Empathy isn't enough, in my opinion. There are problems with most every alternative:
1. Show-off quizzes are of limited relevance.
2. Take home work is a huge stressor for people with limited amounts of outside time.
3. Open-source contributions are a) too restrictive as a filter, and b) favor people with lots of time, just like #2.
4. Personal connections narrow the pool that you have, promote nepotism, and tend to exclude people who are already at a disadvantage.
5. Looking at previous jobs screws over lots of junior people and just means you're depending on the last interviewer's shitty decision.
Yes. I refused to do an exercise because it was quite obviously from someone's todo list, was a rather large endeavor, and didn't demand any particular skill aside from trying to find a sensible way to handle the many special cases (think parsing linux network configuration files and a pile of environment-specific behaviors).
I read it and told them (a) I had no interest in a firm that behaved that way, and (b) I had no interest in a firm that didn't understand what configuration management tools were for.
Maybe the least worst answer is to have people who have been through the hoops before, and can empathize with candidates, running the hiring processes.