It's interesting because when I'm screening candidates (especially at the senior position), I never expect them to have side projects.
If they are excited to show me something, that's great but I certainly don't assign that much weight to them.
The things that I really do look for however are work/life balance, i.e do they have other hobbies besides software engineering?, what do they think about people in general? are they vocal about sharing their ideas? can they resolve conflict? etc.
I think a team that is formed of healthy, balanced individuals is a successful one and what really matters is having high cohesion between members than anything else.
Hence, I have been very vocal about designing a great interview process that puts the candidates at ease: no whiteboard hazing, no leetcode questions, no homeworks (though we offer the choice).
We simply give them realistic technical challenges that we face in our day to day work and walk through their solutions together. If something is odd in their implementation , we'll ask them about it and inspect their thought-process.
Further, we pay everyone the same rate in USD (based on years of experience) regardless of the location and try to offer a fair compensation as much as possible (admittingly, it's hard to compete with FANG).
This process is slow and costly for us but has been absolutely worth it.