[joshdavham]

> I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same.

Exactly this.

It costs a company nothing to give you a take-home, but it will cost you (the candidate) potentially many hours. On my last job search, I got burned a number of times where I'd work for hours on a take-home only to get ghosted. I don't think they even looked at my solution.

Now I have a personal policy where I will refuse to do a take-home unless the interviewer sits there with me while I do it. This demonstrates to me that the interviewer is actually serious and respectful of my time.

[ryandrake]

Another thing problematic about take-home projects: They don't scale for the candidate. Sure, 2 hours is nothing if you want a job, but typically the candidate is going to be applying for dozens, if not hundreds of jobs. Even 20 take-homes just like this is now 40 hours of work--just to get through a hiring gate!

It is not "respectful of the candidate's time" if everyone is doing it.

[phrotoma]

It CAN cost nothing to give a take home, but this is not a requirement. At my previous employer any candidate that made it as far as the take home project was paid for the time they worked on it.

[joshdavham]

That’s a good distinction. A paid take home is very different than an unpaid one.