I personally hate the "take home test" approach to interviewing. I've had multiple such tests that take anywhere from 10-25 hours to complete because simply answering the question isn't enough; you need to give textbook correct answers and your code must be formatted perfectly with the requisite comments and documentation. In short, it's pretty similar to an upper-level college course's final exam; however, in college, you can get a good grade with a few mistakes; in interviewing, you get rejected for a few mistakes. I'm done giving a company 15 hours of my time just to get to a first interview; this is arrogant, condescending, and completely devalues my time.

The reality of hiring is you're going to make mistakes, like every other part of running a business. Even in an extended "interview" such as dating for a potential life partner, people make mistakes so I'm not sure how the hiring process can be quantified to remove said error. The interview process is so excruciating these days I often hate the companies I'm talking with.

While we're at it, the skills requirements listed with jobs today are astounding. My experience is that a company wants to hire a programmer with at least a journeymen's level of expertise in 6-8 skills. If you have 5 and are comfortable you can learn the other 3, you're dead in the water. Let's be honest, the latest Javascript framework isn't that complicated. The latest NoSQL database isn't that hard to learn.

The truly hard parts of joining a new company are learning how projects are managed, getting the political lay of the land, finding a sherpa to answer your questions in the first couple of weeks, and learning where you fit within the organization.