Highly agree with all of that, perhaps save the conclusion. I still try to standardize the interview process, but we have enough different kinds of interview phases to capture different strengths and weaknesses of candidates. I still want the interview to be fair even when people respond very differently. You’re right that it doesn’t often come anywhere close to a tie. But sometimes candidates aren’t vocal and don’t vouch for themselves strongly but they are great coders, and sometimes people are talkative and sell themselves very well but when it comes down to technical ability they aren’t amazing. The choice of coding interview could obscure some of that, so mainly I include other parts to the interview, though I’m still interested in how to compare someone who does take home coding to someone who does the live pair programming, for example. I kinda want to see how candidates handle both. ;)