[sadga]

> That's pretty unfairly tilted in favor of the company.

You seem to be assuming that the company's goal is to find a reason to reject someone. That's not correct.

If anything, it's tilted in favor of candidates that have the same hobbies as interviewers.

[drivingmenuts]

No, my assumption is that a potential employer has no right to know anything about me outside of professional qualifications or what may raise legal issues (convictions, credit rating [iffy], or conflicts of interest). My personal life is strictly off-limits until I get to know them.

Look, I know it sounds confrontational, and I don't go into interviews expecting a hostile environment. But I also don't go into interviews expecting to speak of anything other than things directly related to the business.

I would be very uncomfortable if asked to speak about anything not directly related to the business or business environment there.

[eli_gottlieb]

I'd actually speak comfortably about such things, provided the interviewer first shows that they are a good-natured and tolerant person working in an office environment where diverse views and interests are welcome. I as a socialist have no objection to working with one anarcho-capitalist, only to working with an entire company culture that assumes anarcho-capitalism to be The Right Answer. I likewise have no problem with someone who thinks anime is boring (90% of it is crap, after all), only with an entire company culture in which having "geeky" interests other than programming is viewed as childish, immature, or unprofessional.

(After all, I think that leaving work at 6:30PM to go to a Haskell Users' Meetup at 7:00PM where you will drink sugary, caffeinated soda and/or beer, eat bad pizza from a corporate chain, and watch an hour-and-a-half presentation on a programming and theorem-proving suite that is perpetually unready for use on machines with less than 8GB of RAM is downright insanely messianic language fanboyism. That doesn't mean I didn't go right along and watch the presentation to be sociable about it and to give everyone their time to make their case. Hell, it doesn't mean I didn't have a good time, even if I left after my coworker's presentation because I didn't want to stay until 10:00PM to watch a theorem-proving presentation I couldn't understand.)

[bduerst]

Personality is certainly a legal deciding factor in hiring someone for a position in a company, especially in at-will employment states.

It is illegal for a company to not hire on undue reasons such as race, religion, political affiliations, etc., but you are entering into an employment relationship, and it is not unfair to understand more about the person you are paying to work with.

[eli_gottlieb]

The entire United States is at-will employment. Some states forbid "union shops", but nowhere in the USA will you receive a permanent contract like you would in Europe that stipulates you cannot be fired without reason.

[rhizome]

Which is still unfair.

[vacri]

A large part of interviewing is gut feeling about someone. If you think their personal life has a number of trite aspects, it's not going to do wonders for their chances.