So, Bogdan, if we cannot do take home task, because they are such a bad deal for software engineers. What can we do instead? We recommend that you only do one take home per week maximum from a company that they are fully committed to you and only if you're unemployed. By commitment, it doesn't mean that they sound nice on the phone. It means you actually had a conversation of 30 to 45 minutes with someone from the company.
Not an external recruiter. It either has to be an internal recruiter or a hiring manager. Why? Because these things cost them money. They they pay that person quite a lot of money and when they pay someone to interview people, they have more skin in the game. And they're more likely to move you forward through the process because it shows they are committed to you. And to try and get more and better interviews, fix your LinkedIn, check if your resume has any red flags.
Fix your screening call performance, so make sure you don't say anything that turns people off, and then after the screening call, they're like, well, yeah, we will call you back, but right now we found someone with more experience, that's usually a sign that something went off.