Hiring is the highest-leverage decision a leader makes.

Choose the wrong person and they can drain energy, slow the team down, and create problems for months. Choose well and you strengthen the entire organisation.

In this episode, former Amazon Bar Raiser Sean O’Neill shares the interviewing techniques he developed after conducting thousands of interviews and hiring hundreds of people across Amazon, Tesco, and global technology organisations.

Sean explains how great interviewers uncover real evidence of ability using experiential questions, the STAR method, and what he calls the investigative journalist approach to interviewing.

You’ll learn how to probe beyond polished answers, distinguish drivers from passengers, and spot candidates who can talk a great game but lack real depth, skills that matter even more in a world of AI-assisted candidates and increasingly rehearsed interviews.

Whether you hire people, manage teams, or want to perform better in interviews yourself, this episode will help you understand what great interviewing actually looks like.

This is Part 1 of a two-part Hiring Masterclass. In Part 2, we go inside the hiring debrief, where the real decision gets made.

Sean also shares the interview and hiring debrief template he has used for years to help teams run structured hiring discussions and make confident decisions.