[cmh89]

> If you can describe the day-to-day of what we do without much prompting that's a very strong signal you're a good fit

Why not just ask that then? "Tell me about yourself" is just a bad open-ended question. I've been in enough interviews to anticipate generic bad questions like that or "what's your biggest weakness" style questions, but not everyone has.

Hiring managers frequently can't differentiate between people who are knowledgeable and people who are just good at interviewing. I've coached many of my peers and done lots of coaching with success because at the end of the day, interviews are about taking advantage of the information asymmetry between your actual experience and what the hiring manager can actually know.

[sublinear]

> Why not just ask that then?

Because that's not all I want to know. I want to see the first things that surface in their mind and what they enjoy talking about. It's not a trick question and the only wrong answers are very clearly wrong sometimes even to those who don't work in software.

> Hiring managers frequently can't differentiate between people who are knowledgeable and people who are just good at interviewing.

I don't agree with this at all. We don't have "hiring managers". That's the problem right there. What the hell are they going to know about the position if they're not in it?

The developers have always done the interviewing of candidates at every place I've worked. We know exactly what to ask and what technical answers actually indicate they can get the job done. It's not hard to know what to ask when you actually do the job you're interviewing someone about.

[cmh89]

>I want to see the first things that surface in their mind and what they enjoy talking about. I

How does that question get to that? I'd guess most of them are thinking 'why did I get asked such a vague question and how should I answer it. Do they want me to talk about my personal life, or maybe they have some weird confirmation bias. If they wanted me to talk about my work life, they'd probably ask right? What a weird question'.

>I don't agree with this at all. We don't have "hiring managers". That's the problem right there. What the hell are they going to know about the position if they're not in it?

You are the hiring manager if you are a manager who is responsible for hiring someone.

I've worked with a lot of managers and sat on lots of hiring panels. Managers who think they are going to play some mind game to get a purer view of someone are always bad interviewers who place huge amounts of stock in some arbitrary reaction to their mind game.