2020-05-04 Acquired.High-performance Hiring & Interviewing (fmr. Amazon GM, Prime Membership, Anna Collins)
Transcript: (disclaimer: may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate and/or amusing transcription errors)
Ben: Hello Acquired LPs and welcome to another episode of The LP Show. David and I are looking at each other across a wonderful squad cast, David in his San Francisco home and me up in Seattle, staying safe and staying healthy. I think as Governor Inslee’s message up here, we hope all of you are safe and healthy as well.
Ben：各位 Acquired LP 的听众，大家好，欢迎收听本期《LP Show》。我和 David 正通过 SquadCast 在远程录制，他在旧金山的家里，我在西雅图，我们都保持安全和健康。正如我们这边华盛顿州长 Inslee 所强调的那样，我们也希望你们一切安好，身体健康。
Today's episode is one that has been requested a few times in the Slack and a topic of great discussion. When you dive deeper into these company-building topics and stop talking about just the news of the day of who got funded, what companies going through trouble, or the day-to-day of running a company, one of the most important things is how do you choose who to bring into your company, and what process do you put them through to see if they're the right person. We have never discussed interviewing on The LP Show.
今天这一集是 Slack 群中多次被点播、讨论热度很高的一个话题。当你深入探讨公司构建的深层问题，而不仅仅关注每日新闻，比如谁又拿到融资了、哪家公司陷入困境了，或者公司的日常运营时，最重要的问题之一就是：你如何选择要加入你公司的成员？你采用什么流程来判断他们是否合适？我们从未在《LP Show》中深入探讨过“面试”这一话题。
As David and I were talking about how we should do an LP episode on interviewing, I was telling David about this story of this awesome entrepreneur in residence, Anna Collins, who's been working with us at PSL, and she hopped on this interview loop to help us out. Just had in our post-interview discussion, the most thoughtful feedback, the best questions, all of us were joking, looking at each other, and saying why did any of us even do this interview loop, and can Anna just do the whole thing for us?
当我和 David 商量要不要做一期关于面试的 LP 特别节目时，我跟他说起我们 PSL 的一位出色的驻场创业者——Anna Collins。她曾参与我们的一个面试流程来帮忙。在面试结束后的讨论中，她提出了最有洞察力的反馈，问了最好的问题，大家都在开玩笑说：我们干嘛还参与这轮面试啊？Anna 一个人搞定不就好了！
Here we are today to do an LP episode on the very first time on how to conduct the best interview you can, a key part of building a high-performance team with the best person I can imagine to help us do it. Anna, thank you for being with us today.
所以我们今天终于迎来了这期特别节目，第一次聊聊怎么才能做出一场高质量的面试。这是打造高效团队的关键环节，而我能想到的最合适的人选来分享这个主题就是 Anna。Anna，感谢你今天来做客。
Anna: Thanks, Ben. It's great to be here.
Anna：谢谢你，Ben。很高兴能来参加节目。
Ben: To give folks a sense of Anna's background. I mentioned I personally know her because she's been working on new startup ideas with us. Before that, Anna had a prolific career as a leader of larger organizations and starting things from scratch. She is a fantastic leader and human, having started and scaled new businesses, multi-billion dollar companies in healthcare, EdTech, advertising, gaming, CPG, retail, and of course technology businesses.
Ben：我来简单介绍一下 Anna 的背景。我认识她是因为她最近在我们这边孵化一些新创意。但在这之前，Anna 拥有一段非常出色的职业生涯，她曾在大型组织中担任领导者，也曾从零开始创业。她是一位杰出的领导者和优秀的人，涉足过多个领域，打造并扩展了多家十亿美元级别的企业，包括医疗、教育科技、广告、游戏、消费品、零售，当然还有科技行业。
She was the worldwide general manager of Amazon Prime. Before that, she was recruited by Microsoft to build out and scale the global search advertising business, from concept all the way through growth, and ultimately, to \$1.6 billion in revenue. At CVS Health, she was responsible for leading the internet channel strategy and the acquisition, culminating in the launch of cvs.com.
她曾是亚马逊 Prime 的全球总经理。在那之前，她被微软挖去负责构建并扩展全球搜索广告业务，从概念开始一路带到最终实现16亿美元的收入。在 CVS Health，她负责互联网渠道战略与收购整合，最终促成了 cvs.com 的上线。
She holds an AB in economics and an MBA from Harvard University. While not changing the world, Anna coaches her sons, Henry and Cooper, in basketball and keeps up with her wonderful wife, Debbie. A quote that closes out, Anna’s bio reads, “Family first, love wins.” I just wanted to include that because I saw it in a bio here somewhere, and thought it'd be a great way to close that out.
她拥有哈佛大学经济学学士学位和 MBA。工作之外，她会指导自己的儿子 Henry 和 Cooper 打篮球，也会陪伴她的爱妻 Debbie。Anna 的简介中有一句话特别打动我——“家庭第一，爱至上”，我在某处看到这句话，觉得用它来做结尾再合适不过了。
从简历看是一个标准的白痴。
Anna: Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it.
Anna：谢谢你，Ben。我很感激。
Ben: You have such a prolific background. Why don't we dive into some of the early history of that before we get to this nitty-gritty of tactical interviewing questions? One of your earliest experiences as a three-sport athlete was on the Harvard basketball team. I wanted you to share it with us because I know a little bit about the story. What that was like for you and why that was a special time in your life?
Ben：你的经历如此丰富，在我们进入面试技巧这些细节之前，不如先聊聊你的早期经历。你曾是三项运动的运动员，其中一段特别早的经历是在哈佛打篮球。我知道这段经历背后有个故事，能和我们分享一下吗？这段时间对你来说意味着什么？
Anna: It was a special time because when I went to Harvard as a freshman and joined, we were in last place in the Ivy League. In the first year, we won 3 games and lost 21. We were losing basically all the time. We weren't just losing, we were getting crushed by the teams, 20 points, 50 points. It was the first year of a new coach that came, Kathy Delaney Smith. She had a vision of winning and that was part of why I wanted to be on that team.
Anna：那是一段特别的经历。刚上哈佛一年级时，我加入了篮球队，当时我们在常青藤联盟中排名垫底。第一年我们只赢了3场，输了21场。我们几乎每一场都在输，不仅是输，还经常被对方痛击，输20分、甚至50分。那是我们新教练 Kathy Delaney Smith 到任的第一年。她带着赢球的愿景，而这正是我想加入这个团队的原因之一。
Turning the program around, we went from worst to first in four years. In my senior year, we won the Ivy League and reversed the freshman year record. We were 21:3 and it was the first time Harvard basketball ever won an Ivy League Championship, men or women's. That was a big journey going from worst to first. A lot of heartache, sorrow, and a lot of learning, how to experiment, be a team together, and it was really fortunate to be part of that period of Harvard basketball history.
我们用四年时间彻底扭转了局势，从联盟垫底跃升到第一名。到我大四那年，我们赢得了常青藤联盟冠军，战绩也和大一那年相反，变成了21胜3负。这是哈佛男女篮球历史上首次赢得常青藤联赛冠军。这段从最差到最强的旅程充满了辛酸、失落，也收获了大量成长，我们不断尝试，学会了如何真正成为一个团队。我非常幸运，能够成为哈佛篮球历史上这一段的重要一员。
Ben: I have to imagine going from worst to first those early years of your life on something like that. You had to be a pretty competitive spirit, had to be this “win at all cost” mentality and learn to trust people that you didn't know before. Has that always been a part of your personality or did you develop that as part of that experience?
Ben：我想那种从谷底到巅峰的经历，发生在人生早期，一定要求你具备很强的竞争精神，甚至有种“不惜一切赢下来”的心态，同时也要学会信任你原本并不熟悉的队友。这种性格你一直都有，还是在那段经历中慢慢培养出来的？
Anna: I think I came out of the womb as a competitive spirit, so that's been part of competing in sports. Actually in music, I played the flute in a symphony, and also did state competitions during that, so I loved competing in music as well as different sports.
Anna：我觉得我生来就有竞争精神，这也是我会参与体育竞技的原因之一。其实在音乐方面也是，我曾在交响乐团中吹长笛，也参加过州级别的比赛，我很喜欢在音乐和体育中都去竞争、挑战。
I think that competitive spirit showed up in different places, and I found different arenas to do it, but one thing I would say the other piece is I always pick team sports. In high school, I played volleyball, softball, and basketball. In college, I played basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse. I played team handball at the Olympic festival at the national team level.
这种竞争精神在不同场合都会展现出来，而我也总能找到不同的舞台去发挥。但有一点我想特别说的是：我总是选择“团队运动”。高中时我打排球、垒球和篮球；大学时我打篮球、排球和长曲棍球；我还代表国家队参加过奥林匹克节的手球比赛。
I could go on about that, but it's always team sports. People were like, “Oh, you should have been a swimmer,” and I'm like, “Well, I can swim, but I never wanted to do the individual sports.” During that journey in basketball, I had a practice that if we did not win a game, I did not look at my individual stats, and that's because it didn't matter what I did. It didn't matter how many rebounds or how many points. If we didn't win the game, it didn't matter, so I had a practice of only looking at my stats if we won the game. That gives you a notion of how I feel about team versus individual, and what matters.
我可以继续说很多，但核心就是：我始终钟爱团队运动。很多人说，“你应该去游泳啊。”我会说，“我会游泳，但我从没想过要去做那种个人项目。”在篮球这项旅程中，我有个习惯：只要我们输掉比赛，我就不会看自己的个人数据。因为那根本不重要，无论我拿了多少篮板、得了多少分，只要我们没赢，就没有意义。所以我养成了只有赢了球才去看自己数据的习惯。这个做法或许能反映出我对“团队与个人”以及什么才是重要的，有怎样的看法。
Ben: Speaking of team versus individual, I know you were in the Air Force. I'm curious to hear a little bit about your path of being in the Air Force, and how that ended up leading you into the world of technology.
Ben：说到团队与个人，我知道你还曾在空军服役。我很好奇你是怎么进入空军的，以及这段经历是怎样把你带入科技领域的？
Anna: I could share a little bit about the Air Force. Basketball had more to do with the lead into technology with our friend Mike Galligan. The Air Force, I had the opportunity. I was picked to go to an engineering and science seminar at the Naval Academy based on escorts. When I was a junior in high school, I got exposure to the opportunity of the service academies, as well as then the ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) programs and scholarships. I had a choice when I was graduating, I had both scholarships and appointments to the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, and you can take those scholarships anywhere.
Anna：我可以简单分享一下我在空军的经历。不过说起来，其实是篮球更多地把我引向了科技行业，那还得感谢我们的朋友 Mike Galligan。至于空军，我是通过一个机会被选去参加海军学院举办的一场工程与科学研讨会，那是因为有一些导师推荐。高中三年级时，我就接触到了军校的机会，也了解到了 ROTC（预备军官训练团）项目以及相关奖学金。等到毕业时，我既拿到了海军学院和空军学院的录取，也获得了奖学金，并且这些奖学金可以用在任何学校。
I also had other options with the academic and athletic scholarship, so super fortunate, but I wanted the experience of serving. Serving mattered to me. Growing up in Michigan, I had that service component and value as a family. Then second, the opportunity to lead, to manage people, and be responsible for resources and people at an early age. Really at 21, you're thrown in as an officer and you get that opportunity. I knew that I wanted that. Those components altogether had me really go after the ROTC scholarship and I did that at MIT, cross-enrolled at MIT as I went to Harvard.
