A few years ago I hired a guy that was already into his forty-something.

I can't remember who introduced him, he was fresh out of a nasty divorce, new in town, almost broke, had no experience and no skills, but he seemed so passionate about starting over that I gave him the recruiting test we used back then. The test consisted into reproducing complex patterns using HTML tables (most internship candidates fresh out college failed this one).

I explained how to merge cells and showed the desired output, after a few minutes he came with the right answers, without any previous knowledge of HTML. He was hired on internship wage and did very well.

Last time I heard, he was working for HP as a Java programmer.

The question is, do you want this hard enough?