(And what to do if you’ve accidentally built your hiring process around vibes)
Okey dokey my lovely, insatiable supersonic recruitniks! Let’s talk about one of the most misunderstood concepts in recruitment
The bar raiser.
OOooh bar raiser.....raising the old bar....that's good right? standard stuff? Who doesn't want their bar raised?
It started at Amazon. But over the years, it’s been twisted into something it was never meant to be.
And it could be hurting your hiring process more than helping it...
"Nice foreshadowing Luke"
Thanks voices....
I promise I'm ok...keep reading.
So, What is a Bar Raiser?
Originally, it wasn’t actually an interview. It was a role.
Amazon trained specific employees as bar raisers. They were people who acted like internal 'super-users' of the recruitment process. They weren’t there to assess candidates.
They were there to assess the interviewers and improve the quality of interviews.
They had advanced training in bias mitigation, evidence-based scorecards, and structured decision-making.
They’d join interviews to shadow and coach the interviewers. Not to play gatekeeper on behalf of the business.
This is the important bit :
The bar raiser wasn’t there to evaluate the candidate.
They were there to raise the bar of how well your business interviews.
So What The Hell Happened?
Over time, the term “bar raiser” became shorthand for… an extra interview.
I bet you a million quid you've seen something like this
“They’ll do the bar raiser at the end, and if there’s doubt, there’s no doubt."
Instead of the company holding themselves to a higher standard of recruiting, a combination of time, social media and pure laziness made it the candidate’s responsibility to prove they’re a genius who would single-handedly uplift the entire organisation.
And the worst bit is, nobody ever defined where "the bar" actually sits.
So what are we left with?
- A totally subjective final interview No shared criteria No evidence-based assessment A huge risk of bias
It undermines the structured process you worked so hard to build.
So What's the Fix?
Make it a role, not a step.
Designate bar raisers who shadow interviews and help improve the interviewers, not judge the candidates.
Train for bias and evidence.
Teach your bar raisers to spot vague feedback, gut feeling, or lazy shorthand (like “culture fit”), and coach teams to use scorecards correctly
Stay candidate-fair.
If you must use a bar raiser interview step, define clear criteria and make sure it doesn’t overrule a strong process. If it’s subjective? Scrap it.
The original idea was good, but somewhere along the way, the industry got confused and built an entire interview format based on vibes and myth.
So.....
Bar raisers are not bullshit.... unless you go out of your way to make them bullshit.
Added bonus, the next time your founder wants to raise the bar. say "awesome! I'll start the company wide interview training and shadowing programme straight away!" Then enjoy the look of confusion on their wee face.....
Well... that's issue forty four! If you have any questions about it, or any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!