独具慧眼的“挑刺者”助亚马逊招贤纳士

At Amazon, a Gantlet for New Hires
独具慧眼的“挑刺者”助亚马逊招贤纳士

In fulfilling online orders, Amazon.com Inc. is all about expediency. The fewer people involved the better.

在完成网络订单时，亚马逊公司(Amazon.com Inc.)讲求效率，自然是越少人经手越好。

But when it comes to filling higher-level jobs, the e-commerce giant is in no rush--and it has a gauntlet of people, dubbed 'bar raisers,' who must sign off on would-be hires.

但在招聘高端人才时，这家电子商务巨擘绝不操之过急。该公司手下有一群把关人，号称“挑刺者”，负责对求职者进行筛选。

Bar raisers are skilled evaluators who, while holding full-time jobs at the company in a range of departments, play a crucial role in Amazon's hiring process, interviewing job candidates in other parts of the company. With a word, they can veto any candidate, even if their expertise is in an area that has nothing to do with the prospective employee's.

“挑刺者”指的是那些经验老到的评估人士，他们遍布亚马逊的各个部门，都有一份全职工作，参与面试其他部门的应聘者，在招聘流程中扮演着至关重要的角色。简而言之，他们有权否决任何一位应聘者，哪怕他们自己的专业知识和求职者风马牛不相及。

Amazon believes the program, created in the company's infancy and honed by founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, screens out cultural misfits and helps make the e-commerce giant a feared competitor in fields as diverse as logistics, tablet manufacturing and television production.

该项目在亚马逊成立之初就已经推行，由创始人兼首席执行长贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)打造。亚马逊相信该项目可以淘汰那些不适合企业文化的人，帮助公司在物流、平板电脑制造、电视生产等各个领域成长为令人畏惧的竞争对手。

'There is no company that sticks to its process like Amazon does,' says Valerie Frederickson, whose eponymous Menlo Park, Calif., human-resources consultancy works with Silicon Valley companies including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. 'They don't just hire the best of what they see; they're willing to keep looking and looking for the right talent.'

Valerie Frederickson在加利福尼亚州门洛派克经营着一家同名人力资源顾问公司，与Facebook Inc.、Twitter Inc.等硅谷企业均有合作。她说，没有一家公司能像亚马逊这样始终如一地坚持自己的招聘流程，亚马逊人不仅仅是在延揽个中翘楚，更希望不断地物色最合适的人才。

As Amazon's payroll has swelled to 110,000 employees, however, the program is exacting a toll, current and former employees say.

不过，在前员工和现员工们看来，随着亚马逊雇员人数暴增至11万人，这个项目确切来说已经反过来形成阻碍。

There are several hundred bar raisers today across the company, according to former employees, though Amazon won't confirm a total. Some employees shun the bar-raiser designation, a voluntary program that comes with no extra pay, even though it reportedly can lead to speedier promotions, because of the time demands. Bar raisers may be asked to assess as many as 10 candidates a week, for between two and three hours each, including paperwork and meetings--all while doing their regular full-time job, be it in finance, marketing or product development.

据前员工透露，目前公司内部有数百名“挑刺者”，不过亚马逊不会证实具体数目。一些员工不愿接受这份指派，因为该工作需要花上大量时间，且完全是自愿性质，没有额外报酬（虽然据说有助于快速升迁）。“挑刺者”每周可能要评估多达10位应聘人，花在每名应聘人身上的时间为两到三个小时，包括文书工作还有会面。与此同时，他们还不能耽误财务、营销、产品开发等部门的本职工作。

That has led to a crunch of bar raisers at times, some managers say. Andy Jassy, head of the fast-growing Amazon Web Services cloud-computing unit, said in an interview in November there seemed not to be enough bar raisers to go around and he was looking for more.

一些管理者说，有鉴于此，“挑刺者”紧俏的情形时常出现。亚马逊网络服务云计算部门主管Andy Jassy在去年11月份的一次采访中称，公司内部的“挑刺者”貌似还不够多，他正在寻求拉拢更多人加入。

Not every Amazon applicant faces a bar raiser. Current and former employees say the company uses a streamlined process for warehouse employees, estimated to be three-fourths of its workforce.

