In defence of technical assessments when hiring
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1. The candidate doesn't learn anything about the employer. In an (interactive) interview the candidate can ask questions, gauge the interviewer and the interview process.
2. I found many assessments to query skills already exhibited on my github or blog. If the hiring team can't take the time to review my portfolio, why should I complete the assessment?
3. I'd be happy to take the opportunity to learn a new framework/language required for the assessment, which would maximise synergies for me. But I'd probably fare badly in that assessment. Shouldn't a good assessment not only query knowledge but also the ability to learn?
For point 2, I think that can be a fair criticism for development roles. Many developers don't have Github though.
For point 3, our assessment was DevOps focussed, and early on the examples used Puppet. We had quite a few candidates that previously used only Chef, gave it a go using Puppet, weren't sure if this was idiomatic and wrote comments on how they would have done it in Chef. Those candidates all got hired.