Happened to me recently during a call. Perhaps they could have phrased it better, like “why are you open to opportunities” (which sounds quite dumb too tbh)
Or, to frame it a different way:
Modern work enviornments being what they are, as a worker you will be required to have some bare minimum soft skills in order to interact with co-workers and your boss in a manner that isn’t completely deranged.
Shitty questions like these, with an obvious difference between the blunt honest answer and the “workplace acceptable” answer, serve as quite possibly the lowest bar possible to measure your ability to cater your communication properly to an audience.
These stupid questions are a litmus test for whether you are capable of reasonably functioning socially in a work environment. Very few jobs exist where you never interact with others.
I’d rather not spend my 8 hours a day listening to someone rant constantly about UBI and hating the job. That only makes the grind worse and drag on longer, even when the complaining is on the mark.
Most of all: for as dumb as a lot of this song and dance is, very few people ask these questions because they want to. Most people in recruiting have experienced times where they skipped the stupid question, and ended up missing the red flag to not hire the person.
As a programmer my soft skills are as important as my hard skills. I’ve never worked on software alone: coordination, coherent and clear communication, collaboration. It’s all integral to the role.
I believe it is most of what has led to me being promoted up to staff eng level. I’m very good technically but so are many other engineers.
Ah yes, reasonably functioning… by lying your ass off so as to please those around you. Totally healthy and reasonable.
Except that you can effectively screen for basic interpersonal skills with a casual conversation of 15 to 30 minutes where the interviewer throws in some flashpoint / hot topics and asks a few more pointed or consequential questions after a general report has been established.
Or better yet, do that with their possible coworkers, or get said coworkers to suggest topics and questions for the recruiter in the above scenario.
