[bumholio]

The problem with that approach is that the company must commit. You can't embed 100 candidates into your team but you can easily send 100 identical homeworks and then only bother to analyze those that make it to the face to face interview. As a bonus, it optimizes for subservience, a perennial business resource.

[ptero]

An even bigger problem is that most good candidates have their current job and could be open to better opportunities, but would not consider going into this hung up state. Do you expect me to quit my job before doing the tryout? Even if not and, say, you like me, when do you expect me to quit my current job? I need at least a couple of months to cleanly exit without burning bridges and I am not going to even start this process until I have a firm offer from the new company.