As someone who has both hired people and been on a lot of interviews myself, those questions that sound generic and like BS can actually reveal a lot about a candidate and their insight into their work style.


One of my standard, like to ask questions, is what did you dislike most about your last job? I asked this of an accounting candidate once and her reply was "dealing with people" That was all I needed to hear, as the position I was hiring for would require a lot of communication with sales and marketing.

When I was hiring a regularly for accountants, in a corporate finance setting, yes I would use generic and behavioural type questions. I'd rarely ask technical questions because one can have theoretical knowledge without being able to do anything. So part of my interview process was a skills test where I took common analyses that were part of the job and asked the candidate to do the best they could with an hour. That seemed to yield the best results in terms of hiring people that could be successful