In addition to what the other commenters wrote, take-home assignments are also negative for diversity as they pre-select against candidates with less free time, which likely includes single parents and people from low-income backgrounds.
You might currently be working a job that is 50 hours a week -- or 60! Also with the example of a single parent they often can't make room for yet another 10 hours of a work in a week because they need to spend time with their children/take them to activities/cook dinner etc. Manageable when you are working 40 hours a week but it quickly becomes unreasonable. To me a job that wants me to work for them before I have an actual job offer is a red flag. I don't even work for them yet and they don't respect my time. What's it going to be like when I do work for them?
Quitting your job or dropping some other responsibilities might he reasonable for some people who can live off of their parents money or their own savings, but for many people that means losing their home, their car, or even their children. Indigo945 isn't making excuses for them or himself; he's telling you that for them to make that 10 hours would cost them far more than the new job might give.
Also, if anyone should be able to make another 10 hours in their week to work in tech why not say Steve who works at $BigTechCo? Now I know we just asked Steve for another 10 hours, but lets go ask him for another 10. No, the circumstances shouldn't matter, he's making 6 figures after all. Let's ask him again. And again, And again. Oh, Steve quit? What a pauper.
The same can be said for requiring candidates to have a github or using a college degree as a filter. Not everyone has the luxury to take out 10's of thousand in debt and spend 4+ years of their life learning instead of earning.
So unless you advocate for completely blind interviews that do not rely on a resume and only take up 3 hours of someone's day, your point is moot.
> Indigo945 isn't making excuses for them or himself; he's telling you that for them to make that 10 hours would cost them far more than the new job might give.
Thats not a "people cant do 10 hours" its a "they dont want to" which is perfectly reasonable. The company that gives 10 horsu of work better be appealing.
But saying that take home assignments are bad because they take time people cant afford to give is complete bs.
I could put aside ten hours for an opportunity and not consider it an issue.
Applying ten places and getting 100 hours of homework knowing there's a good chance of ten businesses ghosting? I have plenty of empathy for people who have to make that choice.
There is no bending, there is an ask, and a response of "the ask is impossible to fulfill", which isn't. Its dishonest, but worse, its dumb because its obviously false and couterproductive.
Not spending 10 hours to decide where you might spend the next 20 thousand is plain penny wise, pound foolish. If a job ceteris paribus pays 5% more on a 100,000 income, and doing the work assignment gives you 50% changes of getting that 5%, its like getting 2,500 U$S per year for 10 hours. It pays for itself.
If you are applying to only one job, you are either in a position where you don't have to do silly homework exercises (i.e. you already have a foot in the door) or you're not doing job searches right. For most people, it is far more reasonable to assume that they might apply to 3-5 jobs at once, and going by your estimate of 10 hours of work per job prospect, they would need to take an entire week off just to get to the point where they're offered an interview.
Everything else regarding your argument has already been covered by other users.
When I was applying for a job about 3 years ago, I scheduled six phone screens from different companies in one day. They all led to invitations for in person interviews, and all four in person interviews I ended up doing led to “40 hour a week, six figure jobs”. I’m no special snowflake - except for my network of local recruiters.
Why would I go through the song and dance? The salary ranges for senior developers/architects were all around $20K of each other. Unless the company is offering salaries in the 80th percentile, why would I jump through hoops just to work on a company’s software as a service CRUD app?
My last job hunt, I found the job that met all of my criteria (salary, technology, commute distance, size of company) within two weeks of looking.
Lots of good arguments against here. But assuming this assignment is in lieu of the usual 6+ hour whiteboard exam, then I say bring it on -- it's a lot less intrusive to my schedule.