Laurie Voss, in a piece about technical hiring that is easily applied to the legal field and hiring more generally, on asking applicants questions to which they almost certainly don’t know the answer:

The weakest candidates will try to waffle or make wild guesses. This is a terrible sign, firstly because it never works, and secondly because they thought that it would. [ … ] Strong candidates say “I don’t know” as soon as they hit their limit, and may start asking questions. The very strongest candidates say “but if I had to guess” and then attempt to extrapolate.

Yup. And what’s more, most interviewers or hiring managers who ask such counterproductive questions are actually looking for the waffles and the wild guesses. They invariably want to see someone who can obfuscate without sacrificing an air of omniscience.

It’s an astounding feat of self-sabotage, and it makes it difficult for the truly intelligent among us (like myself, all arrogance aside…) to make an impression among the din of bloviating thought-sheep.