此外，我还有其他学术和体育奖学金的选择，总的来说真的很幸运。但我当时就想要“服役”的经历，对我而言，这是一种意义非凡的事情。我在密歇根长大，家里一直很重视“服务”这一价值观。其次，我也想要有机会在年轻时就担起领导责任，去管理人和资源。在21岁时，你就被任命为军官，有机会实践这一切。我知道自己想要那种体验。这些因素促使我全力争取 ROTC 奖学金。我是在哈佛读书的同时，跨校注册在 MIT 完成 ROTC 课程。
Ben: At some point, you made this choice, “Hey, I'm going to go into the world of business. I don't think the Air Force has been this amazing experience, but that isn't my career.”
Ben：你在人生某个阶段做出了这样的选择：“我要进入商业世界。虽然在空军的经历很棒，但那并不是我未来的职业方向。”
Anna: In college, I studied economics, and that was the closest thing to business at Harvard. I thought I'm going to go to business school or law school. I'm not sure, but the Air Force. I didn't know how long I would stay but as I was in the air force, I figured out I was gay in my early- to mid-20s, and that was when it was before Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's just your criminal if you're gay.
Anna：在大学时我主修经济学，这是当时在哈佛最接近商业的专业。我曾想过去读商学院或法学院，但还没确定方向。而空军那边，我当时也不知道自己会待多久。但在服役期间，我在二十岁出头时意识到自己是同性恋——那还是“不得问、不必说”（Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell）政策之前的年代，公开是同性恋在军中就等同于犯罪。
I was in finance. That's where the Air Force matched me as a career, which ended up being a good career for me and background. I wanted to get out. When I figured that out after my four years of active service and I had an inactive time that I reserved that I owed, but I didn't feel comfortable staying in. For me it was integrity to not be my full self, so I was just scared and I got out after that first four years. Otherwise, I may have stayed in a little bit longer, potentially have gone to graduate school, and then served again longer in the service, but for me, it was the urgency to get out based on being a criminal.
我在空军的岗位是财务方向，这是他们给我匹配的职业道路，最终这段经历也对我日后的发展很有帮助。但我想要离开。当我意识到自己的身份后，在完成四年的现役服役后，虽然还有预备役的义务未尽，我却感到继续留下来不再舒适。因为不能以完整真实的自我存在，对我来说是不诚实的。我当时很害怕，于是在四年期满后选择离开。否则，也许我会再待久一点，也可能先读研究生再回来服役更长时间。但因为那时同性恋身份几乎等于犯罪，所以我有一种迫切感，必须离开。
I didn't want to go directly to business school out of the military. I wanted private sector experience, so I picked a great opportunity and went to Johnson & Johnson Orthopedics, had a great experience there and then went to business school.
我不想从军中直接跳去读商学院。我希望先积累一些私营企业的工作经验。于是我抓住一个很好的机会，去了强生（Johnson & Johnson）旗下的骨科部门，那段经历非常棒。之后我才去读了商学院。
The technology back, so the Internet was happening when I was at CVS, and I was doing corporate business development. That was one of the opportunities/problems and challenges that the company had.
至于我后来怎么回到科技领域——那是在我加入 CVS 之后，正赶上互联网时代开始兴起。我在那时从事企业业务发展方面的工作，那是公司当时所面临的一项机遇，也是一大难题和挑战。
Ben: What year was that?
Ben：那是什么时候的事？
Anna: I graduated from Business School in 1995. That was 1996–1999. I was at CVS and working on that as part of that time.
Anna：我在1995年从商学院毕业。1996到1999年，我在 CVS 工作，正是这段期间开始接触互联网相关的挑战。
Ben: Okay, so the run-up had begun.
Ben：明白了，也就是说互联网浪潮已经开始酝酿了。
Anna: The run-up had begun. At the same time, Mike Galgon had come out to found Avenue aQuantive and we'd become friends back in Boston through playing pick-up basketball. We did peer mentoring, which I recommend. Peer mentoring is one of the most powerful mechanisms there. It's not always that fun, but it's actually one of the most beneficial and powerful mechanisms to grow as a professional.
Anna：是的，浪潮已经开始。与此同时，Mike Galgon 创办了 Avenue aQuantive。他是我在波士顿通过打野球认识的朋友，我们后来开展了“同伴辅导”（peer mentoring），我非常推荐这种方式。它可能不像表面上看起来那么有趣，但在职业成长中，它是最有益、最有力量的一种机制。
We were doing that every month talking, and it ended up as I was getting more excited about what I was doing for CVS and the technology space, and he was growing a startup. That's how I came out to Seattle to join him and the crew at Avenue aQuantive.
我们当时每月都会交流一次，我在 CVS 的工作也越来越多地涉及技术领域，而他那边的创业公司也在快速成长。于是我最终决定来到西雅图，加入他和 Avenue aQuantive 的团队。
Ben: What is peer mentoring? How do you structure that if somebody wants to do that among a small group? What should they do?
Ben：你提到的“同伴辅导”具体是怎样的？如果有一小群人也想开展这种机制，他们应该怎么做？
Anna: There are different ways to do it. I think for me, the critical piece is trust. Mike and I had a trusting relationship where we could share what was happening, what was working, what wasn't working, and what problems we had. It was (again) informal in that way. We just agreed to talk and catch up, then share what was happening, and be able to noodle with each other about what was going on in our different businesses.
Anna：有很多种方式可以做。我认为最关键的一点是“信任”。我和 Mike 建立了一个彼此信任的关系，我们可以开放地分享自己的近况，哪些事情进展顺利，哪些不顺，遇到了什么问题。这种机制其实是非正式的，我们只是定下一个频率定期聊天，然后互相了解彼此业务中的挑战，互相探讨和头脑风暴。
I think (again) you can do more formal things than that. It's been true across where you have your trusted people, and you're able to talk with them about what matters and what's working, what isn't working.
当然，你也可以把这种机制变得更正式一些。但核心依旧是：你要有一群值得信赖的人，能就真正重要的事情、工作中进展顺利与否的地方展开真诚交流。
Ben: Let's zoom in on that period for a moment of you decided to join Mike at aQuantive. That was a heck of a journey (aQuantive) especially in those late 1990s and early 2000s. For folks that don't know, this is a company that was one of the very earliest pioneers in the internet advertising space that IPOed, and then sold to Microsoft as a multi-billion dollar acquisition. There's a story in there that we'll dive into this show at some point, but Anna, I want to zoom in on the leadership component. What did you learn being an executive during that time period and how fast things were moving?
Ben：我们来聚焦一下你决定加入 Mike、进入 aQuantive 那段时期。那真是一段精彩旅程，尤其是在 1990 年代末和 2000 年代初。对于不了解的听众来说，aQuantive 是互联网广告领域最早的一批先驱企业之一，后来上市并最终以数十亿美元的价格被微软收购。我们以后会在节目里深入讲讲这段故事。但我现在想聚焦在你的领导经历上。在当时节奏如此之快的环境下，你作为高管学到了什么？
Anna: It was the quintessential chaos stepping into chaos. It was pre-IPO when I joined in August 1999. One thing is being flexible and adaptable. Even in the role, I interviewed and was recruited as VP of Business Development, but the week before I joined Mike (who was acting president at the time), said, “Hey, we really need a leader or this media group that has 30 plus individuals in it, and a manager to help figure out how to scale that portion of the business because we're growing like crazy and it's not working basically. Would you instead, come into that operating role, and be VP in Media as your starting position?” This is a week before I started and I said, “Sure, that'd be great,” because I preferred an operating role.
Anna：那简直就是跳进混乱中的混乱。我是在 1999 年 8 月加入的，那时公司还未上市。首先要做到的一点就是灵活和适应力强。其实我面试和被招的是“业务发展副总裁”这个职位。但在我入职前一周，Mike（当时是代理总裁）说：“我们现在特别需要一个人来领导媒体部门，那边有三十几个人，需要有管理者来解决规模化的问题。业务增长太快了，但这个部门完全跟不上节奏。你能不能一开始就担任媒体副总裁这个岗位，负责那部分运营？”我说：“当然可以，我很乐意。”因为其实我本来就偏好运营类的角色。
When I came in, (again) a lot of great talent doing whatever they could to serve as clients and to work. They were basically doing media buying, planning, and trafficking of the ads as the ad serving and trafficking of the ads. We were negotiating with Yahoo for every client separately, so there's a media buyer for every client, for every publisher on the Internet, like Yahoo, for example, and they were all negotiating separately.
我加入后发现，团队中有很多优秀人才，大家都在尽力服务客户、完成工作。他们主要负责媒体采购、策划和广告投放（包括广告服务和投放流程）。我们当时的做法是每个客户都单独与 Yahoo 等网络媒体谈判，也就是说，每一个客户、每一家媒体平台都会有一个买手去谈价格，完全是分散的。
One of the things I did was reorganizing structure to scale and to bring the negotiating power of leverage of Avenue aQuantive to Yahoo. We only negotiated once we said, “Hey, this buyer represents all of Avenue A's clients, and now we're going to represent that much money. Now, we're going to negotiate with you (Yahoo) for rates,” and that, as you can imagine, one of today's examples of one of the things. But with that, you have to move quickly, also bring people along with you, include them, understand, and work backward from the customer.
我做的其中一件重要的事就是重组组织架构，让业务能够扩展，并把 Avenue aQuantive 的整体谈判筹码带到像 Yahoo 这样的媒体平台上。我们只谈一次判价，而不是每个客户单独谈。我们说：“这个买手代表 Avenue A 所有的客户，我们代表的是整块广告预算。”这样我们再去和 Yahoo 谈价格，自然议价能力更强。这只是一个例子。要做到这些，你需要迅速行动，同时带领好团队，确保成员的参与和理解，并始终从客户需求反推解决方案。
Those earning trust, but moving quickly and balancing those, is really a judgment call. I would say that's one of the things to really say, “You know what? You have to move quickly. Be flexible, adaptable, but also still earn trust with people, work backward, be customer-focused (if you will) and understand what that means for what the customer experience is as you're changing it, and scaling the business as an example.
在快速行动和赢得信任之间取得平衡，是一种非常考验判断力的能力。我想说，这段经历教会我最重要的一课就是：你必须快速行动，具备灵活性和适应力，同时又要赢得团队的信任、以客户为中心，并在你变革业务、扩大规模的过程中始终关注客户体验的变化及影响。
Ben: I know we're moving quickly through your background here, but you've just done so much, and I think it's a really relevant context for our discussion on interviewing. Speaking of customer-focused, you spent some time in Amazon and you are the worldwide general manager of Amazon Prime. Amazon is famous for not only the interview process but what do they call them? The principles, the 18...
