In a current hiring loop my company is doing for a senior, we have a take home divided into a series of steps, with explicit instructions that say that completi

In a current hiring loop my company is doing for a senior, we have a take home divided into a series of steps, with explicit instructions that say that completion of the entire exercise is not necessary to advance (and we mean it). The take home serves two purposes: (1) should the candidate progress to the in person interviews? (2) if the candidate stumbles in the in person coding, can I deduce from the take home that they do actually know what they're doing, and the stumbling was a side effect of interview anxiety? I can tell a lot even from an incomplete take home, about whether someone is likely to do well on the in person interviews, but I mostly find it extremely valuable for (2), as a tiebreaker. It hasn't happened yet in this cycle, but I can imagine a situation where someone turned in a fantastic take home and then brain farted during the in person coding, and, thanks to the take home, got hired.