[goodroot]

Yikes. Good thing you didn't wind up there.

The furthest I've gone in these jazz style culture interviews is asking people what they do outside of work for fun. This was for fully remote async positions. And it was important to know you had other stuff going on because the mental/personal health risk in failing at remote work is massive and life altering.

If, through wherever that discussion went, I wasn't 100% sure that you could stand on your own feet and wouldn't sink into the abyss, it was impossible to move forward. It was a tough line to walk sometimes because you don't want to pry personally. But that doesn't appear to be a universal opinion, it turns out.

[nicbou]

That question would not be received well in many places. What candidates do in their private time is none of your business.

[nomel]

Not sure why this is downvoted.

Even if I wanted to, these questions aren't allowed in the company I work for, along with feedback related to "team fit". This is dictated by execs, dictated by legal, because it has nothing to do with proving competence, and opens up for employment discrimination lawsuits since you're persuading them (you have to understand the power dynamic) to reveal potentially protected info. For example, if a man say "Oh, I go hiking with my boyfriend!", he could also say "They didn't hire me because I told them I was gay!". Or, even "I spend time with my kids." since familial status is a legally protected class where I am.

As a person who does interviews, I have exactly zero interest in what people do for fun. I just want competent people that are nice to work with (in a productivity sense), and I only have 45 minutes to prove that, knowing that nearly everyone fucking lies. I see it serving no purpose other than helping enforce some monoculture within the group, because, genuinely, why else would you ask about free time activities during an interview?

Related, the only time I've asked this was early on when I didn't know how to interview. The only time I've been asked this, and answered, was with people who had just started interviewing (small startups and new hiring managers).

[ryandrake]

Great comment. It's really shocking how close to the legal line Silicon Valley tech companies get, and the extent to which many of them actually cross way over the line. A huge number of interviewers I've encountered are in extreme need of training so they don't so casually put their companies at legal risk. If I was Lawful Evil, I could probably make a career out of just suing companies for discriminatory hiring practices, due to the various landmines poorly trained interviewers routinely step into.

BigTech seems to be the best at it. They tend to have rigorous training, and often have a "safe question bank" that interviewers pull questions from, which are all vetted by lawyers and are known not to put the company at legal risk.

[pjsmith404]

I think that's the best you can do for culture fit, cause at the end of the day it's just "can they shoot the shit and are they pleasant to be around". You can't really know a person technically or socially until they've been in the job for at least a little bit though.

[dnnddidiej]

Hmmm. Maybe overindexing on anecdata. Did that one guy go a bit crazy once?

I think you gotta trust adults to be adults.