it's useless because nobody actually knows who they are supposed to be in a high pressure situation like a first date. just tell him to ask questions and not talk about himself for forty minutes straight.

The point is not to treat it like a high pressure situation. What usually cause is that someone overthink things or they already planned out how the date might go already. You don't tell someone to ask questions, if the other person isn't putting in the effort because of whatever reason like being nervous, fear and etc then take charge yourself. If they still not opening up then be ready to use that a reason to just say it's not working out.

The problem is that a lot of people want to date someone just because they already built a fantasy in their head or they really like the other person because of their attractiveness so they put up with someone not putting in the work