I’ve been in the industry for decades, and perform interviews for entry level up to and including principal level. This form of interviewing is absurd, invasive and useless. It will NOT tell you how good someone is… any monkey can write code, the real question I always try and get a handle on is:

Can they solve complex problems? How do they tear the problems apart? How do they apply technologies to do so?

In person (or video) is the ONLY way to tell how good they are.

Take home tests are useless.

Good on you for telling them no in a very professional way.

I hope you are able to find something soon, it’s a really tough market out there!!!

Make the deposits higher, then pool the deposits of those that fail to meet the requirements. Then at the end of the year award the pooled money to the climbers who returned the most trash. As someone else said gamify it…