Ben：我们现在确实是在快速浏览你的职业经历，但你确实做了太多事情，这些经历对我们等会儿要谈的“面试”主题也非常有参考价值。说到“以客户为中心”，你在亚马逊也工作过，是 Amazon Prime 的全球总经理。亚马逊不仅以面试流程闻名，还有那个……他们叫什么来着？十八个……
Anna: Leadership principles, 14 leadership principles. To be clear, I was one of the leaders in Amazon Prime, and I was the global leader for Amazon Prime membership, which did include retention engagement of the first few Prime days, Prime member spends, pricing. That's super fun to do. Again, a big team of people to be thankful and grateful for that experience. Amazon was a tremendous place and is a tremendous company. I learned a lot and got the opportunity to work with a lot of amazing people there.
Anna：是领导力原则，14 条领导力原则。更准确地说，我是 Amazon Prime 的领导团队成员之一，具体负责全球 Prime 会员业务，包括会员保留与活跃、Prime Day 初期的用户参与、Prime 会员的消费行为、定价策略等等。这些工作都非常有趣，也要感谢那支优秀团队的共同努力。亚马逊是一家非常棒的公司，我在那儿学到了很多，也有机会和一群杰出的人共事。
You skipped over the Microsoft portion, which I spent about seven years of \[00:14:31], which (again) I just skipped back to Microsoft in building out that search ad business from scratch. I hired with my team of people, over 500 people across the globe in 18 months, and created brand new roles to do that. That was actually the most phenomenal hiring practice that I've ever done both in scale and in speed. I can talk about that, but going back to Amazon, Amazon's leadership principles, and how they operate, Amazon is like a mash-up of Harvard Business School and the military because of how standardized they operate, with great adherence to process and the way things are done.
你跳过了我在微软的那段经历——其实我在微软工作了七年，这段经历我刚才也跳回去提了下，我是从零开始建立他们的搜索广告业务。我和我的团队在18个月内在全球范围内招聘了500多人，并创造了一些全新的岗位。这是我至今为止经历过的规模最大、速度最快、最出色的招聘实践之一。我可以之后详细说说这段经历。回到亚马逊的话，谈谈它的领导力原则以及运作方式，亚马逊的运作模式其实像是哈佛商学院和军队的结合体，因为它们对流程的高度标准化和严格遵循方式几乎达到军事级别。
That's one of the reasons this applies across the business, whether it's creating a new business, working backward. We do in the working backward process with a customer, press release, and frequently asked questions or ERFAQ, or it's the hiring process, what that process is, how it's done, what the components are, and how the preparation is for that starting with the job description. What are the most important seven leadership principles (for example) for that particular role, and who should be on a loop? How do you do the pre-brief before the loop? How do you assign roles?
这也是为什么这种方式可以贯穿整个公司的业务——无论是创立新业务，还是采用“反向工作法”（working backward）。在反向工作法中，我们会围绕客户撰写新闻稿、准备 FAQ 或“ERFAQ”；而在招聘流程中，我们也有一套清晰明确的规范：流程是什么？怎么执行？包含哪些关键环节？准备工作从哪开始？比如从岗位描述开始；再比如，我们会指定这个职位最重要的七条领导力原则；谁应该参与面试环节（loop）？面试前的简报（pre-brief）怎么开？各自承担什么面试职责？
What you're basically doing is you're giving everyone a different, probably two leadership principles to interview by, and then everybody, you're basically getting a portion, everyone's doing a portion of the interview data collection, and you get a full picture of the person. This is exactly the same process, by the way, that we did at Microsoft, so it was not different at Amazon and Microsoft.
基本上，你是把每位面试官分配不同的内容，让他们分别根据两条领导力原则来进行面试。这样每个人负责一部分数据采集，最后就能拼凑出候选人的完整画像。顺便说一句，这跟我们在微软的做法完全一样。所以说，亚马逊和微软在这个方法论上并没有本质不同。
两个都是依靠蛮力的企业。
David: Amazon has done a better job of branding it.
David：不过亚马逊确实在“品牌化”这件事上做得更好。
Anna: Yeah, potentially, as far as the communication on that, but I think also in the way that it's practiced. In other words, there might be more variation of how well the process is followed in different divisions or groups at Microsoft. Again, that's changed since I've been there, it may have changed since I've done it, but during the period I was there.
Anna：是的，也许从对外传达的角度来说确实如此，但我认为在执行力度方面也有区别。换句话说，在微软，不同部门或团队可能对流程遵守的程度不一。当然，这些情况自我离开后可能已经发生变化，但我所说的是我当时在那里的实际情况。
Microsoft has their 7 values, at the time 33 competencies. It’s a similar thing and we did the same. So, how I interviewed at Amazon was not different from how I did it at Microsoft, with my teams as an example. It was different. We use different values/leadership principles, but the actual method was the same.
微软有七个核心价值观，以及当时有33项能力标准。其实本质上是一样的，我们也是照样执行的。所以我在亚马逊的面试方式，和我在微软团队所用的面试方式并没有本质区别。唯一不同的是我们参考的价值观或领导力原则不同，但方法是一致的。
There's a bar raiser at Amazon, which is the person or the role on the loop that is there to do two things. One is to assess the long-term potential of that candidate, so are they a good fit for Amazon or the company? Do they match those values? Do they have the potential to grow? If you're hiring at X level, can they grow two or three levels beyond that? So, are they good long-term fit?
在亚马逊，有一个特殊的角色叫“bar raiser”（抬高标准者），他在面试 loop 中承担两个核心职责：第一，评估候选人的长期潜力——他们是否适合亚马逊或这家公司？是否契合我们的价值观？他们有没有成长空间？比如现在招的是 X 级别的人，他未来是否能成长为高出两到三级的高潜人才？也就是说，是否具备长期发展的契合度？
Number two, are they just a good cultural fit for the company? The hiring manager always has the immediate pressure of needing to fill that role to get the job done, the business done, so this bar raiser role is this long-term potential. And then also calibration. Is this person at that level if you're hiring them as (for example) a frontline manager? Do they have the right experience, competency, capability, and proficiency to operate at that level? So, you're calibrating for that level.
第二，他们是否适合公司的文化？招聘经理往往面临现实压力，急需补人完成任务和推动业务。而 bar raiser 的角色就是站在更长远的角度评估人才。同时，他也起到“校准”作用——比如你要招一位基层经理，那这个人是否真的具备匹配该岗位的经验、能力和熟练程度？你要对其能力水平进行准确定位。
Microsoft has a role called an as-appropriate. It’s the same role.
微软也有类似角色，叫做“as-appropriate”（合适面试官），其实就是一样的角色。
Ben: Yeah, the as-ap.
Ben：对，叫 as-ap。
Anna: As-ap, exactly. That would be an example of how those practices are really the same, but the adherence and standardization of those are greater at Amazon.
Anna：对，as-ap。这个就是一个例子，说明这些做法在微软和亚马逊是类似的，但亚马逊在标准化执行和流程一致性上做得更加彻底。
跟微软很像但比微软更狠，长期从事不赚钱的业务有关。
Ben: And with the as-appropriate, my understanding of the place where that term comes from, is they're the last person on the loop, and they only joined as-appropriate, if the rest of the group is trending up and they need that one person to come in and weigh in. Was that your experience? Also, the bar raiser, is that the same way that the bar raiser would be the last person on the loop?
Ben：关于“as-appropriate”，据我理解，这个词的由来是因为这个人通常是面试环节中最后一个出场的，只有当整个面试团队倾向于录用候选人时，他才会加入并进行判断。你当时也是这么体验的吗？还有“bar raiser”，他也会是 loop 中最后一个出场的人吗？
Anna: Two things. One at Microsoft, (again) this is where we always had it. We had loops and the experience because you're going to construct a loop and say you want to do it to make it convenient and fast for the candidate as well as the company. To a degree possible, you would have them all stacked together, so you start at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. Based on schedules, it's too complex to say the as-appropriate \[00:19:27] yes, or the bar raisers are at the end. If you could do that, that's great. It doesn't have to be that way, though. In a scan with scheduling, it's virtually impossible to always do that. What's more important is that that role was on there.
Anna：有两个点要说。首先，在微软，我们确实设置了这样的角色，并安排面试 loop 时尽量考虑候选人和公司的便利性，尽量让面试集中在一天内完成，从早到晚排好。但实际上，受限于时间安排，要保证“as-appropriate”或“bar raiser”一定出现在最后一轮几乎是不可能的。如果能做到，那当然好，但并不是必须的。真正重要的是——这个角色要“在场”，参与整个流程。
Second, you don't get to know the other person's feedback until after you've done your feedback as an interviewer. At Microsoft, you could see the other interview feedback as an as-appropriate, and then be able to use that to probe on concerns. That would be one of the things that, as an as-appropriate, as the rest of the loop happens, you could not only have whatever you're assigned values or leadership principles in the Amazon world, but you could also have other concerns that you want to probe on, that have come up through the loop today. That's the other piece of it.
其次，作为面试官，你不能提前看到其他人的反馈，必须先提交自己的反馈。在微软，作为“as-appropriate”角色，你是可以看到其他人的反馈的，这样你就可以针对出现的问题深入追问。这也是“as-appropriate”的一项职责：不仅仅按照你被分配的价值观或领导力原则来面试，还可以针对 loop 中其他人提出的顾虑进行探讨和确认。这是这个角色的另一个重要部分。
David: You said Amazon being a cross of Harvard Business School and the military, how did you think about creating such a process-driven culture? What you have to do when you're hiring thousands and thousands of people, you need a standardized process. Making hiring decisions are human decisions. It's not like there's a right answer. What was the appropriate balance of a rigid process or a rigorous process and still having room for understanding that human element?
David：你刚才说亚马逊像是哈佛商学院和军队的结合体。我想问，在建立这样一个流程驱动的文化时你是如何思考的？当你要招聘成千上万的人时，确实需要一个标准化的流程。但招聘最终还是人的决策，不像数学题有标准答案。你是如何在严格流程与保留人性理解之间取得平衡的？
Anna: A couple things. Having a process is like if you ask someone about boundaries and creativity. You actually need structure for creativity. Basketball is played in a court that is 90 feet long, a free throw is 15 feet. It has a lot of rules and structure to it, but yet, you could have Steph Curry, LeBron James, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, different styles of basketball within that structure.
Anna：我有几点想说。首先，流程就像“边界与创造力”的关系——你其实需要结构才能有创造力。比如篮球，场地长度是90英尺，罚球线是15英尺，这项运动充满规则和结构。但在这个结构之内，你可以看到斯蒂芬·库里、勒布朗·詹姆斯、拉里·伯德、迈克尔·乔丹，各种不同风格的篮球诞生。
这是有道理的。
In music, the same thing. You have the staff, the same notes, different 4/4 times, and you have Mozart to Madonna to Lady Gaga. I believe that structure is what is required for creativity, and for humans to actually connect in. If you have chaos, that's the opposite of being able to have an ability to connect in a good candidate experience. It's all about being human—you’re right—you need the structure to help facilitate that and to make it productive.
音乐也是一样。有五线谱、统一音符、拍号节奏，但你可以有莫扎特，也可以有麦当娜，甚至 Lady Gaga。我相信，结构是创造力的前提，也是人与人建立联系的基础。如果一切混乱无序，你反而无法与候选人建立良好的连接。你说得对，一切都关乎“人性”，而结构正是帮助这种人性化互动发生并取得成果的重要工具。
David: It's like, “Oh, let's just go out to lunch together.”
