It was the first round with the hiring manager. I'm not sure what exactly hiring managers look for during an interview; perhaps a set of matching words they already like?

managerSet.contains(candidateBuzzWord) ? next : go deeper in same topic.

My request is to kindly focus on what the candidate has worked on and what your project is all about. There is a hell of a lot of in-depth knowledge in each topic in core Java alone, which you might not be aware of. Don't try to show off to reduce the brand value of Oracle.

How does SSL work? Are you interested?

How many of us care about it?

Let's remove 'google.com' from the organization, then give it a shot. You will probably have an answer.

Please be precise about your question so that the candidate can answer to the point. Otherwise, there is no limit to the wage of words and the generic approach.

But when a candidate gives a generic answer, you are looking for buzzword matching patterns and to-the-point answers.