I've read some. Doesn't align with my personal experience is all I can say. I can't remember a case where a candidate refused to do such a test, or that we never heard back from after letting them know that was our policy.

That's because those qualified candidates already saw enough proxy signals from you that they knew it wasn't worth the time to apply. Selection bias.

Possibly, but we introduced the policy simply because too many candidates were using up our time with interviews where they appeared to be knowledgeable etc. but then quickly demonstrated with the take-home test that weren't going to be a good fit for us. I'll be honest, there weren't really enough data points to take any grand conclusions from the experience, and this was all pre-covid etc. I'm moving to a new role soon and I'm expecting to get back into being more actively engaged in screening new hire candidates etc., so I'm sure I'll learn more as I go - some of the points raised in this forum have definitely given me pause for thought.