Item — HN Reader

Useless "world-as-you-want-it-to-be" rather than "world-as-it-actually-is" questions. These questions simply encourage the interviewee to guess expected answers and provide them with a smile. They mean nothing.

Until and unless companies learn that "Honesty" and "Trust"(from both sides) are the only things which matter when it comes to measuring intangible character traits these sorts of questionnaires are bunkum.

2 comments

I must be lucky because I'm at the point in my career where I give these kind of questions direct but nuanced answers and let the chips fall where they may.

I'm definitely not everyone's "cultural fit" (a dog whistle term for legitimizing discrimination imo), but for companies that appreciate what I bring to the table, it's all the better.

Honesty and trust are definitely top values for me, and people who can't handle respectful and frank discussion can't handle me, so better to find out immediately, as early in the process as possible.

Not everyone is going to do that, because some would rather find out sooner than later that they don't really want the job.

Also, some people are bad at guessing expected answers.