It's just something every interviewer starts off with and frankly, is a waste of time. It may be a waste of time for you, but as an interviewer it seriously he

It's just something every interviewer starts off with and frankly, is a waste of time. It may be a waste of time for you, but as an interviewer it seriously helps nervous candidates find their footing by starting something that they're super comfortable and confident with. It can be intimidating to jump right into questions without a bit of social lubrication. I normally start my interviews pointing out that we indeed have your CV, so it would be helpful to know how all the pieces came together in your last project. I find the conversational-style of interviewing more productive than the inquisitional-style, and past projects is a nice entrance to deeper questions EDIT: And in some cases we dont even have your CV. I'm testing a new hiring pipeline where instead of asking for a resume we instead ask a few open-ended questions. This is to see if we can reduce any unconscious bias in the first selection of applicants. In this case, starting with a short summary _is_ new information