并非每个应征亚马逊的求职人都会遇上“挑刺者”。前员工和现员工都表示，亚马逊对仓储员工（大约占雇员总数的四分之三）有一套简化招聘流程。

Most others, though, must endure an obstacle course of phone interviews and one-on-one sessions. The interviewers then write evaluations and then meet to discuss the candidate. Inside Amazon, evaluating an applicant typically takes five or six employees at least two hours each.

但是，其他多数应征者就必须接受电话面试与一对一交流的重重考验。然后由面试官撰写评估报告并与候选人交谈。在亚马逊内部，评估一位应征者通常需要出动5到6个人，至少花上两个小时。

'We want to be as objective and scientific in our hiring as possible,' said Susan Harker, Amazon's vice president of global talent acquisition, noting the process extends even to C-level executives. 'The point is to optimize our chances of having long-term employees.'

亚马逊全球人才招募部门的副总裁Susan Harker说，我们希望在招聘时尽可能地客观、科学。她指出，招聘程序有时甚至会惊动最高层管理者；我们的目标是优化培养长期雇员的机会。

Other tech companies have their own systems for identifying the best and brightest. For a time, Google Inc. asked candidates their I.Q's, and posed brain teasers. Microsoft Corp. calls in senior executives known as 'as-appropriates' in the late stages of considering some applicants. Facebook Inc. asks some job hopefuls tricky coding questions or solutions to business challenges.

其他科技公司也有自己的一套披沙拣金机制。谷歌(Google Inc.)曾经要求应征者给出智商得分(I.Q)，并用智力题来加以考量。微软(Microsoft Corp.)则让高级主管也加入到应征者的后期考核中去。Facebook向那些“种子选手”抛出棘手的编码问题，或者是要求他们给出商业挑战的解决对策。

The bar raiser is Amazon's distinction. To become a bar raiser, a worker generally must have conducted dozens or hundreds of interviews, and gained a reputation for asking tough questions and identifying candidates who go on to be stars.

“挑刺者”是亚马逊的别具一格之处。要成为一名“挑刺者”，亚马逊雇员通常必须参与几十或者数百次面试，擅长提出尖锐问题以及鉴别那些将成为明星雇员的求职者。

Bar raisers typically interview candidates in another part of the company, posing unexpected or challenging questions to gauge an applicant's analytical skills. Current and former bar raisers say the designation is both an honor and a burden.

“挑刺者”通常在公司的另一个地方面试求职者，他们提出出乎意料或者具有挑战性的问题来衡量求职者的分析能力。现任和前任“抬杠者”均表示这项工作既是一项荣誉，也是一种负担。

Sailesh Rachabathuni, who developed software for Kindle devices before leaving Amazon in 2012, says he once vetoed a candidate for a programming job because the candidate didn't know much about a specific programming language, a detail others missed.

Sailesh Rachabathuni在2012年离开亚马逊之前负责为Kindle研发软件。他说，自己曾经否决过一名编程工作的求职者，原因是这名求职者不太了解一种具体的编程语言，而这个细节被其他的面试官忽略了。

'It's an enormous time commitment,' Mr. Rachabathuni says. 'I had to limit myself to six interviews a week.'

Rachabathuni称：“这是个需要大量时间的工作，我必须把每周面试的次数限制在六个。”

One of Mr. Rachabathuni's former colleagues in Lab126, Amazon's secretive Silicon Valley hardware laboratory, says he conducted more than 700 interviews over eight years at Amazon. But this ex-employee declined to become a bar raiser for fear of devoting more time to hiring.

亚马逊神秘兮兮的硅谷硬件实验室Lab126中Rachabathuni的一名前同事称，在亚马逊的八年时间里，他总共参与了超过700场面试。但这位前雇员因为担心花费太多时间参与招聘而拒绝成为一名“挑刺者”。

In cultivating the program, Mr. Bezos wanted to create a consistent corporate culture. Amazon executives say the approach reduces hiring mistakes by forcing several people to sign off on a candidate. The program is 'something the broader team is very proud of,' Mr. Bezos said in an interview last year.

