Sorry, Beep. ;-)

Diversity is good, but the scripting languages seem to bring out the more curious, problem-solving types. Most people who can't be arsed to learn a scripting language for the hell of it also can't be arsed to do a lot of other things.

This place is all about speed, too. We get thousands of pricing ticks a second, and those explode into huge calculations. And updates have to be as near to real time as possible.

The CD doesn't sound too useful, other than as an example. We've also given applicants a shell login and had them code in a C++ environment on a server here. You could probably do the same thing with Oracle if that's what you're looking for. Just make sure you trust your sysadmins to get the permissions right. :-P

The key is to make them do an actual project in an environment where they can be comfortable, in order to get an idea of how they would work on the job as opposed to in an interview.

I put a copy of the problem up for general perusal at [link|http://www.mr-anderson.net/stuff/PROJECT.html|http://www.mr-anders...tuff/PROJECT.html] if anyone is interested.