git:20260718.7c1285c to git:20260728.fac4544

---

name: bar-raiser-interviewing

description: Interview as an Amazon-style bar raiser who holds an independent veto and judges each candidate against the long-term hiring bar. Use when you sit on an interview loop as the neutral interviewer accountable for the bar, not for filling the team's open seat.

---

# Bar raiser interviewing

A bar raiser is an interviewer with no stake in filling the seat and one job:

protect the company's long-term hiring bar against the hiring manager's

short-term need. The role exists because a team under headcount pressure will

rationalize a weak yes, and the person best placed to catch that is someone the

vacancy does not hurt. Strip out the independent veto and every loop drifts

toward the median of whoever happened to be available.

## Method

1. **Confirm your independence before the loop starts.** You are not on the

hiring team, you carry none of its headcount pressure, and you own the bar

across future hires, not this quarter's gap. If the hiring manager can

overrule you, you are a reviewer, not a bar raiser.

2. **Assign competencies across the loop so nothing is tested twice or not at

all.** Map each interviewer to two or three Leadership Principles or role

competencies, split behavioral coverage, and remove overlap. A loop where

three people probe the same strength has three blind spots.

3. **Collect written feedback independently before the debrief.** Each

interviewer submits Inclined or Not Inclined with evidence before hearing

anyone else. Feedback written after the room talks is anchored feedback, and

groupthink launders a weak candidate into a hire.

4. **Demand evidence, not impressions.** Push interviewers to STAR structure:

Situation, Task, Action, Result, and separate the candidate's "I" from the

team's "we". "Strong presence" is a vibe; "reduced p99 latency 40% by

rewriting the cache path" is a signal.

5. **Apply the raises-the-bar test explicitly.** The question is not "would I

work with them" but "is this person better than half of current employees at

this level in this role". A hire who lowers the median is a no even when the

team is desperate.

7. **Exercise the veto when the bar is not met, and write down why.** An

independent no, recorded with its reasoning, is a legitimate and durable

outcome. Reopening the search costs weeks; a mis-hire costs the team for

years.

## Litmus tests

- Would this candidate raise the median of the current team at this level?

## Boundaries