Although I absolutely hate it, I interview every 1 or 2 years and use it as negotiation for refreshers. The only time I ever got a reasonable pay bump was by showing I had alternative offers. On the other hand, you have to also be willing to leave.
Python (or really any dynamic programming language) makes interviews a lot easier, however I have started asking more in-depth questions to make sure they actually understand Python and have done a little bit of research into the language and implementation.
I have noticed some colleges have been teaching more to the interview, so their grads can crush some problems in Python but fail when you ask them to implement a helper they were using. I am not talking about implementing a heap either, I am talking about merging objects.