That biases heavily to candidates with good people skills and the skill to take over a conversation. Yes, you are not in fact immune to this even if you think you are, that’s why it’s so dangerous.
"Yes, you are not in fact immune to this even if you think you are, that’s why it’s so dangerous."
I think that I am. I'll think about that a bit more. I don't care for popular people so, in fact, my bias might be the other direction. However, I don't think I have ever met a person who I thought was technical and proficient, but turned out not to be.
I have been forced to hire people I knew were not proficient because they passed a test, but not the other way around.
It's not about someone being popular and you saying it just makes me more certain you don't realize the trap. People can have well honed social skills and not act like your standard popularity contest wining politician.
They can add all the smiles and chuckles and other social niceties they want, but at the end of the day, whether they come up with the right answer or not, their logic will tell you pretty clearly whether they know what they're talking about.
That's the point of a technical interview: to distinguish those who think (or pretend) they can code sufficiently well to do the job, from those who can't.