> I've heard "Hmm, I don't actually know what it is that we're looking for" from a few recruiters

Why do you even care what recruiters say? They're there to make as many hires as possible and get their commission. Don't get me wrong, this is actually a decent question, but you might as well ask a car salesman what he likes doing in his free time. It doesn't matter -- he's trying to sell you a car.

> How do you evaluate how well you're meeting your goal? -- The majority of the companies that I ask this to essentially answer "we don't" to this question.

I'm going to go ahead and call BS on this one. Literally every company (outside of early-stage startups) has some kind of performance review. Most of these are completely artificial and completely suck, but they're definitely there.