[madisonmay]

Or as an alternative -- give them something legitimately beneficial to your company to work on, pay them standard consulting rates. This puts the impetus on the company to have fairly high certainty the candidate is qualified before the take-home, and the candidate gets compensated for their time even if a hire isn't made.

[heyyyouu]

We only do homework as a final screening test for candidates. If it's any more than a simple project, we pay them standard rates. That way no one feels taken advantage of. Plus, if they bomb it and they're getting paid for it then you KNOW they're not the right candidate, even if every other test was aced, so it really is an excellent tool for us. But again, ONLY at the end of the process when we're making a final decision between, most likely, two candidates.