When interviewing people there are various options. They include asking a person for a resume or a CV a curriculum vitae and having them tell what they want about themselves, or just asking pointed directed questions that focus on a certain aspect. These methods have an advantage and a disadvantage. You get the information possibly that you want, on the one hand. On the other hand you are limiting the input from the other person and they might not tell you things that could be extremely useful to you. The other option is an open ended question in which you ask the people to tell about a certain aspect or to tell about themselves and then you sit silently. When they ask what do you mean? You can give vague answers so that initially they feel uncomfortable and then after a little while they begin to talk and to explain whatever they feel like saying. In this way they have a way of expressing far more than a closed question and the more that you sit quietly the more that you wait, the more that they might feel a need to terminate the silence and to reveal other information that otherwise might not have been revealed. This can be very useful for the person who is hiring.

On the other hand, I would not necessarily recommend this for the person who is being hired. Silence could leave a negative impression which is not what you want to accomplish. So this method of silence is decidedly a one way deal. It's only to the advantage of the one who is doing the hiring.

The only thing that the person who is being interviewed can do is to possibly, depending on the circumstances, direct the question back at the interviewer. What do you mean by that? Explain. And things like that and then wait for a response. Sometimes this will work and sometimes not.

Basically, if both people try the game of silence here then the interview can be extremely uncomfortable for both and possibly even unsuccessful, so it is not necessarily recommended, except for the interviewer. And even in those cases it shouldn't be used to an excess because it is a bit nasty. If not, in some cases, down right cruel.