidates and lead debrief meetings with all interviewers and the hiring manager afterwards – ensuring that all of the information is shared and carefully considered. If the group cannot come to an unbiased, acceptable decision, the Bar Raiser vetoes the candidate, no questions asked (though this rarely happens). 

Within Amazon’s organisation, the Bar Raiser title is highly coveted. Even though they don’t receive any extra compensation for their services, they are acknowledged with a badge on their internal company profile. This black ops team of interviewers no doubt holds Amazon dear to their hearts and can easily weed out the mercenaries from the missionaries. They help protect the company culture and ensure the core leadership values are prioritized. 

The hiring process: 

The hiring process at Amazon doesn’t seem too far off the mark from other companies. It is not followed 100% the same for every role, but is used as a guide and tweaked as necessary.

The hiring process and owners look like this:

1. Job description – hiring manager
2. Resume review – recruiter
3. Phone screen – recruiter
4. In-house interview – 5-7 people, trained in company’s interview policies, no one more than one level below the position)
5. Written feedback – done by all interviewers immediately after interview, no exceptions
6. Debrief/Hiring meeting – led by the Bar Raiser
7. Reference check – as needed
8. Offer thorough onboarding – hiring manager

A few things that jumped out at me: 

• Hiring managers are often in a hurry to get a position live, so they use out of date or inaccurate job descriptions – which often slows down the hiring process and creates confusion for recruiters and candidates.
• During phone screens, if the person screening is on the fence, Amazon doesn’t recommend moving them to an in-house interview. The logic here is often people who raise questions at that stage won’t get the job and it ends up wasting time for the interviewers and the candidates. 
• They recommend not allowing employees to interview potential managers. This creates an uncomfortable situation for the person being interviewed and potential problems if the employee votes against the person and they are hired on (as their manager) anyway. 
• They treat everyone with respect – whether qualified or not – because they are potential customers and lead generators. 
• In the offer stage, they recommend continuing to court the person while they make their decision to join Amazon or not. 

Final thoughts: 

The Amazon way of hiring has a lot of benefits. The hiring process is time consuming and expensive. Hiring managers often want positions filled immediately and don’t take the necessary steps required to hire the right people. From there, urgency bias kicks in and any chance of getting back on course is slim. The inclusion of the Bar Raisers is a way to circumvent that whole process and keep everyone honest. 

I’ve made several of these errors, and I suspect others have too. I ‘Frankensteined’ a job description together to get it live, moved people along when I wasn’t sure they’d be a good fit, waited more than 24 hours to write my notes, and interviewed potential future managers. Recruitment and hiring is difficult but Amazon is on to something – ensuring they’re finding the right people and saving time and money while they’re at it. 

This was a great chapter and I got a lot from it – I’m excited to press on with this book.