This seems like practically it would be used to not hire people on the basis of 'culture fit'. I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate. (What if someone says, "Software engineers should fight for unionization.")
Do you really get a good signal on the three things the question is intended to find? (Whether people fear judgement, aren't introspective, etc.)
It's a good predictor if you wanted to hire people that knew who Peter Thiel was.
It's the sort of question that people answer better if it's not the first time they've heard it.
A really good candidate might be able to push back and ask what population of people the interviewer meant by "few people". There's views that I have around technology that few people in the world (relativity) have, but are orthodox if you narrowed that group to just software developers.
> "I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate."
Funny you should jump straight to those things. Given how opinionated we all are, I imagine most experienced software professionals would have at least one contrarian opinion about something technological in their profession. I can think of a few without even trying.
I'm a hiring manager, one of the things that's drilled into me during my trainings is to be conscious of what questions are off limits during hiring. :D
This seems like practically it would be used to not hire people on the basis of 'culture fit'. I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate. (What if someone says, "Software engineers should fight for unionization.")
Do you really get a good signal on the three things the question is intended to find? (Whether people fear judgement, aren't introspective, etc.)