Hiring.

The framework

1. 01

   Define the bar before the candidate exists.

   The bar is the minimum level of performance that, in two years, will look like a good hire. Not the best you can imagine — the minimum you can defend. Write it in behavioural terms before posting the role. If the hiring manager and the bar raiser can't agree on the bar before they see CVs, they won't agree on it after the debrief.

2. 02

   Separate the bar raiser from the team.

   The bar raiser must not report to or be evaluated by the hiring manager. Their incentive is the quality of the company's talent stock over time — not this quarter's headcount. If the person conducting the structural review has a relationship stake in the decision, the review becomes political, not analytical.

3. 03

   Use structured behavioural questions, not impressions.

   Unstructured interviews predict job performance only marginally better than chance. Structured behavioural questions — 'Tell me about a time when...' followed by deep probing on what they actually did versus what the team did — surface the signal that matters: capability, not likeability. Every interviewer on the loop should cover a pre-assigned dimension with pre-written questions.

4. 04

   Call the raise-the-bar standard in the debrief, not just 'yes' or 'no.'

   Amazon's debrief has a specific standard: would this person raise the average for their level at the company? A 'yes, but barely' is a no. A 'yes, meaningfully' is a yes. This binary — raise or don't raise — cuts through the social pressure of a group debrief where momentum is always toward the person everyone spent the most time with.