I’m surprised this is your experience.

At my current employer, that’s exactly how we approach hiring. I send the candidate a take-home that broadly covers the basic tech skills they need to be effective in their role (implement a simple test api, some questions about scaling web apps in production, and a possible architecture sketch for a described system). It’s expected to be around 4 hours of work. If they pass that, the interview is free of technical topics - we just talk about your past experience and assess whether you’d be a good fit for the team.

Is this not how other take-home assignments work?

I can confirm this has also been my experience. I have spent multiple hours on take-home tests only to be ghosted. In no case have I ever been able to skip the whiteboard hazing because I did well on a take-home.

I'm interested to know who your employer is, if you're comfortable saying.

Not comfortable sharing my exact employer, but it’s a small biotech in the Netherlands.

I've never seen it done that way -- just used as a pre-screen for an onsite that is the typical code-on-a-whiteboard scenario. Had one place that used an at home test + a one hour task in the office on a laptop they provided + several more whiteboard sessions (so long they split it over 2 days).

I too think that's how things should work if a take-home is involved, but I haven't experienced this yet. There are times I've gotten past the take-home and then had to do a technical _phone_ interview after - not even an onsite.

How many candidates do you have doing a take-home per position?

Roughly 5-10 I’d say. We are able to weed out a good chunk in the phone screen (which is done by me or another engineer, not a recruiter)

Yes, it should be. This is how we do it

Do you feel comfortable saying who "we" is?