Comment by exmadscientist

I mean, I think that's exactly the parent poster's point. It's not an absolute "can this person communicate efficiently on CommunicationBench 3.0-beta7". It's "would I, personally, do well sitting next to this person every day and communicating constantly with them, or would I struggle with that?" There's a very personal piece to this that is both a little arbitrary, but completely practical.

(Caveat: I've always been interviewing for members of a small team who I might very literally be sitting next to every day and communicating constantly with. BigCo interviewing is different.)