[chrisbennet]

I was thinking something similar. When one party can waste the other party's time at little cost to their own, the situation can be abused. If a job ad wants you to submit to a test before you even talk to a hiring manager, this is a signal that the employer doesn't care about wasting your time. I can see the advantages to automating the hiring process but as a candidate I am less inclined to engage with a party that has no "skin in the game".

Think of the design world:

Potential client "A" asks multiple desperate artists to work on spec in hopes that they will get the commission.

Potential client "B" call you up and talks to you, sends you some napkin sketches and generally engages with you for an hour before asking you to do a design.

Both clients want you to do a design (test) but one clearly doesn't have any skin in the game. Assuming you're a decent designer, which client do you respond to?