The Easiest Way to Answer “What Are You Passionate About?” Interview Question

Totally agree. Because if the question really were “What are your motivating factors?” or “Which job areas you enjoy working the most?” then they should ask those questions directly instead of something so easy to misinterpret.

Imagine if someone responded "My children are my passion" or "teaching Sunday school" then - whoops! now the conversation is in a very tricky area where it's all to easy to ask questions which may be regarded as evidence of intent to discriminate.

Instead, I interpret it that the interviewer is using popular buzz-phrases. And if the interviewee doesn't know the buzz-phrase then it becomes an indication of a so-called "bad cultural fit."

Which is all too often another way to say "too diverse for us".