I sometimes get updates from recruitment companies in the UK looking for developers. This was initiated way back when I was living and working in the UK, but have now since returned to South Africa (and have been back for sometime).

I know I’ve mentioned this before in comments, but it really was too good an opportunity not to pass up putting on MyDL:

*****Are you Junior Application Developer looking to rapidly develop your skills and career - Or do you know someone looking to step into this position!? - See Below!*****

Salary: Up to £27000

Junior Application Developer - C# / ASP.Net / CSS / SQL / Unix / Linux - Maidenhead

This role is ideal for a career driven Junior Developer looking to enhance their career and input their enthusiasm and expertise into a team of dynamic developers.

You will have knowledge in the following technologies: C#, ASP.Net, CSS, SQL as well as Linux and Unix systems. Your degree and/or commercial experience within these technologies will make you the ideal candidate to grow and develop within this complex and challenging role. Your willingness to learn new technologies and the drive and determination to succeed will make you the perfect candidate. You will be keen to learn new technologies and be ambitious in your career development.

In a rare change of events, I decided to reply to the email. My response, I think was well versed. I haven’t received a response, so I’m unsure how they took the information.

Hi there,

While I will admit that I'm not particularly interested in the role, I'd just like to point out that C# and ASP.NET aren't necessarily skills one would couple with Unix and Linux as the .NET Framework is a Microsoft product. And if you're thinking "but Mono is an implementation of the .NET Framework", well you should specify that they will be using Mono, as it's not entirely compliant with Microsoft's implementation of C# and ASP.NET. This means that you have a very inaccurate job specification here.

While I understand that it may be your client that has mentioned these specifics, you should perhaps go to them and state that the person they're attempting to hire, at a junior level, would most probably not have experience in a Unix-derived operating system, rather focusing on Microsoft Windows (since if they've learned C# and ASP.NET it would make sense that they're doing so on a Windows environment).

It always amazes me just how wrong these people can get it, and how little they actually know about the market. In this case I think it’s the fault of both the recruiter and the company. They should both be sufficiently versed in IT lingo in order to understand that they’re attempting to put out an offer for something that in reality, would be a very small fit.