We had take-home tests at my previous place, and the main thing we tried to communicate throughout was respect. Evidence suggests we managed it in most cases, a

We had take-home tests at my previous place, and the main thing we tried to communicate throughout was respect. Evidence suggests we managed it in most cases, as we regularly had candidates thanking us for a good test after rejection, and on multiple cases I saw/heard rejected candidates encourage others to apply. How did we do it? Limited time, feedback, and benefit of the doubt. We put a time limit on the exercise. It was a 1.5-2 hour exercise, with a 3 hour cap. Some felt this added some stress, but many appreciated that it didn't take up their whole weekend or multiple evenings. In the few instances that candidates overran this massively (~8 hours) without notifying us in advance, we saw no difference in their scores. As for feedback, we were scoring against a rubric that was quite detailed across multiple different categories. This forced us as reviewers to break down and justify, not just say "I don't like it". And because we ended up with 5-10 bullet points of things we did or didn't like, there was useful feedback we could give. There was also the added benefit that we all knew the problem inside and out, and so could drill down to the essence of the solution quite easily. And lastly, the benefit of the doubt. No software engineer writes perfect code every time, and code review is an important part of the job, so if the feedback boiled down to "I don't like it but it's close", or if it was something that with regular code review would have managed to pass the bar, then that's what we'd do. We'd schedule another round to discuss the code with the candidate, see how they responded to the feedback, and hopefully move them on to the next round. Why doesn't everywhere do this? It's actually pretty hard. You need a recruiting team who are very on top of the logistics and running the process, and you need reviewers who know the problem well, are bought in to giving a great candidate experience, and who are good enough to be able to judge others. In my experience most places don't have much of this.