HR doesn’t really conduct interviews beyond maybe a quick high level screen. They select candidates, but also only as a high level screen, it’s up to the engineering team to screen more deeply and do interviews.
Of all places, Facebook had a pretty clearly non-technical person screen me over the phone.
Apparently they gave her a list of questions and answers. The questions were structured so that none of the answers were open-ended. ("What is the OSI seven layer model? What is a Unix signal?")
So, yeah, I'm not sure I would call it a real interview, but sometimes HR does get called upon to screen candidates.
This is different. The engineering team provided those questions so that the recruiters stop wasting their time on people who have no chance at all. They're just implementing the filter. HR themselves did not come up with any of them, and don't make the decisions. Also, recruiting and HR are not quite the same function.
I talked to a person in a similar situation... ironically some of the questions could have multiple answers. Pre ES5 and Post ES5 JS has changed a lot of the "rules". Specifically to scope/closures.
But yeah, for the most part, those kinds of questions help. It does depend on what your needs are.
