Hey, i have had a couple of recruiters who have approached with this idea. Basically, the recruiter says, okay i give you a week or two for this task to be complete ( the call is basically 30 mins or so explaining the problem and getting to know the basics about me ) and then post the time alloted, a sync up to see how you have solved it and to explain the design or solution or something like that. Only a couple of times have i had this experience. There is no additional overhead on the recruiter apart from reviewing it post the time alloted.

It felt better, because the interview was more like a typical work like situation. In work too, we are assigned tasks, and we update the progress.

Maybe its a bit idealistic, but then we all like to dream about utopia, don't we :)

I agree with the sentiment, but I noticed recently that TaxJar (I considered applying there at one point) mandates a trial period along these lines. From https://life.taxjar.com/distributed-team-hiring-process/, "... We hope a candidate is able to spend somewhere between 80 and 160 hours working with TaxJar during their trial. ..."

Presumably there are some people who are willing to do a trial, either concurrent with their existing employment, or on the chance that they will be hired after the trial.