[tanseydavid]

I tell every person that I interview both that I want to hear their true opinions on technologies and tools that have worked favorably for them as well as technologies and tools that they were disappointed by.

Anyone who has ONLY favorably opinions of the tools and technologies they have been exposed to probably has not been working in technology for very long at all -- or they are afraid the interviewer will think poorly of them, which is regrettable in my opinion).

[roenxi]

People also ask "what is your greatest weakness?" - good luck to anyone thoughtful enough to know a real answer and thoughtless enough to tell it honestly. That interview question is fair but there is a decent chance here that it selects for people who are good at answering hard-to-answer questions more than anything else. It pushes for someone who can fabricate inoffensive but plausible answers.

Selecting people with high verbal and social intelligence isn't a bad interview strategy though.