[dirtybirdnj]

The way you conduct the interviews sounds humane and respectful. Thank you for sharing that.

It's interesting how "treat it as real as possible" is the best advice for both parties to have the best possible outcome. As an interviewee I've found that the more divorced from the actual work the interview challenge is, the "spicier" the engagement is overall.

I was part of an org that was having trouble hiring people. To help with this, they decided to obfuscate the stack used because several candidates gave up after trying to use the tool the team (who had all left) settled on ~10yrs ago. "Just don't tell them we use X" was the decision management made. At some point the people left holding the bag will have ask why and you will owe them an explanation of why this wasn't discussed from the beginning.

It took me a while to figure out why I think the way you are doing things is important to me, I hope that makes sense.