Savy candidate will pick a hobby that will make him look good anyway. (Don't mention metal or rap, don't mention you actually don't have one, don't mention stereotypically girly hobby, do mention reading and that single robot set you bought and build five years ago.)
I've been doing quite well. I e been watching Bob Ross, and started painting things I find o. Reddit...
The goal is to be able to paint butterflies and unicorns, but I'm currently on trees and mountains and clouds..
But it was a hopeless question either way. The 'catch' bit just means the author should have known it was a terrible question. I have trouble imagining the candidate who wouldn't try to guess which hobby is most interview-friendly and talk exclusively about that.
"Oh yeah? What's your favorite scale?"
"Uh what?"
"Can you tell me your favorite major triad?"
"..."
interviewer assumes person is lying because their level of enthusiasm and knowledge doesn't match up to their expectations of what a "true piano hobbyist is" when really person just likes to play chopsticks on the piano or lookup yt videos on how to play pop songs
But honestly, there is an expectation of some level of competency/knowledge when trying to "claim" a hobby, because people consider a hobby as something you involve yourself in at more than a surface level.
Would you call yourself a polyglot because you know how to say "I love you." in eight different languages? Would you expect others to consider you multilingual? Probably not... There is some floor level of expectation before people would say you can "speak" a language and would consider you multilingual and a single phrase doesn't cut it for most people.
If someone tells me that they like to play a musical instrument - I'd first gauge their level of ability "What songs do you like to play?" followed by their knowledge of music theory "Could you show me a `Gm sus4 7` chord in the second inversion?" or a more basic "What are the 12 notes in Standard Western notation?"
No. In fact, the very definition of a hobby refutes this. A hobby is purely anything you have taken interest in for mere pleasure or to fill leisure time. Hobby's synonyms are pastime, leisurely activity, leisurely pursuit, etc. There should be no expectation of mastery.
Now if I said I am a piano practitioner, I would assume some knowledge.
> If someone tells me that they like to play a musical instrument - I'd first gauge [...]
And this list of criteria you gauge will vary from person to person, and interviewer to interviewer, which is exactly why approving/rejecting candidates based on their hobbies is unreliable at best.
By the way, your listed criteria of what someone being a musician is would exclude Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Paul McCartney, Kurt Vile, Tony Williams, Danny Elfman, Eric Clapton and Tom Morello, just to name a few.
I don't care much for definitions - because dictionaries are often years or decades behind how words are literally used.
In this case it's a matter of breaking expectation - and not because the statement is "wrong". The statement would be correct but goes against what people are expecting when they ask such a question.
If someone were to tell you "My hobby is drawing." what do you first imagine? Perhaps not hyper realistic graphite drawings but you're probably imagining something with at least a mediocre level of talent. Decent proportions, an understanding of depth, at least the basics! How surprised would you be if they showed you a bunch of crudely drawn stick figures that look like a three year old drew them? Would you think they were pulling a joke on you?
If someone says "I'm a programmer" would it break your expectations to find out that they can only write `=SUM(A2:B2)` into an Excel spreadsheet? How many people do you think would disagree that they are "a programmer" if that is the extent of their programming talent? Do you think that would be a majority of people or a minority of people? If someone put on their resume that they had 8 years of programming experience and failed to mention that it was only with Excel functions would you count that against them when hiring them? Would you consider it manipulative or shady? It's the equivalent of saying "I handle financial transactions for a multi-billion dollar company." when you're a cashier at McDonalds. Factually correct, but you better only be saying it in jest or you would be considered a manipulative asshole.
By the way, my listed criteria did not exclude them. The first judgement is one of ability - all of them would pass as musicians by that alone.
I don't care that you don't care for definitions. Words have meaning, whether you care about them or not.
The whole premise of your anecdotes are based upon your experience and the way your brain operates. That's the definition of bias. That's the reason why dismissing someone based upon your perceived lack of mastery of their hobby, something by definition is something someone does just for fun, is horrible for any sort of hiring needs or purposes.
Telling me "I do this as a hobby" and "I am this" are two completely different statements.
Words literally have definitions that change over time, in context, from different groups of people, in different regions, and literally sometimes don't literally mean what is literally written in a dictionary. Pointing to a dictionary and saying "This is what this word means" is completely ignoring how communication works unless you're trying to get two people to agree upon a definition of a word.
The only good a dictionary is for is saying "This is the definition of the word I am using." Neat. I'll stick with the way everyone around me uses the word, dictionary be damned.
>Telling me "I do this as a hobby" and "I am this" are two completely different statements.
The implications of the statement matters.
>It's the equivalent of saying "I handle financial transactions for a multi-billion dollar company." when you're a cashier at McDonalds.
I play the Beethoven Sonata's I play well. I'd have to answer with dunno to all those questions. My piano teacher did have a professional jazz pianist as a student, because he wanted to learn some more traditional techniques.
Yesterday I went to a class of a famous Brazilian percussionist. When I asked him about whether there is a dictionary of the rhythms, so I can at least look them up, he said, dunno, if you want to learn get close to people that know, learn and practice.
But as the GP said, if I knew that was the expectation I would prepare for it and try to control the interview.
All the people I interviewed with I was still in the university did have top grades, but were otherwise terrible engineers. You're basically looking for those people.
If that famous Brazilian percussionist was instead a shitty percussionist with no rhythm - would he still be famous? Would he even be considered a percussionist by other people?
I have a feeling I'm either making my argument poorly or people are trying to read between the lines and missing my point.
Also, plenty of people are shitty at their pastimes.
Am I hiring:
(a) A programmer
(b) Someone who considers themselves a programmer
>Also, plenty of people are shitty at their pastimes.
I'm not arguing against that. My argument is (a) vs (b).
I'm doing that tonight, and I dunno if I've met more that a couple who know what sus chord does. And I'm talking about folks who make their living from music.
Also if you're a professional, by definition, you're not a hobbyist.
I rock climb, listen to jam bands, and play video games. They're all very real hobbies I could pass any reasonable test on, in the bizarre event that someone considered it appropriate or worthwhile to "test me" on my own hobbies.
But I certainly don't think all three of those hobbies are interchangeable in an interview setting. The article talks about the question having a 'catch', so apparently the author agrees that they weren't asking the question in good faith - there were specific hobbies that were better!
In any case, if my hobby is something I am not comfortable to talk about with strangers (because they are likely to make weird gueses for example), you are not entitled to that information.