People are so sick of filling out insipid job application forms these days (only to never hear back anything), you can't blame someone for not taking it serious

People are so sick of filling out insipid job application forms these days (only to never hear back anything), you can't blame someone for not taking it seriously every time. The situation is probably far worse for admin assistant jobs. However, I applaud that you took the time to put together a simple project assignment to evaluate candidates and then used that as a basis for a phone screen.