Pose a game-fantasy question and you get gamed fantasy answers. "Realistic self-view The first thing I try to figure out is if this person's job description m

Pose a game-fantasy question and you get gamed fantasy answers. "Realistic self-view The first thing I try to figure out is if this person's job description matches their skills. If a 22 year old tells me they want to be CEO of Google next week, for example, it looks like either their perspective on their skills is flawed or they didn't really grasp what I was asking. In that case, I say something like, "remember, you're starting this job on Monday. Are you ready to be CEO of Google on Monday?" If they say yes, then I'll probably entertain myself by asking how they'd run the company while mentally moving on to the next candidate." This isn't telling you anything about what the candidate can actually do. It's telling you whether you as the interviewer think the candidate is capable of doing what they say-- and you probably have only minimal prior knowledge. It's also telling you that you didn't form the question with enough qualifications if you're receiving answers which you consider to be outside the realm of expected results. I'm also going to go ahead and say that there are 22 year olds who could be the CEO of Google next week, whether or not the author has faith in them. I really hate interviewing for this very reason. Every question is a trick question. Every question must be gamed. Every question that you will ask (be forced to pose in order to game the situation of having a question for them) will be dodged and gamed similarly. In light of that, this question by the author isn't so bad. Interviewing is going to be a joke/crapshoot/have no real correlation to ability to do the job no matter what, so I guess this question isn't so bad. I'll admit, I had fun with thinking of my answer-- but I know the author wouldn't ever accept it if I answered genuinely in the fashion I wanted to in an interview with him. Showing too much ambition in a job interview is quite dangerous from my experience.