3 questions Jeff Bezos asked before hiring someone for Amazon that everyone should consider

October
22, 2020

3 min read

• Will you admire this person?
• Will this person increase the average level of effectiveness of the group they enter?
• In what area could this person be a superstar?

Would you like to work at Amazon or learn about the human resources of its founder? This will interest you. One of the company’s first employees said in a 1999 interview that Jeff Bezos was in charge of interviewing candidates and that this person should raise the hiring standards for the next applicant.

However, Bezos’s schedule became heavier with the growth of his company and of course he is no longer in charge of the human resources of the company, but through a letter written in 1998, he made clear the high standards of hiring that Amazon must have and three key questions for applicants.

According to Tom Popomaronis , in an article for CNBC , although these questions were written 22 years ago, they are timeless and should be taken into account by everyone, recruiters and candidates alike.

^{Image: Mandel Ngan | Getty Images}

In his hiring meetings, Bezos would ask employees to answer these three questions before making a decision:

1. Will you admire this person?

“If you think about the people your life has admired, they are probably from whom you have been able to learn or take an example. For my part, I have always strived to only work with people I admire, and I encourage people here to be just as demanding. Life is definitely short to do otherwise, ”Bezos says in his letter .

2. Will this person increase the average level of effectiveness of the group they join?

“We want to fight against entropy. The bar has to go up continuously. 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 walked in when I did!”

In this section, the founder of Amazon refers to the fact that they must always raise the hiring standards.

3. In what area could this person be a superstar?

“Many people have unique skills, interests and perspectives that enrich the work environment for all of us. Often it is something that is not even related to their jobs ”. This must be taken into account by employers to improve the quality of the work environment.