My preferred interviews were those with programming tests to do at home with some days before the deadline, allowed me to work like a remote dev would. On-site

My preferred interviews were those with programming tests to do at home with some days before the deadline, allowed me to work like a remote dev would. On-site interviews then included a code review of the test. No white board coding, no timed programming exercise without internet, no asking things as if I could memorize all the docs of all the tools I work with. I also liked well designed tests because the more I feel actual work skills are checked, the more confident I am that I would have well qualified colleagues to work with and learn from. With your scenario, I fear in most places it would end up like "we hire all our friends, it's fun". Not even sure it would be legal to discriminate about people you just don't know, however qualified they may be...