I have a generic question which I ask in all interviews, whether hiring for a dev, manager, project leader. It works wonders for me. For each position in the c

I have a generic question which I ask in all interviews, whether hiring for a dev, manager, project leader. It works wonders for me. For each position in the candidate's resume (or the last 3 if the resume is too long) I ask "what did you like about the job? what did you dislike? What made you happy to go to work and what made you drag your feet? It can be anything: boss, coworkers, how work was organized, office politics or lack thereof, visibility/interest of the job, commute time, offices... There are no wrong answers". Then I let them talk. When it's done right, I find this is a great way to understand what motivates them and to make sure their intrinsic motivation is aligned with the position they're applying for and the company context. For instance, for a developer I'll be interested in someone who likes fixing problems; for a project manager, being result-oriented is usually a good thing. Someone who likes having a clear set of steps to follow is probably not a good match for my management style. Another thing that I can check is how they coped with a situation they disliked. Did they try to address it, work around it, or did they give up/avoid it? I was first exposed to this approach as a candidate. I remember spending 90 minutes talking about all my previous positions, reflecting about what I'd liked and disliked for each of them, and coming out of there knowing more about myself than I did going in.