I remember asking a few technical questions, at one interview years ago - more in order to sound interested and knowledgable than to get the answer. I should stress these were perfectly sensible question not smart-arse questions at all. Unfortunately each answer was precedeed by a cough and foot shuffling as they had to admit to some embarrassing crapness in their set up. Every attempt I made to delicately change tack by asking something else led to another embarrasing admission. Oh well
Mind you, on the other side of the table my then boss and I were interviewing an excellent internal canditate, essentially a shoe-in for the role and boss's token questions were a bit feeble sounding so I asked a few so that we at least sounded a bit professional so the candidate didn't turn down the job thinking we were a pair of buffoons. Years later the chap, by now a mate, told me he was.really worried about the interview as I'd given him a real grilling. I'd only been trying to sound vaguely professional!
More.seriously, when I've been recruiting I'm trying to answer two things: can they do the job, and will they be a pain in the arse.
As you (OP) mentioned be prepared for "give me an example of where you've done X".- and x could be "exceeded customer's expectations" "delivered under pressure" and so on - with the content part sometimes in poncy language "world class results". The key thing is to be expecting the "give me an example format" and not being thrown by poncy phrasing - you just have to give a vaguely relevant answer from your CV - "on the such and such project I was responsible for x or did y which shows whatever-the-question-was" Your op shows you've got the idea of this already
Not everone's asking in this style but can throw you if. It makes candidates easier to score / compare so isn't a bad style.
Need a stock answer for "what are your strengths,".and ditto "weaknesses".ie you present another strenght as if it was a weakness "eg I get frustrated.when things take to long" "or I am too patient with difficult customers" etc. These are lazy questions anyway.
It's legitimate to answer "have you any questions." by simple "you've covered everything I was going to ask. but when will you let me know" . But a couple of sensible, not too poncy work related questions are good"
Not "can I go on the sick straight away", or "is it Ok to bunk off early"
...don't forget to take a helicopter view of the low hanging fruit.