David：如果没有结构，就像说：“我们一起吃个午饭吧”——然后什么也搞不清。
Anna: Right and at the end of it, you don't know. It's similar actually to PSLs structure for assessing a business idea. You have a way to do a voice of a customer interview. If everyone just, “Oh, let's just go talk to a bunch of customers,” but you don't know what data you're looking for, you don't have a hypothesis, then you could conduct 10 voice of customer interviews and have nothing at the end.
Anna：没错，最后你什么也没收获。其实这就很像 PSL（Pioneer Square Labs）评估创业点子的流程。你要有一套结构化的客户访谈流程。如果大家只是说：“我们去聊聊用户吧”，但没有目标数据、也没有假设引导，那你就算做了10次客户访谈，最后也可能一无所获。
Ben: I've certainly made that mistake, especially earlier in my career. I was trying to do interviews without a clear plan, then I ended up spending an hour of both of our time and have no data at the end. I think that's very common for people early in their careers.
Ben：我确实犯过这样的错误，特别是在职业生涯早期。我做面试时没有明确的计划，最后花了一小时，浪费了我和候选人的时间，却没有收集到任何有用的信息。我觉得这在职场新人中非常常见。
Anna: The other thing is it leads to a bunch of subjective bias when you're just saying, “Oh, it's this person,” because (again) we all have these biases around. Did they like things I like? Are they interesting? Are they engaging? Someone might be introverted versus extroverted. You start judging based on style and other factors, then what are the capabilities?
Anna：另一个问题是，如果你只是凭感觉说“哦，我喜欢这个人”，那就会带来大量主观偏见。我们每个人都会有这些偏见，比如他们是不是喜欢我喜欢的东西？他们有没有趣？是不是健谈？有人是内向的，有人是外向的。如果你开始根据风格和其他外在因素来判断，那你就忽略了真正该评估的能力。
The interview is about assessing fit, fit for the role, fit for the company, fit for the potential to grow, fit for that level, so you're assessing fit. What are the skills, functional knowledge, experience, capability competencies? Those competencies include the EQ stuff and business judgment. “Right a lot” is a leadership principle at Amazon that is about judgment. Are you right a lot? Judgment is both quantitative and qualitative, getting back to the subjective. How do you assess someone's judgment? That's important, whether they're frontline first-level developers or they're a director leading a big business.
面试的核心在于评估匹配度——岗位匹配、公司匹配、成长潜力匹配、层级匹配。你在评估的是他们的技能、职能知识、经验、能力和胜任力。这些能力也包括情商和商业判断力。比如亚马逊的一个领导力原则是“经常做出正确决策（Right a lot）”，它关注的就是判断力。而判断力既有定量的，也有定性的，这又回到了主观判断的问题。你如何评估一个人的判断力？这很重要——无论是基层开发人员，还是带领大型业务的总监。
What I think is important about that structure is part of that also is reminding people that this is a two-way candidate experience, too. They're assessing, is this role, is this company, is this opportunity right for me? So again, you want to show up with the right game, intention, and organization so that they get their questions answered.
我认为结构化流程还有一个关键作用：提醒大家，面试是双向的体验。候选人也在评估这个岗位、这家公司、这个机会是否适合他们。所以你要以正确的态度、明确的目标和良好的准备参与面试，让他们也能得到想知道的答案。
David: I love that analogy of the process is like the basketball court. With no basketball court, no rules, it's impossible to have creativity and greatness, but you can still have creativity and greatness within the process.
David：我很喜欢你那个比喻，说流程就像篮球场。如果没有球场和规则，就没有办法发挥创造力和伟大。但在规则之中，我们依然可以拥有创造力和卓越。
Anna: Absolutely, and being authentic to your point. To me, that’s actually showing up, having a plan, then being able to connect with the person while you're engaging in a dialogue around their experience. You're also sharing about what the opportunity and the role in the company is like, is important.
Anna：完全同意，而且就像你说的，要保持真实。对我来说，所谓“真实”，就是你带着计划走进面试场，能够和对方建立起联系，一边了解他们的经历，一边也要清晰地传达这个岗位、这家公司、这个机会到底是什么样的。这点非常重要。
Ben: There's so much more we could touch on in your background, including the fact that you were the President and COO of Bulletproof, which I'm sure lots of people are familiar with disruptive consumer health and wellness brands. Let's weave that into the meat of the episode here. Talking about the interview itself, whatever is most useful for you, whether you want to talk about it like Anna Collins is starting a startup right now and how you would do this, or if you were at a bigger company, how you would do this. I want to talk about, you're about to hire some people and you need to figure out how to do that. What do you do first? What's your playbook? How should listeners think about this?
Ben：我们其实还有太多可以聊的，比如你曾是 Bulletproof 的总裁兼首席运营官，这家公司是很多人熟知的消费健康品牌之一。我们把这个经历也纳入今天的主题，聊聊“面试”这件事。无论你是想以“Anna Collins 正在创业”这种视角来谈，还是从你在大公司时的经验来说，都可以。假设你现在需要招聘几个人，得搞清楚流程该怎么走。你会从哪一步开始？你会用什么样的“操作手册”？听众们应该如何思考这个问题？
Anna: A couple things. One is we started to talk about it with the leadership principles and competencies. The first thing is interviewing or bringing people onto the bus is one part of the people process. There's, what people are on the bus? How do you bring the new people onto the bus? What seat on the bus? How do you develop people and move them from one seat to the next seat on the bus? Then, when is it time for someone to leave the bus, get off the bus?
Anna：我有几点想说。我们刚才已经聊到领导力原则和胜任力。首先，面试或招聘只是“人才流程”中的一部分。你要先弄清楚：车上有哪些人？你要怎么把新人带上这辆车？他们该坐在哪个位置？你又该如何培养他们，让他们从一个座位走向另一个座位？最后——什么时候是时候让某个人下车？这些都是系统的一部分。
All of that, that larger people process is rooted and grounded. Like the basketball court and rules for the basketball game, there are structures and guidelines for the people process. For me, those start with the vision, mission, and values of the company. For example, at Bulletproof when I got there, Dave (the founder and CEO) had done a phenomenal job of growing the business to a very large business at the time I joined, but it was still very bootstrapped and chaotic from how it was operating.
所有这些更宏观的人才流程，其基础和根源都在于结构性——就像篮球场和规则之于篮球比赛一样，人才流程也需要结构和指导原则。对我来说，这一切从公司的愿景、使命和价值观开始。比如在我加入 Bulletproof 时，创始人兼 CEO Dave 已经非常成功地把这家公司做大了，但它的运营方式仍然很“自给自足”、也有些混乱。
When I asked 10 people what’s the vision, what's the mission, what are the values, you'd get different answers. There were some essential things about it that showed up like it was disruptive. It was a bleeding edge, innovative brand. It's better for you, a brand that is about nutrition, it provides content and products to help people be healthier.
当我问公司里10个人，“公司的愿景、使命和价值观是什么？”时，得到的答案各不相同。虽然有一些共同点，比如大家都提到这是一家颠覆性的、处于前沿的创新品牌，是一个关注营养和健康的品牌，致力于提供内容与产品来帮助人们过得更健康。
But how that was being communicated to both customers and employees was different and it wasn't (again) clear. So, one of the things I did in the first 90 days was start a process to define the vision, mission, and values with the employee input, customer input, feedback, then ran a process with Dave and the leadership team to define the vision, mission, and values.
但这些内容对外传达给客户和对内传达给员工的方式并不一致，也不清晰。所以我在加入后的前90天里，着手启动一个流程，借助员工的反馈、客户的声音，一起重新明确公司的愿景、使命和价值观。之后，我和 Dave 及领导团队一起推动这一制定过程。
It's clear the mission of Bulletproof is to create products and provide information that radically improves lives. Everybody can say that, know that. Values like gratitude, innovation, and customer-focus (for example) are critical. So, you say, “Okay, here are the values, here is the vision and mission.” Bake those into an interview process that says, “Okay, now we're going to interview for these things. We're going to interview.” Those are critical in addition to skills and functional knowledge for whatever role it is. Those are critical things to weave in, just like for Amazon is with defined leadership principles.
我们最终明确了 Bulletproof 的使命是：创造产品并提供信息，从而根本性地改善人们的生活。每个人都能记住并复述这个使命。我们的价值观包括感恩、创新、客户导向等等。接下来我们就说，“好，这是我们的价值观和愿景使命。”要把这些内容“烘焙”进招聘流程中，也就是说，我们要面试这些内容。无论岗位是什么，这些方面跟技能和专业知识同样重要。就像亚马逊会围绕明确的领导力原则来设计面试一样。
Those same vision, mission, and values get woven into the people processes for developing and assessing employees as well. With that, the skills and functional knowledge are really being assessed when the candidate is in that front end part of the selection process for candidates, before (I should say) phone interviews, the initial interviews by the hiring manager and the recruiter. You're really in your testing.
这些愿景、使命和价值观同样被融合进员工发展和评估的流程中。同时，候选人的技能和专业知识也主要在筛选流程的早期阶段进行评估，比如电话面试或由招聘经理和 HR 进行的初轮面试，那些都是重要的“测试”环节。
The actual final loop is about confirming those skills and functional knowledge, then assessing overall final assessment on that as well as the experience, capabilities, and competencies in full, but you're 80% sure the person has the skills and functional knowledge by the time they walk in the door for the full loop. You're still pressing and assessing for those, but your front end of the process has already done a lot of both in the interviews, those pre-interviews done assessing for that. Now you're going for this deeper, knowing about what their capability is, their proficiency level at other things, and they're fit for operating within that company according to the values.
而最终的 loop 面试阶段，更像是“确认”：确认候选人的技能和专业知识，同时对他们的整体经验、能力和胜任力进行终极评估。实际上，在候选人走进正式 loop 面试的那一刻，你已经有80%的把握他们具备所需的技能和知识。当然，你仍然会继续深入评估，但前面的面试流程已经做了大量筛选工作。现在，你的目标是进一步了解他们的能力水平、熟练程度，以及他们是否能在这家公司根据价值观有效地开展工作。
Getting back to actually defining the role, it's important. When you're saying, “Oh gosh. What is this job description of the role?” In fact, it needs to be thoughtful in saying, “What are the key capabilities and leadership principles that are important for this role, and not just for this role, individually or standalone, but with the team?”
回到最根本的问题——岗位定义，这非常关键。当你问：“这个岗位的职责到底是什么？”其实你应该认真思考：“这个岗位需要哪些核心能力？它对应哪些领导力原则？”而且你要明白，这不仅是这个岗位本身，还要考虑它在整个团队中的作用和互补性。
For example, when I was at Microsoft and I was the only person as I came in, they're like, “Create the business plan for the search advertisement.” There was nothing. It was me in a room by myself. As I created the plan and I started figuring out what are the different teams I'm going to need, what kind of leaders, then I was going to have to recruit industry experience because there was no search advertising experience in the company for me.
举个例子，我刚加入微软时，整个搜索广告团队还不存在。他们跟我说：“去制定这个业务计划。”一切从零开始，办公室里只有我一个人。于是我一边制定业务计划，一边思考：我需要哪些团队？需要什么样的领导者？而公司内部没人有搜索广告方面的经验，所以我还必须从行业外部引进这类人才。
I also needed Microsoft DNA in the team and the current display advertising business. I knew I needed a mix and I started to say, “Okay. What do I need for experience both in industry experience, the different levels of leaders, and kinds of roles?”
