I find that take-home assignments are very one-sided form of an interview:
- The candidate needs to do lots of work while the company gets away with little to none. - The candidate never knows what exactly the other side will be looking for, so the only way is to put in more work. Like when the assignment didn't ask for tests, they might still be expecting them. - The candidate usually gets no feedback about the work he did. More importantly he usually doesn't get a chance to defend his solution. It's either great or garbage. - While the company can learn something about the candidate, the candidate will learn nothing about the company by doing the assignment.