Former Amazon Bar Raiser Sean O’Neill explains how to run better interviews. Learn experiential questioning, the STAR method, and how to separate drivers from passengers, even when candidates arrive with polished stories or AI-assisted preparation.
Hiring is the highest-leverage decision a manager ever makes, yet most leaders are never properly trained in interviewing.
Choose the wrong person, and they can become a divider: draining energy, slowing the team down, and creating problems that can last months or years.
Choose a good person, and you make a solid addition to your team.
But choose a really great candidate, and you hire a multiplier, someone who raises the performance of everyone around them.
In Part 1 of this two-part Hiring Masterclass, Sean O’Neill shares how great interviewers actually assess talent and uncover real evidence of capability.
Meet Sean O’Neill
Sean O’Neill spent 11 years at Amazon during its hyper-growth years, where he conducted interviews every week and became one of the company’s Bar Raisers, a role created to protect Amazon’s famously high hiring bar.
Across his career, he has:
- Interviewed thousands of candidates
- Hired hundreds of people
- Led global product and technology organisations at Amazon, Tesco, and beyond
Few leaders have seen as many interviews—or as many hiring decisions—from the inside.
Why Interviewing Has Become Harder
The hiring landscape has changed.
Today’s candidates may arrive with:
- AI-generated CVs
- Heavily coached interview answers
- In some cases, real-time AI assistance during interviews
This makes surface-level interviews far less reliable.
Sean explains why great interviewers must go deeper, probing into the details of real experiences to understand what someone actually did, what impact they had, and whether they truly raise the bar.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
In this episode, Sean explains the techniques he learned inside Amazon, including:
- How to ask experiential interview questions
- How the STAR method helps uncover real evidence of ability
- How to probe deeper using what Sean calls the investigative journalist approach
- How to distinguish drivers from passengers in candidate stories
- How to spot candidates who can talk a great game but lack real depth
- How to structure interviews that lead to better hiring decisions
These methods help interviewers look beyond polished answers and understand the real contribution and impact a candidate has had.
They also help candidates explain their own work more clearly and credibly.
If you hire people, manage teams, or want to perform better in interviews yourself, this episode is for you.
Download the Interview & Debrief Template
Sean also shares the interview scoring and hiring debrief template he has used throughout his career.
This tool helps interviewers:
- Capture evidence during interviews
- Score candidates against competencies
- Structure hiring discussions
- Run more effective hiring debriefs
Download the template here.
Resources from Sean O’Neill
A Simple Question to Guide Your Career
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/simple-question-guide-your-career-sean-o-neill/
Be Deliberate in Targeting Your Job Search: A Tool to Help