我当时也意识到团队中需要具备微软“基因”的人，以及现有展示广告业务的经验。所以我知道我需要一个多元化的组合，于是开始思考：“我需要哪些行业经验？需要哪些层级的领导者？需要哪些岗位角色？”
One of the first people I recruited externally into the company was a former Avenue aQuantive, a mentee of mine, Randy Wooten, and I hired him as a senior director of this premium service operations team to build out. I was recruiting him back from an international assignment in London where he was running the Atlas business for aQuantive.
我最早招进公司的一位外部人员是我以前在 Avenue aQuantive 的一位 mentee，Randy Wooten。我聘请他担任高级总监，负责建立高端服务运营团队。当时他正在伦敦负责 aQuantive 的 Atlas 业务，是我从他那次国际派驻岗位上将他招回来的。
What was important is I was picking him because I need an international experience that I didn't have at the time. That was something I wanted in that role as an example. You're also looking at and saying what do I need for experience that the team doesn't have, that I don't have, that's complimentary, as well as if you \[00:31:25] of capability for that specific functional knowledge? So, you're looking at broader. You're also clear about what's critical, what's not negotiable for that role and what's not because there are no unicorns. People are imperfect—we all are—so you have to say what am I willing to give up and trade-off in a candidate for this role?
我选择他最重要的原因是，他具备我当时没有的国际化经验，而这正是我希望这个岗位能带来的补充。这是一个例子。你在组建团队时，要思考：团队中缺少什么样的经验？我本人缺少哪些能力？哪些是我们需要互补的？还要看候选人是否具备某个岗位所需的特定专业知识能力。你的视角要放宽，不只是这个人本身，而是他与团队的契合度。同时要非常清楚，哪些要求是必须的，哪些是可协商的——因为这个世界没有完美候选人。人都是不完美的，我们每个人都是。所以你必须清楚：对于这个岗位，我愿意在什么地方作出让步或权衡。
Ben: You do that in the job description then. You have enough forethought when you're writing the JD to know what the critical ones are.
Ben：所以你会在职位描述中写清楚这些内容。你在撰写 JD 时就已经提前想好哪些是“关键不可妥协”的要求了，对吗？
Anna: That's right. Some of it is literally in the job description for the capabilities or experience and some of it again is required. Some of it is preferred next to what's non-negotiable. As you're also learning, as you’re seeing candidates and you're talking to people, you also learn and get a clearer picture of what's absolutely critical and also what kind of talent is in the marketplace that you have available in a timeframe.
Anna：没错。职位描述里有些内容是明确写进去的，比如对能力或经验的要求。有些是“必须具备”，有些是“优先考虑”，旁边会标注哪些是不可协商的。而且你在面试过程中也会不断学习、不断调整——你会越来越清楚什么是真正关键的，同时你也会了解市场上在你所处的时间窗口内有哪些类型的人才可供选择。
Ben: I have yet to make a hire at PSL where I didn't have to iterate the JD after meeting candidates. I've always wondered, is this a failure on me to define the role or is that actually just part of the process? Particularly when you have very few roles per year, where you need to understand what people are like to inform of what the actual job description can be, rather than perfectly birthing the JD and then having that go out to the marketplace. Is that necessary to iterate?
Ben：在 PSL，我几乎每次招聘都会在见过候选人之后重新修改 JD。我总在想，这是不是我没把角色定义好，还是说这其实就是流程的一部分？尤其当你一年只招很少的几个岗位时，你确实需要通过了解真实的人，来反过来优化 JD，而不是一次性完美地写出一个岗位说明再推向市场。你觉得这个“反复迭代”是必要的吗？
Anna: It depends, especially in the circumstance that you described. I think that makes sense, but if you go the other way and say we needed to build teams and we had to launch the ad business in France—which is the first country we picked after Singapore to keep the wheels on—we had to have these capabilities across these different roles. We also had more than one for it. Search media specialists and search media analysts are two roles that we made up.
Anna：这取决于情况，尤其像你说的那种情况，我认为是合理的。但如果是另一种情况，比如我们当时需要迅速组建团队，在法国启动广告业务——那是继新加坡之后我们选择的第一个国家，为了维持项目的推进，我们需要涵盖这些不同岗位的能力。而且这些岗位还不是一个，而是多个。比如“搜索媒体专员”和“搜索媒体分析师”这两个角色，都是我们自己定义出来的新岗位。
We made over 14 different roles for these teams and created new roles. We had to create them, hire at scale, 30 not one, and do it in eight weeks. We didn't have the luxury of saying we're gonna do what you did for the one or two that are very unique kinds of roles. In some cases, you can do that.
我们总共设计了超过14个不同岗位，许多都是新创设的。我们必须一边定义岗位、一边进行规模化招聘，要招30个人，而不是一个，而且要在8周内完成。我们没有像你那样“一个岗位精雕细琢”的那种奢侈条件。但在某些情况下，你是可以这样做的。
For example, at Bulletproof when I went I didn't have any GPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) experience. I wanted for sure when I was hiring my VP of Supply Chain, my VP of Sales, my CFO, they had to have CPG experience, especially as we were going into retail distribution, which again, I didn't have. I had a lot of eCommerce in retail, but I didn't have natural food, Better For You products, and mass retail distribution in a mass way. Knowing what you don't have just like I did at Microsoft, there’s a difference between is there only one VP of Supply Chain or are there 30 media specialists or search analysts?
比如我在 Bulletproof 时，我自己没有 CPG（消费包装品）行业的经验。所以当我在招聘供应链副总裁、销售副总裁、CFO 时，我要求他们必须有 CPG 背景。特别是当我们要进入零售分销渠道时，这点更重要。我虽然有很多电商和零售经验，但我没有做天然食品、“Better For You”产品、大规模零售分销的经验。就像我在微软时一样，知道自己缺什么很重要。而这也关系到岗位的不同：一个供应链 VP 和 30 个媒体专员或搜索分析师之间，是完全不同的招聘策略。
David: I was thinking when you recruited Randy into your new business unit for search ads at Microsoft, that was a case (I think) a lot of startups, particularly founders, find themselves in this position where you have a need and you have a former colleague who you've worked with, who you know would be perfect for it. How did you think about that moment where on the one hand that's so overwhelming? You've worked together before. You know that this person is great. You know they're gonna be great. Let's get them in there, get them working. How do you balance that with maybe there might be somebody better out there? Should I run a broader process for this or is it better to really wait, though? I know this person is going to do great.
David：我在想你当初把 Randy 招进微软的搜索广告新业务部门，那其实是很多创业公司，尤其是创始人常常会遇到的情境：你有一个需求，刚好你以前共事过的人非常合适。你了解他，知道他很棒，很有能力，于是很自然地想直接让他上岗。但这时候你也会犹豫：外面会不会还有更合适的人？我该不该启动一个更广泛的流程？还是说我已经知道他一定能干好，不如就直接上了？
Anna: There's no free pass. It wasn't like I thought of Randy and then he got the job. That wasn't what happened. In fact, he'd never worked for me directly in the Avenue aQuantive Business. He wasn't on one of my team, so I wasn’t intimate with his work, although I knew what he had accomplished and I saw him as a high-performing individual and leader. That was clear to me. He had the experience that I wanted. I knew him but I was picking him more by what his results, accomplishments, and reputation were.
Anna：没有谁可以“走后门”。不是说我想到了 Randy，他就自动拿到这个职位。事实是，在 Avenue aQuantive 的时候他并没有直接向我汇报工作，也不在我的团队里，所以我对他具体的工作细节并不熟。但我知道他的成就，也清楚他是一个高绩效的人、是个优秀的领导者。这些我都很明确。他有我需要的经验。我认识他，但我真正看重的是他的成果、成就和口碑。
I also looked at other people. He wasn't the only person. It wasn't that I said here's a guy. He was the best guy in the field of people. I worked really hard to recruit him which wasn't easy. He had said, “Hey, if you ever have something, I would love to work with you.” I said, “Hey, I'm playing that card.” By the way, he went through a rigorous process (like we're talking about) at Microsoft to get hired in at a senior level there. Of course, he did super well, was a key leader on the team, and continued to excel at Microsoft and beyond.
我也看了其他人选，他并不是我唯一考虑的对象。不是那种“我想起一个人，然后就定了”的流程。他是我筛选后领域里最合适的人选。我也花了很大力气去把他招进来，这过程并不轻松。他之前跟我说过，“如果你以后有机会，我很想跟你共事。”这次我就拿出了这张“牌”。顺带说一句，他加入微软也是经过严格面试流程的，尤其是高级职位。他表现得非常出色，是团队中的关键领导者，之后在微软以及其他地方都继续有出色表现。
Ben: This question of having worked with someone before is an interesting one because it's related to a thing that I rely really heavily on in interviewing, which has references. I always find that what you can learn in an hour in an interview completely pales in comparison to a trusted reference. I also know that that's dangerous because there are lots of circumstances including bias that could cause that person's perceived performance in their last job to not be relevant at all to what they could do at your company. How do you weigh that?
Ben：关于“曾经共事过的人”，这个问题很有意思。我自己在招聘中非常依赖的一件事是“推荐人”。我总觉得，一小时面试里你能了解的内容，远远比不上一个值得信赖的推荐人所提供的信息。但我也知道这很危险，因为很多情况下，包括偏见等因素，会让你对这个人在上一份工作的印象根本无法代表他在你公司里的表现。你是怎么权衡这个问题的？
Anna: A couple of things. One is constructing the loop of five people in your company to collect their own data independently in this targeted way across the capabilities, competencies, leadership principles that matter for the role to your company and for your company. It's the essence of what you're going to use. Also, if you have prior work experience.
Anna：有几个方面。首先，你要设计一个面试 loop，比如由你公司里的5个人组成，让他们根据岗位需要的能力、胜任力和领导力原则分别独立采集信息。这是你评估候选人的核心依据。同时，如果候选人曾经和你共事过，也是一种额外的参考。
I've hired another individual, Jeff Hall. I hired him three times, twice at Amazon and once at Bulletproof. He's back at Amazon now after the Bulletproof experience. Still he went through. He was sweating the interviews at Bulletproof. He had passed because he had worked for me before. He still hadn't nailed those interviews and be like is he right for this team, for this company, for this role?
比如我聘请过另一个人 Jeff Hall，我总共请了他三次：两次在亚马逊，一次在 Bulletproof。现在他又回到了亚马逊。即便是这样一个我非常熟悉、信任的人，在 Bulletproof 的面试中他依然紧张，因为他知道光凭我们之前共事过是不够的。他仍然需要通过面试，证明自己是否适合这个团队、这家公司、这个具体角色。
反复横跳的脑残。
The other thing is what you said, Ben, is really important, which is what's the fit for this particular opportunity position? Just because they were a great fit at that other company for that particular thing doesn't mean they're going to be a great fit. It could but that's what you need to suss out. What are those key capabilities and cultural aspects that make or don't make a good fit for that candidate in this role or position? The more someone is "athlete or general athlete" and has demonstrated flexibility and adaptability, looking for those kinds of signals, those evidence points where they've demonstrated these things that matter to you, that's what you really want to look for, whether it's in a reference.
