Before Covid I went for an interview at a remote-only company, which was a huge plus. We had the first interview over zoom (or zoom equivalent at the time) and everything went well - Then I get a follow-up email about github access and they send me a huge github repo where they want me to complete an example web application that can do x,y and z based on some of the example models included, and want it done in a week to be eligible for hiring. I kindly declined the offer to code for free - and then was messaged a few months later that they had removed this whole section of the interview process and invited me to re-apply. Needless to say I did not apply agin.
I find it so rare for a company's leadership to actually listen to feedback and be willing to improve based on it... I'd absolutely talk again to someone who had the wisdom and humility to correct the errors of their ways.
I was once on the other side. The hiring manager told me to design an open-ended take-home exercise for potential candidates. The exercise was to be flexible: you can take an hour to complete the bare minimum, or you can easily take many hours in an attempt to reach perfection.
I was so preoccupied in designing the test that I did not stop to think whether we should. In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea because of how open-ended it was: some candidates, we later learned, spent at least 20 hours on it.
