I hear this all the time. Yeah, that might be true in some cases, but it's also valid in quite a lot of instances (like the example you provided).
> it is categorically impossible to establish in a 45 minute interview whether a person is actually a "fit" or not
I've run/sat in on several trainwreck interviews over the years (for ad account manager roles and logistical analyst roles mostly). Here are a few examples of candidates that were perfect in every way until the interview based on culture fit:
* The guy that mentioned he only traveled to Thailand because ladyboys do it better.
* The guy that mentioned he wouldn't work with anyone that drank alcohol because it's "the retardant of the masses". Fair enough opinion. About 20% of our ad sales came from alcohol-related businesses. I asked if he would have a problem dealing with liquor businesses. He explained that wouldn't be a problem as long as they didn't ask if he drank.
* I was sitting in on an interview with the Marketing Director for an account management gig on a Monday morning. We asked the candidate if she did anything noteworthy over the weekend. She told us she went dancing with her friend "Molly" at a music festival and laughed.
* The analyst that mentioned he scrapes NSFW subreddits in his spare time and links throwaway accounts to main accounts based on comment history, similar subreddit crossover, posting times, and vernacular (his tool was pretty impressive -- it sent him an email whenever it had a hit with over 50% accuracy or something which he received during the interview).
That literally is the trashiest thing you can ever say.
I don't think I can agree with that reasoning in the context of a job interview. I wouldn't want to hear about your sex life either, but that doesn't mean you can't have one.
Same is here: I can imagine many situations where discussing the effects of drugs and your experiences of them to be interesting. But “I spend a weekend dancing with molly” sounds more like a 15-year-old just got access to sex for the first time.
Perhaps it was a wild misunderstanding or perhaps not. I'm sure we would all rather think it's a drug policy, but the reality is that the LGBTQ crowd faces discrimination severe enough that they are at increased risk of homelessness compared to the general population.
* Edit: Or perhaps she didn't really think about what she saying, then realized after the fact that she just admitted in a job interview to a same sex date, then laughed uncomfortably.
Someone who drops that in an interview is going to be having HR complaints against them within their first week.
Nor in the workplace. That's how sexual harassment happens.
If the comment was "X women do it better" it would still be inappropriate.
Ironically, the HR staff member present during the interview was a gay man himself. I guess he must be homophobic in your eyes also for discarding the application?
My non-work life is by most measures pretty unusual. But my answer during the Monday standups to "what did you do on the weekend?" is.. "Oh, not much, some housecleaning and laundry".
That sounds less like interpersonal issues and more like a tic disorder.
It's as if interviewers are lazy and guess.
It didn't help that he didn't do well on the coding question either. In the end I only mentioned the "fucks" in passing in my feedback, and disqualified him on technical merit.