还有一点你说得非常重要：适配度，尤其是对这个岗位、这个机会的适配度。一个人在上一家公司很适合某个角色，并不代表他在你这边也会适配——也许会，但你必须深入探清楚。哪些关键能力、哪些文化要素决定了这个人适不适合？如果候选人是“全能型运动员”那种人，能体现出灵活性和适应能力，那么你要寻找的就是这些信号和证据——无论是在面试中，还是推荐人那里。
The same thing when you're having a reference. You're like, “Hey, is this a great guy or gal?” No, it's what specifically do they do? You're also looking for contra evidence that says what are the challenges in development and growth areas? We all have strengths and opportunities. Do the strengths match what you need and the opportunities aren't going to be barriers in that particular position or company?
当你做背景调查时，也不能只是问：“这个人是不是很棒？”更重要的是问：“他/她具体做了什么？”你还要刻意寻找“反面证据”，也就是他们在成长和发展方面的挑战。每个人都有优点和改进空间，关键是这些优点是否匹配你当前的需求，而那些“改进空间”在这个岗位或这家公司里是否不会成为障碍。
There's no panacea. Just to be clear, I've made a lot of mistakes. I'm not 100%. I've made bad hires and I've been part of making bad hires both direct reports to me as well as extended on teams. There's no 100% on this. If you're right majority of the time and get anywhere close to 80%, then you're phenomenal.
这件事没有灵丹妙药。我要说清楚：我也犯过很多错。我不是百分之百准确。我招错过人，也曾参与做出过糟糕的招聘决策，无论是我自己的下属还是我参与组建的其他团队。没有人能在招聘上做到100%正确。如果你大多数时候都能做对，能做到接近 80% 的准确率，那你已经非常出色了。
David: It always strikes me in hiring how similar the process is to investing, really any type of investing. People obviously do talk about this, but I don't think enough. It's the type of decision and the type of impact that it can have and your ability. Nobody is ever going to be right 100% of the time. Warren Buffett isn't right 100% of the time. I'm sure Jeff Bezos in hiring isn't right 100% of the time. I really love what you said earlier about the basketball court analogy. I think that makes so much sense for both of these.
David：我总觉得招聘这件事和投资非常相似，几乎是任何形式的投资。虽然大家都提过这个类比，但我认为还远远不够。这种决策的性质、它能产生的影响，以及你对它的掌握能力，完全类似于投资。没人能做到永远正确。沃伦·巴菲特都不能百分百正确，Jeff Bezos 在招聘时肯定也不是每次都对。我真的很喜欢你之前提到的那个“篮球场”的类比，它对这两件事都非常适用。
Anna: I appreciate that. It just reminds me that I have some rules of thumb that I use. One of those rules of thumb is when in doubt, throw them out. As I was getting trained as an as-appropriate at Microsoft, Michael \[00:40:19] is the leader there who wasn't as-appropriate who put me through. It's not just you get trained, but you also do an apprenticeship.
Anna：谢谢你，我很认同。你说这个让我想起我有一些“经验法则”，其中一个是：“如果有疑虑，就排除。”我在微软接受“as-appropriate”角色培训时，Michael 是带我的那位领导。在微软，这不仅是接受培训而已，还需要经过“学徒制”实习。
This is similar for a bar raiser at Amazon. You're doing shadowing, apprenticing, and really through a process for a while until they are getting shadowed by someone else. They're like, “You're at the bar where now you can fly on your own and do this. We trust you as a company to go do this thing and basically be a barrier to coming in. If it’s not, you're holding the line basically for the company for both the calibration and the potential long-term hire for that company.”
亚马逊的 bar raiser（抬标准者）也是这样。他们也要跟着别人“影子学习”、做学徒、接受过程训练，直到有人来反过来 shadow 他们为止。到那时，公司会告诉你：“你已经达标了，可以独立执行这个职责了。”公司信任你让你担任这个角色，帮助守住招聘大门，对应聘者起到“把关人”的作用，确保选人既是当下能力匹配，也是长期潜力匹配。
When in doubt, throw them out. That means there's no on the fence. Everybody on a loop should say hire or no hire based on the competencies and values or at least some principles that I'm hiring on. In other words, you could say you're a hire based on what you interviewed for, but I'm a no-hire based on what I interview for.
“有疑虑，就淘汰。”意思是：不要犹豫、不要“骑墙”。每一位 loop 面试官都应该基于自己负责评估的能力、价值观或相关原则做出明确判断——要么是“录用”，要么是“不录用”。换句话说，你可能基于你的部分认为他合格，而我基于我评估的维度觉得他不合格。
That's job one for every interview on the loop, to go after and assess with the key questions, what they're looking for. They can also—if they have time—get other data, if you will, or say, “My gut was off,” or, “My spy sense,” or, “I had this question. I don't understand why.” You can add that as extra flavor, but you're making a decision based on what you assess based on your questions going after your signed competencies and values.
loop 中每位面试官的首要任务，就是根据关键问题去评估自己负责的部分。他们也可以在时间允许的情况下获取其他方面的信息，比如说：“我的直觉有点奇怪”，“我有个不解的点”，“我感觉哪里不对劲”。这些可以作为补充参考。但最终的判断，必须是基于你问题所对应的能力和价值观评估而做出的。
Hire or no hire, there's maybe a hire or maybe no hire. Remember that you're assessing \[00:42:01]. You're also creating a candidate experience they're assessing. Your job one again is to get that data because otherwise there's no match, but they're also collecting data and you want to give them information about the opportunity and the company.
招聘判断就是录用或不录用，而不是“可能可以”。你要记住：你是在评估他们，同时你也在为候选人创造一次面试体验，他们也在评估你。你的首要任务依旧是获取数据——否则你无法判断是否匹配；但他们也在收集数据，所以你要向他们提供足够的信息，介绍这份工作和公司。
Ben: Do you ever go into cell mode in an interview?
Ben：你在面试中有没有进入“推销模式”的时候？
Anna: Absolutely, the faster I get my data. I think yes, this is it then the faster I can go. Even if I know in my interview or think that they're not fit for that role, I'll be looking for, are they a fit somewhere else? If I think they're not a fit for the role and they’re not fit for somewhere else in the company, I’ll do that and search for that. If I think they’re not a fit for the role or the company, I'll still want it to be a good candidate experience because they are out in the world. They could be a customer or they could be a future. I want that to be a good experience regardless. I'm not saying I always do a good job of that or that I can't be intimidating during the interviews. I've heard that feedback, too, but I work to be connected, authentic, and also create a good candidate experience where I can.
Anna：当然有。越早获取我需要的数据，我就能越早切换到“推销”状态。如果我确认这就是我想要的人选，那我就会立刻开始介绍公司、角色，进入“sell”模式。即便我觉得他们不适合这个岗位，我也会思考：他们是否适合公司里的其他岗位？如果我判断他们既不适合这个角色，也不适合公司其他地方，我仍然希望他们能有一个良好的面试体验。因为他们在外部世界可能是我们的潜在客户，也可能是我们未来的合作伙伴。我希望他们无论如何都留下积极印象。当然我并不是说我每次都能做好，也有反馈说我在面试中让人有些压力。但我会努力做到真诚、有连接感，并尽可能创造良好的候选人体验。
Ben: This is something that Mike brought up to me. He was saying it's such a fallacy when people think about employer brand, that it's created by the people that they hired. I think his example was, we hired 1000 people or something at aQuantive but we interviewed another 50,000 that we didn't hire. Our brand is actually the sum of what they think of us, not what the small number of people who work at our company think of us in terms of talking about our company out in the world.
Ben：这是 Mike 曾跟我说过的一点。他说人们总以为雇主品牌是由那些已经被雇用的人创造的，这是个很大的误区。他举的例子是，在 aQuantive，我们可能雇了1000人，但却面试了5万人。我们的雇主品牌，其实是由那5万人对我们公司的看法构成的，而不是那小部分员工的想法。因为他们才是在外界谈论我们公司的人。
I think it's an oft-overlooked thing, especially in startup land where people are just obsessed with efficiency, making the hire, moving on, building, and selling. A lot of people I think miss the fact that all those rejections that you're making out there, every one of those people has an anecdote of the way that they interacted with your company.
我觉得这是一个经常被忽略的点，尤其是在初创圈子里，大家常常只关注效率——快速招人、继续推进、开始构建、开始销售。很多人都忽略了一个事实：你拒绝的每一个人，他们都会带着一段关于你公司的故事离开。
Anna: Yes. This also gets to the timeliness of scheduling the interview, communication back and forth, before and after, collecting information, how was the experience. That's the other you don't know. Certainly asking, getting a survey back, getting feedback back on why it wasn't that, and being able to use that to improve the process, that's an important part as well.
Anna：是的。这还涉及到整个流程的“响应速度”问题，比如安排面试的及时性、沟通的顺畅程度、前后环节是否顺利、信息收集是否完整、整个体验如何。这些都是你在当下感知不到但影响深远的部分。当然，也可以通过发问卷、收集反馈等方式，了解候选人面试体验中不理想的地方，并据此优化流程。这其实是招聘工作中非常重要的一环。
One of the things we didn't talk about specifically is the kind of interview questions, behavioral kinds of questions, and the way that Amazon and Microsoft that I've been trained, and even before that to do interviews is this behavioral questioning or behavioral interviewing which says what is the past? It's basically what you're doing is getting an example of past experience or behavior where they demonstrated this skill, knowledge, capability, critical thinking, or judgment, and you're asking a question that will demonstrate where they're showing or they're telling you about when they demonstrated this capability or skill set before.
我们刚才其实还没深入聊到“面试问题的种类”，特别是行为型问题。像在亚马逊和微软，我都接受过正式的面试培训，核心方法就是“行为面试法”（behavioral interviewing）。它的核心是关注过去的行为，因为你要找的是：这个人过去有没有展现出你需要的技能、知识、能力、批判性思维、或判断力。你通过提问，让候选人回忆并讲述一个他们实际展示过这些能力的例子。
A lot of those questions start with telling me about a time when blank, blank, blank. It's not yes or no. Typically again in an interview, if you're doing it, you only have a chance to ask one, two, or maybe three questions, and then you're probing within that question a lot to really get to specifics. That's the kind or type of interview method if you will.
这类问题通常是这样开头的：“请告诉我你曾经在……时候的经历。”而不是“是”或“否”可以回答的问题。实际上，在一次面试中，你通常只有机会提1到3个问题，然后会围绕其中的一个问题深入追问，从而挖掘出具体细节。这就是我们所说的行为型面试法。
David: Have you learned to handle those, the starting out, jumping-off point of that question?
David：你有没有什么技巧，来应对这种“讲一个你曾经……”的问题起手式？
Ben: Actually, no. I want to hear it as what's your favorite question.
Ben：我还真没有。我更想听你说说你最喜欢的一个面试问题是什么。
Anna: I have a portfolio of questions. I have hundreds of questions. One of the things again, the benefit of having been around the block a few times is I do have this data bank of questions and answers where I've asked and I have my data set of what kinds of answers and what I think are good answers or not. It's just starting out with how I start out interviews. I do say who I am, my role, and I'm really happy to meet you. We're here to talk about XYZ opportunities. Thanks for making time to come in today or talk with us today.
