I wonder if the right thing to do is to simply give interviewees a choice between whiteboard interviews and take home tests. I seem to be in a minority, but I personally prefer whiteboard interviews over take home tests, but I can easily understand why many people prefer take home.
To be honest, I wonder how much take home is for your benefit rather than the company's.
Hiring is extremely time-consuming and a big motivator for me to adopt take home problems as part of our process would be that it saves time for people who would otherwise be involved in interviews.
However, we're at a point where we're little enough known - and therefore don't have much cachet as a desirable place to work - that I'd prefer to invest the time in speaking with someone rather than send them a test.
It's all rather cold-blooded, which is unfortunate, but it's also the reality of hiring and having to deal with large numbers of applicants relative to the size of your team.
