I agree with that sentiment, I don't do well under the pressure of someone leering over me as nice and comfortable as they make it. Sounds like a good startup idea. Someone (maybe I will) make a site that formalizes the contract work concept. Instead of setting up and doing a project for someone, maybe a pair programming exercise on the fly over some days that neither the interviewer or interviewee is prepared for? 'Program Tic-Tac-Toe in x language', 'find the minimum value of this array given these properties of the array'. Could make it fun. Almost like a mini-mini hackathon. I'd much rather do that for 4 hours than random probes of knowledge from 4 people over almost pure academia.