Do you really think it made you a better candidate, or did this person just feel a connection due to a similarity in interests or in your approach to computing? Was it even relevant for the job?
I find basic pc troubleshooting skills to be highly relevant to working in a data center. I learned about isolation testing and minimum config when I was like 13 trying to play MMOs, these things come relatively naturally to me due to exposure at a young age. That interest has prevailed well into my adulthood now, having no formal education I run circles around the relatively disinterested comptia kids.
As to being a better candidate, there is little I doubt less* than simple observations I can make at work. We could split hairs over causality, but there is a clear distinction between the people who go home to delid their CPU and the people who have devoted their time to certs instead.
Of course there will always be those sages that dont really care much for videogames and have transcended the street knowledge, those people 1. Have better jobs to work 2. Are harder to find with little benefit.
> due to a similarity in interests or in your approach to computing?
It's hard to say for sure - both of these things are also part of being a good candidate and working well in a team.
But I do think that this experience is both because of and forms part of who I am, a certain troubleshooting & optimizing mindset and curiosity with machines. Is it strictly necessary, or will all people with this shared hobby/past be this way? I don't know. I do think its a useful or good fuzzy signal, to be best used alongside other signals.
Was it relevant for the job? Not for the job description. There were times when I used related experience to solve problems or smooth things over though, such as figuring out why a QA engineer's setup was bluescreening (faulty ram), or in having familiarity with tools built into windows for performance profiling and debugging memory & storage problems with programs
As to being a better candidate, there is little I doubt less* than simple observations I can make at work. We could split hairs over causality, but there is a clear distinction between the people who go home to delid their CPU and the people who have devoted their time to certs instead.
Of course there will always be those sages that dont really care much for videogames and have transcended the street knowledge, those people 1. Have better jobs to work 2. Are harder to find with little benefit.