As the first stage of the interview, we give a take-home test with no constraints. We just ask them to put together some code that works with one of our public APIs.

I think this is decently respectful of the candidate's time, while giving us the opportunity to review some actual code written by them. And yet, most of them don't even bother... Well, I get that you are busy, but I don't feel comfortable investing time in an on-site interview without seeing any code first.

Disclaimer: If they provide a link to their github with some solid projects or OSS contributions, we skip the take-home altogether.