A bar-raiser is someone in your hiring process whose specific job is to ensure that every new hire raises the overall quality of your team instead of lowering it or keeping it the same. Amazon made this famous by having bar-raisers involved in all their hiring decisions. These are employees who are trained to evaluate candidates objectively and who have veto power if they don’t think someone is going to elevate the team. The philosophy is that if you’re not hiring people who are better than your current average, you’re slowly declining in quality as you scale.
Why Most Teams Decline Over Time
Without a bar-raiser mentality, most companies hire down as they grow because they’re desperate to fill positions and they make compromises. They hire someone who’s okay but not great because they need bodies and they don’t want the role to stay empty. Do that enough times and your team culture deteriorates, your execution suffers, and your best people start leaving because they’re frustrated working with mediocre performers. The bar-raiser process forces you to maintain standards even when it’s painful and even when it means roles stay open longer than you’d like.
Implementing It In Your Business
You don’t need Amazon’s formal process to adopt bar-raiser thinking in your hiring. The key is having someone involved in every hire who isn’t desperate to fill the role and who’s willing to say no if the candidate isn’t exceptional. This could be a founder, a senior leader, or a dedicated hiring manager. Their job is to ask the hard questions, push back on compromises, and protect the culture and quality of your team. It’s uncomfortable because it means passing on candidates who could do the job adequately, but the long term payoff of only bringing in A-players is worth the short term pain of waiting for the right person.