[teeray]

> mainly geared towards pre-selecting young single people with a lot of free time

Which tells you exactly how exploitive they will be with that free time. You'll onboard, it'll be good for a bit, then suddenly there will be surprise crunch-mode that will never end.

> when you sink many hours in them and then just get ghosted, not even a rejection message

This will manifest in a thank you of a layoff after all those crunch hours.

> first you solve this take home for us, then we can have a talk

"Cool, I can take on that contract. I'll put together a quote for you and I'll get started. Who should I send my W-9 to?" Many will, of course, balk at this, which tells you everything you need to know about them. The good ones will pay it. Set your boundaries.