[lapser]

If you give every person on the street 2 hours of your time, you wouldn't be able to do your day job.

I don't like take home tests either, but the point of them is removing the bad candidates from the pipeline so that people who interview them (often ICs, and these are some of the biggest expenses within the company) don't waste time on someone that is unlikely to be qualified.

Personally when I'm interviewing and I get take home tests I choose my battles. I only do them if I really want the job. If it is worth my time.

It's unfortunate, but take home tests are a necessary evil until something better comes along.

[yeeyeeyee]

If only there were this magical piece of paper that everyone presented when they applied listing all their relevant skills and experience so that the company can determine if it's worth giving them 2 hours of their time.

All kidding aside, the efficient thing about resumes is that you write them once and use them everywhere. Coding samples are inefficient because you have to take 4h to write one for each company.

Edit: the other problem with takehomes is that it self-selects the people who have scarce-enough opportunities that they find it worth their time to do them.

[lapser]

Right, and the issue with that is that plenty of people lie, and even more exxagerate what they did.