I've seen this once. I was talking to two guys that I met randomly, and I said something like "Rich people see you the way you see homeless people". One of them instantly understood what I meant, while the other one got stuck on "but I am not homeless" and even his friend couldn't explain the idea to him.

Wow that got dark fast.

Par for course for greentext.

Yep 100%

It's disturbing that you went from hiring to execution that quickly.

"bro trust me bro I saw it on 4chan bro people can't just make shit up on 4chan, it's like impossible bro cmon bro just trust me"

That other one about anachrinisms feels a bit too familiar. Something about George Washington taking airfields.

How is that not understanding a hypothetical? Seems they understand it just fine, what they're saying is they don't have the needed knowledge/confidence to answer the question.

Not understanding a hypothetical would go like this:

"How would you troubleshoot X?"

"Why, is X broken?"

"No, but imagine it was broken."

"If it's not broken why are you asking me that"

Ok, but a completely fair and honest answer is to google it. Or review internal documentation/asbuilt for the system. Or to ask your mate steve.

You don't need to understand the technical detail in the hypothetical, to extract search terms and research it.

The answer of "I dont know that system so I wouldnt know where to start" is failing the hypothetical. You have many starting points for all technical research. It means you cannot even imagine where to begin.

If you are so shocked by the appearance of technical term you don't understand, that you wont even take the first step of putting that term into google, you really shouldn't be applying for technical jobs.

The most common answer I get, if I fight the interviewee, and reposition it as a technical issue they do understand, is that they relay to me an anecdote from a time when they did complete the troubleshooting. IE, they still dont engage with the hypothetical, they just use recall.

There is a subset of companies where they test to see if you stop yourself and admit you don’t know.

It’s a question where you should preface if you don’t know, then make sure you’re game to just try.

I drop it mostly to see how people think.

People who answer with research/troubleshooting methodology, go on to be excellent employees.

People who dont attempt it, are generally unable to cope without handholding.

"In as much detail as possible, describe what is happening when I enter https://google.com into the browser and hit enter"