[doragcoder]

I would welcome the challenge in what rating is what. Because I know they are highly subjective. This is not an adversarial question, it's mainly used as an indicator to gauge where to direct the interview.

I like to interview people across a range of subjects (as I have not had the chance to hire a pure specialist). So knowing what they feel confident in answering will help me tailor the questions to what their perceived strengths are.

So I think it gives me a feel of your confidence level in a language. If you flipped through a "Teach yourself C++ in 24 hours" book once, then rate yourself a 10 on a scale from one to 10. Then not answering basic C++ questions will raise red flags.

If they answer a "1" on something. (And I re-assure them that answering 1 is perfectly ok). Then I can feel a lot more comfortable giving them more hints, or a lot more supporting detail in a question that they have indicated they are not very strong in.