贝索斯希望通过发展“挑刺者”计划来创造一种始终如一的公司文化。亚马逊高管称，这种招聘方式需要几个面试官对求职者予以认可，这降低了招错人的几率。贝索斯去年接受采访时表示，这是令整个团队非常骄傲的一项计划。

John Vlastelica, an early Amazon human-resources employee who helped design the program, said the tough review process was meant to weed out job hopefuls who aren't adaptable and may be skilled at only one task.

约翰·弗拉斯泰利察(John Vlastelica)是亚马逊早期的人力资源雇员，曾帮助设计了“挑刺者”计划。他说，严格的面试程序能够淘汰那些不懂变通或者只熟悉一种任务的求职者。

'You want someone who can adapt to new roles in the company, not just someone who can fill the role that's vacant,' said Mr. Vlastelica, who now runs HR consultancy Recruiting Toolbox and counted Amazon among his former clients. 'It can be an expensive process because it takes longer, but think of how expensive it is to hire the wrong person.'

弗拉斯泰利察称，你想要找到能够适应公司其他新岗位的人，而不仅仅是填补目前的空缺。弗拉斯泰利察目前经营人力资源公司Recruiting Toolbox，并将亚马逊视为自己的前客户。他称，这个招聘程序耗时更长，成本可能也更高，但想想如果雇错人的话代价将有多高吧。

The burden is likely to grow as Amazon extends its torrid hiring pace, needed to staff its ambitious efforts to expand same-day delivery, and to build Kindle tablets, as well as smartphones and set-top boxes. In the 12 months ended Sept. 30, Amazon added close to 30,000 employees, roughly as many as eBay Inc.'s total payroll. The retail giant's workforce has more than tripled in the past three years.

随着亚马逊加快招聘步伐，这个招聘程序带来的负担也会越来越重。亚马逊雄心勃勃要扩大当天送达业务、生产Kindle平板电脑、智能手机和机顶盒，而这些业务都需要招聘新雇员。截至9月30日的12个月，亚马逊新增将近3万名雇员，几乎相当于eBay Inc.的总雇员人数。过去三年亚马逊的雇员人数增长了两倍多。

Google contracted to 46,421 employees as of the end of September 2013, from 53,546 a year earlier, due in part to cuts at its Motorola Mobility division. Apple Inc. grew by 10% to 80,300 in the fiscal year ended Sept. 28, and Microsoft Corp. increased its staff by 5% to 99,000 in the year ended June 30.

截至2013年9月，谷歌(Google Inc., GOOG)雇员人数从上年同期的53,546人减少至46,421人，部分原因是Motorola Mobility裁员导致。截至9月28日的财年，苹果公司(Apple Inc., AAPL)雇员人数增长10%至80,300人。截至6月30日的财年，微软(Microsoft Co., MSFT)雇员人数增长5%至9.9万人。

Dave Clark, vice president of Amazon's world-wide operations, said the company typically will conduct more than 75,000 interviews to hire 30,000 new workers. Bar raisers 'help bring a consistency of the types of skill sets and perspectives that we're looking for,' said Mr. Clark.

亚马逊全球业务副总裁戴夫·克拉克(Dave Clark)称，为了招聘3万名新雇员，该公司通常需要进行超过7.5万场面试。他称，“挑刺者”有助于维持技能类型和招聘视角的一致性。

John Sullivan, a San Francisco State University management professor, said Amazon's protracted hiring process is an important signal for applicants that Amazon is a tough place to work, with a lot of pressure.

旧金山州立大学(San Francisco State University)管理学教授约翰·沙利文(John Sullivan)称，亚马逊超长的招聘过程对于求职者来说是一个重要信号，即亚马逊的活儿不好干，是个工作压力很大的地方。

'If a job seeker feels like they want to run away from the building screaming after the interview, that's a probably a good sign that they don't belong there,' he said.

他说，如果求职者感觉面试后他们想要尖叫着逃离亚马逊大楼，那可能表明亚马逊并不适合他们。