One of the most important parts of Amazon’s hiring process happens after the interviews are over. It is called the debrief, but it isn’t just a recap of “How it went.” It’s a data synthesis meeting that determines if the candidate raises the bar.
Debriefs are ideally scheduled for the same day or the day after the candidate’s interview loop occurs. The time between loop completion and debrief completion, measured in hours and days, is one of the process metrics that should be tracked along with every step of the hiring process.
More time between each step in the hiring process reduces the quality and fidelity of the information recall of the interviewers, degrades the quality of the candidate experience, lengthens the time to close open requisitions, and reduces the odds of landing the best candidates (because they are interviewing with multiple companies). Added time is a lose-lose-lose-lose.
The required pre-work for the meeting is for each interviewer to complete and submit their written candidate assessment, which includes their vote (e.g., “inclined” or “not inclined” to hire). Interviewers failing to complete the evaluation on time is a constant source of delayed or ineffective debriefs.
Once the assessments and initial votes are all complete, the meeting begins and follows a fixed structure:
1) Everyone reads all interview assessments independently. (5-10 minutes)
2) Everyone re-votes based on the assessments
3) Discussion
4) Decision
One of the challenges in this process is the revote in step 2. People are often reluctant to change their vote because they feel that they are admitting they “got the answer wrong the first time.” This is not the case. It is perfectly normal to change votes in either direction after reading all of the assessments. In my experience as a Bar Raiser, I found it necessary to encourage people to change their vote and to point out that there is zero shame in doing so.
In most cases, the vote is split between inclined and not inclined. This is when the Bar Raiser’s job begins in earnest. As the Bar Raiser in this situation, I would write two columns on the whiteboard: reasons to hire and reasons not to hire. Based on the written assessments, I would list each principle in the appropriate column.
Then I would ask the group, “Does anyone think that any of these principles are not in the right column?” or “Does anyone have any data that suggests that one of these belongs in a different column?” In other words, “Does anyone think that the candidate has been assessed incorrectly in any of these principles?”
This leads to discussions about various principles and whether the examples cited suggest that the candidate’s work is above or below the bar for the given principle. The Bar Raiser’s role is to manage and facilitate this discussion.
(cont. in comments)
