@raganwald Are you willing to accept *all* candidates who come out the best on a blind audition? There is a now famous story of a CS conference who thought they were doing the right thing by selecting their speakers based on blind submissions. They then got a lot of hurt feelings on all sides when one of the invited presenters was notorious for his misogynistic social media posts.

I think there is a place for blind auditions, but there needs to be some fully transparent screenings before candidates are invited to audition.