How Amazon Raised the Bar on Recruiting Talent | John Vlastelica

Invent like an Owner with Dave Schappell

Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with John Vlastelica to talk about how Amazon scaled recruitment. They’ll discuss the origin and impact of the Bar Raiser program, where select employees helped pick top notch applicants, the birth of Making Great Hiring Decisions, Amazon’s behavioral interviewing training, how Matt Round’s MRT was designed for the interviewers not recruiters, and the challenges companies face scaling a high hiring bar.

John Vlastelica joined Amazon in 1998 as the Tech Recruiting Manager and then later became a Director of Recruiting. He helped build out the recruiting organization, programs and infrastructure during his 6 years there for what would become foundational to Amazon’s incredible employee growth.

Episode Resources:

• John Vlastelica’s LinkedIn
• Consulting and Training from John’s company, Recruiting Toolbox Website and Twitter
• Learn about the pros and cons of Bar Raisers: Barraisers.com
• Download the Hiring Manager Maturity Model and Culture of Recruiting Best Practices: https://go.recruitingtoolbox.com/hiring-manager-maturity-model
• Find Dave on LinkedIn and Twitter

What to Listen For:

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:55 What is the Bar Raiser Program?
• 08:33 Hiring people that will make the overall team better
• 10:22 Embedding high hiring standard into every interview process
• 12:17 Tech teams and non-tech teams have different bar standards
• 16:34 Amazon’s Interview Training Program - Making Great Hiring Decisions
• 20:00 The art of behavioral interviewing
• 25:04 Some of the drawbacks of the Bar Raisers program
• 28:30 How to scale a high hiring bar
• 32:43 People want to hire smart folks and they depend on proxies
• 37:21 Questions and scenarios to raise the bar mentality in the early days
• 38:48 Spent the last 16 years building Recruiting Toolbox
• 42:07 Overinvest in your hiring standards early
• 44:20 Bringing ownership into the recruiting culture
• 46:53 How John helps companies through Recruiting Toolbox
• 51:18 MRT shifted recruiting to more pipeline oriented, and allowed feedback on interview feedback, a very amazon thing to do
• 55:53 Creating a culture of ownership and recruiting ownership
• 59:03 Advice for CEOs and startups