Anna：我手头有一整个“问题库”，大概有上百个问题。经历多了之后，这也是一种积累的好处——我已经有了自己的问题数据库和答案数据库，知道问哪些问题能看出哪些能力，哪些回答算是优秀的、哪些不算。我通常的面试开场会这样说：我是谁，我在公司负责什么，今天我们很高兴能和你谈谈某个机会，感谢你抽时间今天来这里或参加电话面试。
I let them know who I am, what we're doing, setting it up, and that starts. Usually, I'm typing. I said I'm going to take notes and hopefully it is not disruptive. I'll try and make eye contact. I'm usually pretty good at it. You can also take notes if you want. I tried to set up an interview like that. Setting that up, I think it's a nice thing to do. Also I'll make time in the end to answer your questions but I'll start out with some questions so that they know what to expect.
我会让对方清楚知道我是谁、我们要进行什么，这样给面试一个清晰的框架。我在问问题时通常会打字记录，我也会提前告诉对方我会做笔记，希望不会影响交流。我会尽量保持眼神交流，我一般还做得不错。如果候选人也想做笔记，我完全欢迎。我认为为面试建立这样的节奏和环境是很有必要的。然后我会说，最后会留时间给你提问，现在我先来问你几个问题，这样他们就知道接下来该怎么准备。
I usually start out with a couple of what I call softball questions that also give me some information about how they've prepared, how interested they are. Again, I've asked these questions for decades now at all companies and all different levels whether they're college grads or senior executives. Those questions are, one, on a scale of 0–100, what percent fit are you for this opportunity and why? What are the three to five key factors why do you say you're X percent fit? From that question, some of them will say 80%, 75%, 90%, 100%.
我通常会先问几个我称之为“软启动”的问题，从中可以看出候选人的准备程度和兴趣水平。这些问题我已经问了几十年，不论是应届毕业生还是高管，我都会问。其中一个问题是：“在 0 到 100 的范围里，你觉得自己与这个机会的匹配度是多少？为什么？”接着问，“请说出 3–5 个你给这个分数的关键原因。”有些人会说 80%，75%，90%，也有说 100% 的。
First of all, I say opportunity. I don't say role. I don't say job. When I say opportunity, I mean opportunity in the broadest sense because that's including the specific role. It's talking about that business, that sector because it could be a division of Microsoft or it could be a startup company but it's talking about the role, the company, and the people. It's everything, how they match or what they know about the role, how they reflected that role to their own experience, how they reflected the company, the business, and product service, whatever it is, all of that, and how enthusiastic are they. That will show up as well. How prepared they are will show up to that.
我这里用的是“机会（opportunity）”这个词，而不是“职位（role）”或“工作（job）”。因为我讲的“机会”是一个更宽广的概念，它既包括具体的岗位，也包括整个业务领域、公司、团队。可能是微软某个事业部，也可能是一个创业公司。我要了解的是他们对这个岗位、公司、业务、产品、服务等的理解程度，以及他们把这些内容如何与自己的经验进行匹配和反思。候选人的热情、准备程度，这些都会通过这个问题体现出来。
The next question I ask is, on a scale of 1–10, what level of interest do you have, the opportunity and why? What are the 3–5 key factors in your answer? I say in 10 is you pay me money to have this job and one is I can pay you the money. Also when people answer the question, will they give me a number in both those examples? It's another piece of feedback to get that.
我第二个问题是：“从 1 到 10，你对这个机会的兴趣程度是多少？为什么？说出3–5个关键原因。”我还会开玩笑说：“10 是你愿意出钱来做这份工作，1 是你让我出钱你才来。”我也会看他们是否真的能给出具体数字。这本身又是一个反馈信号。
David: Have you gotten answers from 1–10?
David：你真的遇到过从1到10各种回答都有吗？
Anna: Yes, I have, mostly on the 5–10.
Anna：有的，大多数是在 5 到 10 之间。
David: Have you ever hired anybody who gave you a less than five number?
David：那你有没有录用过给出 5 分以下的人？
Anna: The number is the least important. Although if someone gives you a 10 or 100, I usually coach them to give me something out which I have received both those answers before more than once, but it's really the thinking that goes. That's the most important thing, not the actual answer.
Anna：其实数字本身并不是最重要的。虽然有人会给出10或100的答案，我通常也会建议他们再具体说明一些，我确实多次遇到过这样的回答。但最重要的，是这个问题背后的“思考过程”——他们如何思考自己的匹配度、他们的兴趣由什么驱动。这比实际数字本身更有价值。
Ben: I'd imagine that guides you to a place where they're talking about why they're interested in the roles then you have context of their perception of the company and the opportunity. I would assume your next set of questions no matter what value you're interviewing for gets shaped from there.
Ben：我可以想象，这些问题能很好地引导候选人谈他们对岗位的兴趣，也让你理解他们是如何看待这个公司和机会的。我猜你接下来的问题——无论你是要评估哪个领导力价值观——都会在这个基础上进一步展开。
Anna: Actually, no. I have my questions that I'm diving specifically now if I will collect information. I'll use it and I might ask additional questions, but I have a job to do. If I'm interviewing, does someone have good judgment, their critical thinking or management leadership, then I have a set of questions or two that I have to ask to get that information in my mind.
Anna：其实不会。我会有一套自己要深入挖掘的问题，是我专门为收集信息而准备的。当然，我也会灵活应对，视情况追加问题。但我有任务要完成，比如评估一个人是否具备良好的判断力、批判性思维或管理领导力，那我心里已经有一两个明确的问题，是为了获取这些信息而设置的。
Now again, I could use another one. I could segue. It's true. I could segue potentially usually the most, but then mostly I'll say we're going to move on. Thanks for that. Sometimes they'll share great stuff why their prior experiences are a super great match for the show. I'm like, “Gosh, that's great,” or, “That was a super accomplishment.” I also tried to really let the candidate know that I'm listening in an authentic way. People share what they've done and it's impressive. You're like, “Oh, wow. That's great. That's awesome. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing and keep going.” I'm not perfect at that but I pay attention. I try to do that as I'm going along.
当然我也可以顺着他们刚才说的内容问下去，有时会这样做，但多数情况下我会说“谢谢分享，我们接着往下问”。有时候候选人会分享一些过去非常契合这个岗位的经历，我会说：“哇，那太棒了。”或“那是个非常出色的成就。”我也会努力让候选人感受到我是发自内心在倾听的。当他们分享令人印象深刻的经历时，我会说：“太好了，祝贺你，谢谢你的分享，我们继续。”我不是每次都做得完美，但我很在意这些，也在不断努力做到位。
Ben: Let's jump into one of these questions where you have a job to do. It's a question that you've premeditated. You've said I'm mapping the fact that I'm interviewing for this characteristic to this question. Let's say that characteristic has good judgment. What one or a few questions do you ask to tease that out without being obvious and direct and asking the person to, “Tell me about a time where you exhibited good judgment?”
Ben：我们来具体聊一个你“有任务要完成”的问题。这个问题是你提前准备好的，是你用来评估某个特质的。比如你要评估一个人是否有“良好的判断力”。你会问什么问题来探出这个能力，而不是那种太明显、太直接的“请告诉我你展现出好判断力的一次经历”这种问题？
Anna: A couple of things. One is it doesn't matter if the person knows that I am actually assessing their judgment.
Anna：几点说明。首先，对方是否知道我是在评估他们的判断力，其实无所谓。
David: It's not a trick, right?
David：这不是个“圈套”问题，对吧？
Anna: I'm not trying to trick. Yeah, that’s certainly it. I'm not actually trying to trick, be devious, or deceptive. That's not my intent during all those. At the same time, I also don't want to be like, “Oh, yeah. What judgment do you have that you're getting?” That makes people uncomfortable. It's not actually the best way to get to it.
Anna：我完全没有试图设陷阱、欺骗或者挖坑的意思。这从来不是我的目的。但与此同时，我也不会直接说：“好，那你来告诉我你的判断力怎么样。”那样会让人很不舒服，而且也不是获取这类信息最有效的方式。
Those are battery questions, but one of my favorite questions for assessing judgment is, “Tell me about a significant decision that you made in the last year or two. One of the biggest decisions,” I say. “We've made small decisions every day at the business, around different things, but I want you to just give me a significant business decision that you made in the last year or two that you would change if you could. Why do you pick that decision? Tell me specifically about the decision. What you would change and what you would do differently?”
这些是“组合拳”式的问题。我最喜欢用来评估判断力的一个问题是：“请告诉我你在过去一到两年中做过的一个重要决策，一个最重要的决策之一。我们每天在工作中都会做很多小决策，但我想知道的是你在过去一两年里做的一个‘重大商业决策’，如果让你重新来一次，你会做出不同选择。为什么选了这个决策？具体讲讲这个决策。你会改变什么？你会怎么做不同的处理？”
David: What are you looking for in answers to that?
David：你希望从回答中听到什么？
Anna: When you're assessing a question, there's the star method. It's this typical behavioral interviewing method for what's the situation that they're starting with describing the situation. They're telling you what actions or what they actually did, how they actually did it, the why behind how they did, what they did, and what kind of results they got after they took those actions. The situation or task, the actual action, why behind the action, and the actual results that they got in a very qualitative or quantitative kind of results that they actually got.
Anna：当我评估一个回答时，我会参考 STAR 方法，这是行为面试中很经典的一种方式。候选人要描述当时的情境或任务（Situation/Task）、他们实际采取的行动（Action）、为什么那样做（行动背后的逻辑），以及最终带来的结果（Result）。这个结果可以是定性的，也可以是定量的——关键是要看到整个闭环。
For me, I'm looking at the judgment. First of all, what scale and scope of the decision. One of the things about assessing level—whether it’s an entry-level position or a senior-level executive—is scope and scale, capability and impact, and what they have demonstrated. When you ask for one of the most significant decisions, if they pick a very small scope kind of decision, you're like that was not a significant decision. That's not in good judgment. You picked that decision. Or, that's the biggest scope and scale you've ever had, so then you pick that decision.
对我来说，重点是判断力。首先，我会看这个决策的“规模和范围”。评估候选人的“级别”，不管是初级岗位还是高管岗位，关键就看他们展示的“能力范围”和“影响力”。如果我问的是“最重要的决策”，而候选人举的是一个很小、很局部的决定，那我会觉得判断力就不太对——你选的这个例子本身就是个判断失误。或者你可能真的是职业生涯里规模最大的一个决策，那你选这个也说得通。
David: Right. One or two things that’s wrong. Either you don't have experience making big decisions or you do and you just exhibit a bad judgment by not telling me about it.
David：对，要么是你根本没有做过重大决策的经验，要么是你有，但你选择讲一个不够重大的例子，这本身就是判断力不足的表现。
Anna: And again, you're not trying to trick someone. You're really trying to set them up. Sometimes I'll give people do-overs if they pick something. I'm like, “It's not really what I'm looking for. Is there something else?” I want the candidate. They're there in the process at this point. I'm trying to help them be successful. I'm not trying to trick them. I actually want them to be a fit, but I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to get the information that helps me know that or not to the best of my ability.
