Instinctive drift — why every hiring process feels awkward

A job interview is never quite the conversation you would hope to have. From both perspectives, interviewer and candidate, most of the times it feels artificial, robotic or even rehearsed.

This effect makes people feel disconnected, treated as a number and ultimately lose interest in the process. — The drift.

Professional ambition is directly tied to our primitive desire to grow, to overcome, to provide, to eat, to survive.

Instinct

an innate, typically fixed pattern of behaviour in animals in response to certain stimuli.

Anxiety, stress, fear, boredom, excitement are different types of stimuli that can generate undesired instinctive reactions.

This instinctive behaviour is the main trigger for the the drift effect. As all actions begets reaction the other party enters an instinctive drift, i.e.: caused by a big difference in attitude from one of the parties such as apparent lack of interest, too many canned answers, snarky remarks, lack of knowledge, etc..

The instinctive drift makes you lose interest and objectivity. Something in your core is telling you that the other person's behaviour doesn't feel right.

Isn't instinct supposed to be a good thing?

Most definitely! Instinct is the result of a lot of subconscious processing (and other predispositions) and many studies say it's super powerful and that we should stick to it as much as possible.

It is a powerful diagnostic device and should be used a detector of phishy situations. In short, when your instinct is kicking in during an interview then something is off. One of you are pretending to be someone they're not, independently of the motivations.

Fixing the instinctive drift

One size doesn't fit all. Hiring processes depend a lot on your hiring managers, whether they’re professional recruiters, engineering managers, or something else. It's important that the interviewer, most of all, understands their role in the conversation. Preparation is key and failed hiring processes aren't necessarily due to poor candidate matching, but may be due to badly prepared or uncomfortable interviewers.

You need to find an environment, physically and mentally, in which the interviewer feels at ease and at the same time the candidates don't feel the need to pretend to be something they are not. It helps to understand the expectations and motivations from both sides.

At Unbabel an interview can occur during a coffee, over ping pong or at lunch (or really, whatever makes people feel most comfortable). Some people already walk into an interview with the instinctive drift mode ON, and expect to be treated as a Number or as a Function rather than a person, and so the environment can be a great help to take the edge off and allow both sides to check in at the moment for what it really should be — an honest conversation, or even, the begining of a journey together.

Conclusion

While instinct can change our behaviour, it’s being able to work with that and recognising its effects on human interaction, that will go far in reducing awkwardness and making hiring interviews and processes more enjoyable overall.

Like our approach, or want to prove us wrong? Why not apply to one of our open positions and try for yourself? Worst case scenario, you'll meet cool people and the coffee is good.