The Forgejo project has been gently trying to redirect new contributors into fixing bugs before trying to jump into the project to implement big features (https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/337). This allows a new contributor to get into the community, get used to working with the codebase, do something of clear value... but for the project a lot of it is about establishing reputation.

Will the contributor respond to code-review feedback? Will they follow-up on work? Will they work within the code-of-conduct and learn the contributor guidelines? All great things to figure out on small bugs, rather than after the contributor has done significant feature work.