[codingdave]

>In all likelihood, the interviewer doesn’t know what they are looking for with these questions, and they are just being used to fill time.

Wait a sec -- just because the author of the article doesn't know how to get value from those questions doesn't mean that those questions hold no value. It is true that they won't give you information to help you in a tech screen, or to gauge the value of where to initially place a candidate on a team. But if you are trying to decide between a few candidates of equal skill, and trying to figure out which one will work better in a team environment, which will fit more smoothly into the personal dynamics between team members, who will grow better as the company grows, who might be a better leader or follower, and what their trajectory might be as the company and team evolves, these questions can lead you down those paths.

Dismissing those questions as useless makes me think the author doesn't care about the people as individuals, but just as machines to be plugged in to produce code. And that doesn't sound like someone I would want to work for.

[jakewins]

It's ironic actually. The author touts told stories of prior work as key, and degrades attempts at measuring candidate conscientiousness. Meanwhile, strongest known measures of job performance are an actual work sample (r=.26), rather than ability to describe a prior project, and measures of conscientiousness (r=.15).

On conscientiousness:

Barrick, Murray R., and Michael K. Mount. "The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta‐analysis." Personnel psychology 44.1 (1991): 1-26.

On work samples:

Roth, Philip L., Philip Bobko, and L. Y. N. N. McFARLAND. "A meta‐analysis of work sample test validity: Updating and integrating some classic literature." Personnel Psychology 58.4 (2005): 1009-1037.

[cookiecaper]

It's the rote, cliche questions that show an interviewer doesn't really know what he's talking about. Questions about personality and culture are very important, but if someone asked "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?", it would point toward their not being a skilled interviewer. It's better to phrase the same question in any other way that's not associated with corporate ineptitude, like "What are your long-term career goals?"