In a sense the take home assignment without enforced time limit selects for candidates that are most committed (or, alternatively, desperate, if you will).
That may or may not be a good thing, depending on the situation. But the downside is that the company would lose out on the potential applicants who can demonstrate skill in interviews, are in high demand, and can't be bothered to spend time on take homes.
Definitely true. The only issue with the idea of enforcing strict time limits on take-home projects is you pretty quickly get back to the same issues people including myself have with Leetcode and the like.
Like actual day-to-day work, just give me a prompt and a recommended time limit and I'll try to fit it to that and I might go above and beyond depending on a number of factors.
It's a situation where you have to pick your poison as an interviewee. Either subject yourself to the stress and lack of meaning that is leetcode (just my perspective), or be prepared to waste a few hours of your life on a project that doesn't wow your potential employer. I'd rather take the latter and hope I can learn something valuable along the way.
That may or may not be a good thing, depending on the situation. But the downside is that the company would lose out on the potential applicants who can demonstrate skill in interviews, are in high demand, and can't be bothered to spend time on take homes.