[kayo_20211030]

I think that "cultural" interviews are underrated as a distinguisher; just because they seem so subjective. However, if the correct, non-domain specific, person conducts the interview, it can be a great source of information. At the most basic level, it assesses whether the candidate is a complete nut, or not; it assesses whether that individual, outside of any skills considerations, can work with others in the organization, either as a follower, peer, or leader. A competent person doing these types of interviews is essentially conducting an unstructured, informal, personality assessment and producing some very valuable insights to others later in the process. We ought not discount intuition, or "feel". A genuinely insightful person conducting a good screening interview may be the most valuable person in your hiring organization.

[Sajarin]

Great caveat, not trying to throw away the baby with the bathwater when it comes to cultural interviews or even personality based assessments. It can be done well. My personal take (which I admit is equally a leap of intuition) is that there are probably more cost-effective ways to gain more signal. Anecdotally for instance, I'm seeing an increase in pair-coding/work-along type interviews where both sides get an intuitive sense of the other's depth of technical expertise as well as a taste of what it's like to work with each other.