Being someone who has moved from industry-to-industry my entire life, with periods of extreme uncertainty (I'm currently unemployed, and have been since just after the new year), with absolutely zero education beyond my grade 12 high school, I understand your plight.

I want to say, with what I said above, that I've done a very good job of ensuring stability through times like this; my understanding is you're "open to opportunities", not "I'm starving, and need to code a grocery store robbery program" ;)

Can't really give explicit sites to learn, but if you simply search for things like "algorithm code tests", "programming code tests" etc, you can't go wrong. It seems that choroba is very active in these things specifically, so maybe ping him directly.

Other than that, I think the landscape is changing. I get head-hunted all the time, and what I hate worst is these fsckn "do this test in 60 minutes". That doesn't jive with my work habits. Within this past month, the government of British Columbia threw me a new angle test... they gave me an objective, with one week to put together what I could, however I wanted. Job might use technologies I haven't used before, but I wrote in Perl, and then moved on to the latter finality personal interviews, which is nearly complete.

Everyone (ie. employers) nearly always say now that a CS degree or higher is required. That's horseshit. I don't have one, and I still have a roof over my head. Experience is key, and if the organization that you may want to move to doesn't recognize that, you probably don't want to work there anyway, as they're likely hiring fresh college grads whom you won't really get along with.

My advice... stick close to what you know; take what skills you have *outside* of coding, and apply that to your coding experience and merge the two. Also, look at things from the perspective of what you know, not what you don't. It can be intimidating to look at these forsaken "job postings", because almost nothing lines up with what one knows directly. Instead, look inwards: "I know damned well I can learn new stuff, even if I don't like that particular thing, but I love learning anyways so why not".

Conclusion: be awake and aware and ready to learn new things (new languages, frameworks etc). Don't be afraid to delve into other aspects of life you've got experience with, and use that in interviews ('I've built houses/I can do math; I've had children/I know budgeting; I'm an outdoors person/I know how to find my way; I've fixed motors/I'm a calculating and precise person). Always be ready to explain that "if I don't know the answer to a question, I know how to find it".

What I've found, is stay true to what you love, and the rest is easy (relatively). Honestly, even during my unemployed times, I'm quite selective, as I'd rather be out camping, boating, fishing, exploring or posting/helping here on Perlmonks than working for a company that focuses on a degree or something, rather than my track record of excellence, knowledge and experience.

All the best Your Mother,

-stevieb

Update: If you find something interesting, let me know... Perl hacker jobs in Canada (ie. not UK or US) are hard to find. Perhaps we can start something weird together ;)