> There's also no disincentive for interviewees to spend an unreasonable amount of time on the project.
I don't see any problem with this, as an interviewer. The take-home is supposed to be an example of the work the candidate does, they should take however long to do it. I want to see the best-case scenario of the code they write (given the problem at hand, etc, of course). The entire idea is removing the time pressure.
Right, but workaday programers with two kids and a full time job won't be willing or won't be able to spend, say more than two hours on something like this.
> I don't see any problem with this, as an interviewer.
The issue for the interviewer is missing out on good potential hires because your selection process is biased against people with little free time.
I have a family and I'm doing part-time study in the evenings. If I'm looking for a new job, then I can probably find time for 1 exercise a fortnight. If one company tells me they have a "4 hour assignment" and the other a "1 hour", then I'm far more likely to do the 1 hour exercise and pass on the long one.
And if I do the 1 hour test, I'd expect to be assessed accordingly. If you're comparing one person's output after 1 hour with another who actually spent 5 hours on it, then you will be more inclined to hire the person that spent longer on the project, even though that's not really going to corelate with on the job performance.
I don't see any problem with this, as an interviewer. The take-home is supposed to be an example of the work the candidate does, they should take however long to do it. I want to see the best-case scenario of the code they write (given the problem at hand, etc, of course). The entire idea is removing the time pressure.