benaston

Ah, there is a Colombo Exchange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombo_Stock_Exchange

Does anyone know why the LSE purchased a company based in Sri Lanka for the work? I'm probably totally out of touch, but I would expect to find a company developing trading systems to be based near a major exchange (London, NY etc.).

Posts like these reenforce my dismay at the total and utter devaluation of the education system when dealing with recruiters for full-time positions (15 years minimum of full-time education, but you still need that one final test).

That said, I don't have a problem with these tests if the setter understands that they are not there to filter in or out the competent, but instead serve as a filter of convenience because dealing with 60 resumes is easier than 600. This seems an acceptable pragmatic approach.

When rubber hits the road a business needs to make money by being competitive. If having read a book on JUnit is your metric for hiring competitive employees, so be it. I can't help but wonder if there is a sizeable amount of latent competitive advantage in the complement of this set.

Seems like you haven't climbed the hierarchy of needs, which frankly, is the norm at your age (from my anecdotal experience). Your twenties are a struggle professionally to become good at what you do. My advice; stay focussed at becoming very good at what you do. Everything else falls from there.