This is almost exactly like Microsoft's response to the ribbon criticism when it first came out. They were so proud of themselves that a handful of those buttons were used 30% of the time or whatever, but ignored the fact that another handful was used <1% of the time yet were still visible by default on the default tab.

Which is to say your justification is very much "75% of our interview process makes sense, it's only this 25% that you almost never needed any any previous job, you don't need at this one, and if you're self-taught you probably never learned in the first place, but we're going to ask you anyway because it makes the interviewer feel smart."