At my company we interviewed two people. Both did fairly poorly in different ways. One we hired because he was a referral and came highly recommended despite a not great interview. He's been great.

The second guy was rejected but later hired as a contractor and he's worked out well as well and now we're looking at offering him a full-time position.

My conclusion is that our interview process isn't good at determining if a candidate would be a good employee.

My preference would be to hire someone as a contractor and give them a project then use that to determine their quality and fit. Unfortunately, HR tells me that's not feasible for reasons I don't understand.