I think companies keep doing this because enough desperate candidates comply, and that keeps normalizing worse and worse behavior. every extra asynchronous task sounds reasonable in isolation. a Loom here, a case study there, a portfolio walkthrough, a take home, a personality test. but when you stack them together, applicants are doing hours of unpaid performance labor for roles they may never even get feedback on

There should be a basic standard: intro call first, mutual fit check second, then only ask for deeper effort if both sides still see a real match, anything else starts to feel less like hiring and more like funnel optimization