My last job search I took the one that didn't demand a take home test rather than waste time on the job that was far more interesting, given that a take home test is also a crap shoot. I had done a great interview, the job had definite things I could bring to the table that others couldn't, the guy interviewing loved me but wanted me to do a take home test - for the same money as this other company that was a boring e-commerce thing, although international.
The problem is not just 4 hours. I have actually only ever had one that really took exactly 4 hours. Most take 5-6 hours because there are things that are left out of the consideration as to what is required.
I also wonder how this 4 hours time is hit upon? I have to expect most places ask their devs to come up with a problem that will take about 4 hours. And the devs do that. Obviously these are the devs that are really good at making exact estimations of how long any software development task takes, so no problems there.
One task I had to do for one interview I found there were some bugs meaning that the library needed could not just install on my machine I had to do a bunch of work to get it to work on my machine. I followed the git issues thread that was several pages trying out different solutions. Finally got it to work, that was 4 hours! I could now do the 4 hour task. I instead sent a message - hey can't do it, I spent 4 hours doing the get ready to do the task part because of the issues in this github thread, so I guess it's not worth continuing.
They sent back "no send us what you have! It's ok"
So I sent a repo consisting of a package json and a couple configuration files for used libraries, and a note saying this is it because I spent 4 hours doing this issues fix to get this library to work on my machine with link.
The guy who was supposed to evaluate my work sent back a message that my repo was particularly underwhelming. Which, no shit, that's why I sent a message I didn't want to continue! I spent 4 hours making your requested resources work on my machine, I'm not spending a theoretical other 4 hours to actually provide you some code.
