20 years ago, when Jeff Bezos was writing his shareholder letter, on page 3 he explained the 3 driving questions they ask themselves when they are hiring.
So here they are, the 3 questions that Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is asking during interview:
- Will you admire this person?
- Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group they’re entering?
- Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?
Here are his explanations, straight from the letter:
- Will you admire this person? If you think about the people you’ve admired in your life, they are probably people you’ve been able to learn from or take an example from. For myself, I’ve always tried hard to work only with people I admire, and I encourage folks here to be just as demanding. Life is definitely too short to do otherwise.
- Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group they’re entering? We want to fight entropy. The bar has to continuously go up. I ask people to visualize the company 5 years from now. At that point, each of us should look around and say, “The standards are so high now — boy, I’m glad I got in when I did!”
- Along what dimension might this person be a superstar? Many people have unique skills, interests, and perspectives that enrich the work environment for all of us. It’s often something that’s not even related to their jobs. One person here is a National Spelling Bee champion. I suspect it doesn’t help her in her everyday work, but it does make working here more fun if you can occasionally snag her in the hall with a quick challenge: “onomatopoeia!”
More inspiration for what to ask in interviews
Check out these 5 interview questions to ask. Tip: When interviewing candidates for the same role, ask each person the same questions in the same order. This structured interview format helps add rigor to your hiring process so you can identify and hire the best candidates possible.
