I - need a job, presumably they need someone with my skillset, now obvious, there are soft skill concerns, do I match the culture, is it going the direction I feel my career ought to go? Other then that, it should be pretty simple.
If you're the type that needs personal validation such that you would knock a candidate for saying something like "I need money, you guys are paying in money", then you simply shouldn't ask the question. Of course, people love to think that they have a highly tuned bullshit detector, are immune to blatant flattery, etc. The problem is everyone thinks that. We are all susceptible to these things and we need to make sure our process is such that its not biased towards people who are particularly good at telling you what you want to hear.
There are two sides to the coin, of course. I personally don't mind being asked about my motivations because I tend to only apply to companies that I actually want to work at (paychecks notwithstanding).
That said, you applied for a job here, so there must be some reason you want it. Maybe "I ended up in a really bad job and I want people who care about their craft", "I love Clojure and you guys write everything in clojure", or "I love your flat organizational structure", or "I like making developer tools". But "i need a job" is a terrible answer, and won't even get you past the phone screen.
You are just going to weed out all the people who are not bullshitting you, and take in all the people who will. And amazingly, you are happy proclaiming this!
I'd thank you for weeding me out though. I like reality. Don't like happy rainbow snowflake dreamland, which you've just outed your company as. Since such things never last.
I don't know how you translated "wanting to hire people who want to work here" into "happy rainbow snowflake dreamland", but so long as people who don't care about our product or market feel weeded out, then I'm happy. For others reading this who do actually care about the people, product and technology you work with, please let me know at jobs@circleci.com.
If the best you can offer is "uh I need a job" that means you don't know a damned thing about the company you're applying to, doesn't it? I.e., you found a list of 30 companies that are offering jobs in your city that vaguely match your CV, and instead of reading about them and choosing a few, you're taking the shotgun approach.
If you read about them, what made you choose this one?
Do they seem like they have a culture that's better than your last job? Do they use a language you like (and/or would like to use more)? Are they doing something you know anything about, or find interesting at all, or can at least categorize as "not morally objectionable"? Almost anything is better than "I need a job".
Which is why it should be part of the phone screen. In the article, they didn't even ask this until after the 5 hours of interviews. Ouch.
"I'd never heard of you guys, but when I was searching around your thing seemed a lot more interesting than some of the other things."
And on the employer side, unless you've actually got tanks out back from having turned water into wine you might notch the erection down a few degrees. There's smart people everywhere, that's not special.
I would usually go with something compiled together from separate things: - New challenges - Location - Their field of expertise - Their culture
I can understand how a company wants someone enthusiastic for their product/company, on the other hand I can understand how alienating it is to have to bullshit about the reality of your situation.