Anna：我再说一次，我不是要设陷阱。我是真心希望候选人能成功。如果他们说的例子不太合适，我会让他们换一个：“这不是我在找的那种情况，还有别的吗？”他们都已经走到面试这一步了，我当然希望他们合适。我不是想淘汰他们，而是想尽我所能搞清楚他们是不是匹配这个岗位。
That's what I'm doing through that process. I'll say, “Is there another one?” I'll give them an example and say, “When I was building a search business at Microsoft,” or, “When I decided whatever at the summit,” whatever is appropriate, I will pick something out of mind to even help them give an example of this is what I'm looking for if they're struggling. My point is you're looking for what they demonstrate the capability, what level of capability is it? Does it fit for the role that you're assessing or looking for?
这就是我整个过程要做的事。我会问：“还有别的例子吗？”如果对方卡壳了，我甚至会举一个我自己的例子，比如：“当时我在微软做搜索广告业务的时候…”或是我在某个场合的决策。目的就是给他们参考，让他们知道我希望听到的那种层级的例子。我关心的是他们展示了什么样的能力，这个能力的深度和广度如何，它和我们在评估的岗位是否匹配。
Another one is it's like teamwork, a collaboration, or earning trust in Amazon leadership principles is—Microsoft has one; similar when it's for teamwork—adverse. I call it an adverse situation question, which is, “Tell me about a time when you had a problem, a big disagreement with a peer. Not like we have small disagreements all the time, but a big work disagreement. Tell me about one of your biggest ones that you've ever had in your whole career. Tell me what it was, what happened, what did you do, what did they do.” I have them walk me through specifically in that.
另一个常见的维度是“团队合作”或“赢得信任”，这在亚马逊的领导力原则里有体现，微软也有类似的价值观。我会问一个“逆境问题”，比如：“请告诉我你和同级同事之间发生过的一次严重分歧。不是那种日常小争执，而是你职业生涯中最大的一次工作上的分歧。到底是什么事？发生了什么？你做了什么？对方又做了什么？”我会请他们详细讲述整件事。
Again, you'll see how they worked through that, what was their point of view, did they understand the other party's point of view, were they able to articulate it or not, how did it resolve, what did they learn, what would they do differently. You start to get to self-awareness, vocally self-critical capability, as well as your ability to team, understand, and work with other points of view.
通过这个问题，你能看到他们如何处理冲突、他们的立场、是否理解对方的观点、是否能清楚表达彼此的不同、最后如何解决、他们学到了什么、将来会不会换一种处理方式。这个问题能测出他们的自我认知能力、是否能客观看待自己，也能看出他们能否与不同观点的人合作共事。
Ben: Anna, what didn't we ask you about the world of interviewing that would be helpful for folks to know? The only thing that comes to mind for me is we didn't really touch on the debrief, how do you get all the data in a room and then make a decision.
Ben：Anna，我们还有哪些关于面试流程的重要点没有问到？我能想到的是我们还没聊“面试后的汇报和评估”（debrief）——也就是怎么把所有面试反馈收集起来，做出最终决定。
Anna: If there's a pre-brief, pre-guidance, the hiring manager owns the pre-brief. That's the other thing I think accountability for hiring. Maybe that's something we didn't talk about, the work and effort they go into preparing for, first of all, the role, the interview, the loop, the resume, certainly the process upfront and sourcing, and the ownership of the process. Recruiting does not own hiring or they are part of it, the hiring managers and the team that the hiring manager picks to partner on that process, but the hiring manager owns the process. The hiring manager is the one who's responsible, accountable, and needs to be the quarterback also of the process.
Anna：面试前的准备会（pre-brief）很重要，由招聘经理负责组织。我觉得我们还没谈到的一点是——谁对招聘负最终责任。很多人误以为招聘是HR的事，其实不然。HR是参与者，但招聘经理才是“拥有者”。是他们定义岗位、制定流程、组织面试团队、审核简历、把控进度。他们要像四分卫一样主导整个过程，是全权负责的那个人。
It's another role of the as-appropriate at Microsoft or bar raiser at Amazon is to make sure that hiring managers are doing what they're supposed to be doing, give that feedback directly to hiring managers if they're not owning it, being the quarterback for the process, and running a process that is effective as well as efficient. That does have to do with pre-brief. You're gonna send out and assign roles. You're going to prepare the loop ahead of time.
在微软的“as-appropriate”或亚马逊的“bar raiser”角色中，有一项职责就是确保招聘经理确实履行了这些责任。如果没有，他们要直接反馈，并督促他们回到正确的轨道上，真正主导起招聘流程。这个也跟“pre-brief”有关，要提前把每个人的角色安排好，面试官应该评估什么维度、候选人背景怎么看，所有这些都要准备清楚。
When there's a new role, having a conversation or pre-brief about the role, what you're looking for, and everyone's part on the loop is important. Getting an email and an actual meeting could be a short meeting like a 30-minute meeting again to do that, and then the debrief after where everyone has to get their feedback within 24 hours. You want to be efficient. You schedule a debrief with everybody.
当一个岗位开启招聘时，务必组织一次会谈或“pre-brief”，讲清楚我们到底要找什么样的人，大家在面试环节各自负责哪些能力维度。这可以是发封邮件，也可以是一场短会，比如30分钟。之后就是debrief——所有面试官必须在24小时内提交反馈，最好集中安排时间一起开会做最后评估，这样高效又清晰。
David: In playing both pre-brief and debrief, the hiring manager should be leading both of those?
David：所以无论是面试前的准备会（pre-brief）还是面试后的汇报讨论会（debrief），都应该由招聘经理来主导吗？
Anna: Yes.
Anna：是的。
Ben: When you walk into the room for the debrief, everyone's weighed in with their information. Presumably, the hiring manager has looked at everyone's feedback but has anyone else seen it?
Ben：那在大家进入debrief会议室的时候，每个人都已经提交了自己的反馈，对吧？招聘经理应该已经看过所有反馈了，但其他人也会看到彼此的反馈吗？
Anna: Yes. After you have written your feedback, after someone has submitted their feedback, then everybody should be able to read whatever feedback is in. It's actually another great process point that you really do want everybody (if they can) to read the feedback before they get in the room for the debrief. Again, it goes much more efficiently. If they can't, they can do it real-time and that's where they're going to share their point of view with their area where they’re assigned.
Anna：是的。在每个人提交完反馈之后，大家就都可以看到其他人的反馈。这其实是流程中一个非常重要的环节。如果可以的话，建议所有面试官在进入debrief会议室前都读一下这些反馈，这样会议会更加高效。如果实在来不及，也可以现场阅读并就自己负责的评估维度进行分享。
David: I think there's even another point in here that you're probably assuming from being in high-performing recruiting organizations for a while, but I can tell you, it's definitely not the case for a lot of folks, which is that everybody who is on the loop writes down their feedback after the loop, right?
David：我觉得这里还有一个点，可能你在高水平的招聘团队里早已默认，但我可以告诉你，对很多公司来说还真不是常态——就是每个参与面试环节的人在面试之后都要写下他们的反馈，对吧？
Anna: Yes. This is a practice. It's one of those things where it's extra work. It's also one of the things that I loved when as a senior leader in any organization, that people were like, “Oh, I can't wait to have you. You aren’t doing anything. You just think.” I'm like, “Are you kidding me? I'm doing stuff all the time.” Yes, I think some of the time, but there are no jobs that are just thinking jobs. All jobs have doing and thinking in them. That's one of my favorite 2x2s to do especially new college grads.
Anna：对，这是一个必须坚持的流程。虽然确实需要额外投入精力，但非常值得。说实话，当我在企业里做高层时，有人会觉得“你只是动动脑，不用做事”。我心想：“你在开玩笑吧？我一直都在做事。”当然，我确实也在思考，但世上没有纯思考的工作，所有工作都是“动手+动脑”的结合。我尤其喜欢和应届生分享这个“2x2矩阵”理念。
That's a little digression, but it gets to this point of, yeah it's a lot of work doing and selecting people. Guess what? it's the most important thing. I actually think it's one of the most important things a business does. You started out the podcast that way, guys. I do. Who do you bring on the bus and what seat on the bus as part of your team? That's it. It's usually the biggest expense companies have. All of this, it’s people.
这稍微跑题了，但回到正题：是的，招人和选人确实是一项重活儿。但这正是公司最重要的事之一。你们在节目一开始就提到了这一点，我完全同意。你决定让谁上车、坐在哪个位置——这就是核心。而人，往往也是公司最大的支出项。
It's super important and it's worth putting in the right effort upfront, to get the right people on the bus, and the right seat on the bus. Yes, writing down the feedback, submit it. It doesn't need to be a narrative novel. It can be shorthand but it needs to be understood, which is why at the high-performing interviewing teams that do this—big and small companies—just write the feedback, edit it right away, and send it in when they're done with the interview.
这件事非常重要，也值得在前期投入足够的精力，确保合适的人坐在合适的位置上。至于面试反馈，不需要写成长篇小说，可以用简洁的方式表达，但必须清晰易懂。这也是为什么很多高效的面试团队——无论是大公司还是小公司——都会在面试结束后立即撰写反馈、校对一下，然后提交。
If it's not clear and it's the end of the day, you're going from meeting to meeting or interview to a meeting, you'll say, “Yeah, I'm gonna do it at night or the next morning,” and let it settle a little bit to say,” Here's my hire no hire based on what I heard.”
如果你一天下来已经连轴转，反馈写得不够清楚，那就告诉自己，“晚上或者明天一早再补”，让思路沉淀一下，然后清晰地表达：“基于我听到的信息，我是‘建议录用’还是‘不建议录用’。”
Ben: That's as good a place as any to leave it. Anna, before we wrap here, is there anything you want to leave listeners with? This could be just something that you want super entrepreneurial folks to know, something to plug, an opportunity to follow you somewhere, or anything like that.
Ben：我觉得这是一个很好的收尾点。Anna，在我们结束之前，你有没有什么想留给听众的话？可以是给创业者的建议，也可以是你想推广的项目，或者大家可以在哪里关注你的信息之类的。
Anna: One thing is, as I'm working on as an entrepreneur in residence, I do have the opportunity to do some consulting contract type of projects now if people want in this people area or other scaling businesses, et cetera. I'm available for some projects right now. You can find me on LinkedIn, message me there, and I'll be able to follow-up with you.
Anna：我现在担任创业驻场（entrepreneur in residence），所以也有时间接一些咨询或项目类的合作，特别是在人才招聘或企业扩张方面的。如果有人有兴趣合作，我现在有些空档。可以通过 LinkedIn 找到我，私信我，我会回复你。
Ben: Awesome. Anna, thank you so much for your time.
Ben：太棒了。Anna，非常感谢你抽时间来聊。
David: Thank you so much. This is good.
David：真的很感谢，这期太精彩了。
Anna: All right. Thanks, guys. Super fun. Take care.
Anna：好的，谢谢你们，特别有趣的一次聊天。保重！
Ben: Likewise.
Ben：你也是。
David: Stay safe.
David：注意安全。
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
注：Acquired 节目的主持人与嘉宾可能持有本期节目中提及的资产。本播客的内容并非投资建议，仅供信息交流和娱乐用途。在进行任何金融交易前，请自行研究并独立做出判断。
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