“A job interview isn’t a set of trick questions. You’re working collaboratively to see if you can work in the future – not trying to prove your intellectual dominance. It shouldn’t be a test to see if they’ve read the same interviewing books as you.” This! I’ve been involved in so many interviews (on both sides) where the candidate is just being benchmarked against the interviewer rather than an actual job specification. The interviewer asks the candidate very specific questions (do you know the same things as I do), or asks more probing questions in particular areas (do you specialise in the same skills as me). I think this is a really easy trap to fall into, but it can be avoided if you start with a clear idea of the role you’re trying to fill that everybody can agree on. Often the problem is there are multiple people involved in the process, all with their own ideas of how it’s supposed to work, so you are naturally going to surprise candidates who are expecting a consistent set of rules.