This is a feature not a bug. Companies are testing if you can focus and complete a hard uncomfortable challenging task, because at your job you’re expected to do things you don’t want to do, but will be rewarded for doing.
Also do they really want to set the tone that “I expect you to intuit what I want and I won’t tell you directly”? Sounds like an awful place to work, right out of the gate.
Maybe? non-desperate folks might waste the company's time. Usually companies can only give out one offer at a time. If the non-desperate person takes a while to accept, someone else in their pipeline may get an offer and flake.
We had a candidate agree to a start date and then cancel 2 weeks before because they decided to stay at their job.
> “I expect you to intuit what I want and I won’t tell you directly”?
They do tell you directly? "Do this hard uncomfortable task, where the task is study leetcode, completing a coding project."