I think honesty is still probably correct - if you're struggling to figure out how to hedge.
I think you'd rather have good odds at some companies and 0% at others, rather than abysmal but non-zero odds at all companies.
And as an added bonus, you might get hired at a company where you're actually a good fit, rather than one you weasled your way into, and get to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment for a long time!
It's pretty easy as an interviewer to spot when a candidate is hedging on a question, and it's the kind of thing that might get discussed in the post-interview debrief.
"Wouldn't give a straight answer on question X" isn't an instant no-hire, but it's not a positive signal.
This doesn't make sense in practice. He hedged so not sure need to look at other factors vs he picked a side and he selected the opposite of what we wanted no-hire or he answered what we wanted small positive signal need to look at other factors.
It was a question of the form trying to figure out how you deal with "X", and he denied X having ever happened, despite that being a core part of his current role.
He was an internal candidate, we were interviewing him to see if we could trust him with more responsibility (more X specifically), since the new role shouldn't cover up X when it happens. The role involved doing X for himself AND for other people.
Similar to the form of "tell me about your biggest weakness" and you responding with "I have no weakness".
I guess it's a bit different when it's an internal candidate.
I've been on the recieving end of clueless folk trying to make me feel small when I've just been looking for a job, so I might be a bit sensitive about it! Sorry for any offense given. Thankfully I'm beyond that craziness now and can just do what I want for work.
instead of telling him out loud, "hey we see you're hedging and applying bullshit interview speak, your answer isn't sufficient", we asking in increasingly obvious but different ways.
It was an internal candidate so it would be awkward to tell him to his face he was floundering.
I think you'd rather have good odds at some companies and 0% at others, rather than abysmal but non-zero odds at all companies.
And as an added bonus, you might get hired at a company where you're actually a good fit, rather than one you weasled your way into, and get to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment for a long time!