[Rooster61]

If a recruiter/hiring manager sends one of these nonsense assignments to me, I refuse them outright and thank them for their time. It only took me one frustrated night trying to bang one of these out after a long day of work to learn my lesson. This method of testing a potential hire is lazy, ineffective, and frankly rude IMO.

[scarmig]

The strategy here is to set aside one hour to code, write the code, send what you have after an hour and say what remaining work needs to be done, along with reasonable estimates of remaining time (noting that you're too busy to spend actually doing it).

Your success rate will be no less than someone who spends 15 hours doing whatever bullshit assignment there is.

[Rooster61]

I did exactly what you just suggested. I never heard back from that particular recruiter. Bummed me out at the time, but now I just laugh at it.