Job interviews are negotiations. As such, the controlled release of information is critical. "Come tell me your dreams so I can match them up against my opportu

Job interviews are negotiations. As such, the controlled release of information is critical. "Come tell me your dreams so I can match them up against my opportunities" is not fair to the candidate, who 1) would be an idiot to have a dream where what you wanted was what they wanted and 2) might very well be able to adapt to whatever your situation was. Hell, you very well might desire to adapt your situation to the candidate. At the end, you then step into the candidate's shoes and say something like "Gee, looks like you missed out on a bunch of important stuff we care about. But hey, it still might work! What do you think about that?" -- this puts extreme pressure on somebody who is probably just trying to figure out the difference between what you think you want and what you actually need. I think I'd care a lot more about a candidates values -- the ones they've actually lived -- than what some kind of dream job is like. If you're not dreaming of sitting on the beach spending your time as you see fit? If, instead, your dream is to code Javascript at some company 75% of the time while going to meetings 25%? Maybe you're either lying, are missing some key bit of imagination, or just trying to bullshit me. Even folks who actually spend those percentages are usually doing so because something else they value drives them to do it. I do not want to be cruel, but this sounds like one of those interview questions that's just a little bit too clever for its own good. The kinda thing you could do for a long while and get away with, because it's really measuring the ability of the candidate to negotiate tricky manager situations, which is in itself a valuable skill. You are probably getting something that feels good, but is not the thing you think you're getting.