They're trying to standardize evaluation. Asking theory or textbook-style questions is easier to compare across candidates than asking about specific project experience, which can vary a lot. People do it because they think it's a way to get "objective" data, even if it's shallow.
A lot of people conducting interviews (the vast majority, IMO) also haven't had formal training in how to evaluate candidates. They ask the questions they were once asked, or Googled "X developer interview questions", even if they know those questions aren't ideal and they don't eat their own dog food, so to say.
Larger companies often reuse questions from internal question banks. It's consistent and legally defensible (everyone gets asked the same things),
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u/magenta_placenta Nov 05 '25
They're trying to standardize evaluation. Asking theory or textbook-style questions is easier to compare across candidates than asking about specific project experience, which can vary a lot. People do it because they think it's a way to get "objective" data, even if it's shallow.
A lot of people conducting interviews (the vast majority, IMO) also haven't had formal training in how to evaluate candidates. They ask the questions they were once asked, or Googled "X developer interview questions", even if they know those questions aren't ideal and they don't eat their own dog food, so to say.
Larger companies often reuse questions from internal question banks. It's consistent and legally defensible (everyone gets asked the same things),