[rdrimmie]

There's probably elements of his personality that aren't being relayed properly, and I definitely agree that personality a key elements for a hire.

But your presentation of this story suggests astonishment that someone coming to you for the honour of a job on your wonderful team would have the nerve to care a lot about the environment in which he was working.

The example questions you bring up seem like perfectly reasonable questions to me and I'd be loathe to work somewhere where the manager didn't want to answer them. You'd maybe be surprised by how many places don't use source control at all, or don't have any kind of development methodology, let alone Agile.

[smokinn]

But there's a big difference between asking those questions yourself because you care enough about them to remember what they are and just handing a sheet or reading from one that was clearly printed off the internet.

[msluyter]

I agree, and the problem isn't the necessarily the number of questions or even the types of questions per se, it's that the choice of questions and the ordering demonstrate a lack of coherent thought. To exaggerate:

"What web frameworks do you use?"

"Django"

"Ok, so what languages do you use?"

or perhaps:

"What is your development process like?"

...answer...

"Do you use any agile methods?"

In both cases, the second question should at least be largely hinted at by the answer to the first. Somehow, people think they should ask certain questions so they do, whether or not they really understand the answers.

[scott_s]

That is not the impression I got. The interviewee read the questions off of a worksheet. That indicates to me that 1) these are not actually his questions, and 2) he does not actually care about the answers.