A reader writes:
I’ve gotten advice from a lot of other blogs, friends, and family that I should be applying to jobs even if I’m only about 50-75% qualified, and I was wondering what your opinion was.
I’ve been applying to jobs that I believe I could do, but for which I don’t have all the qualifications (it calls for a masters but I’m still writing my masters, or it asks for experience with one database but I have experience with a similar but different one), but I feel like I’m wasting my time. I haven’t gotten one phone interview from these kinds of jobs out of the 20+ applications I’ve sent out in the past month or two. One additional detail; I’m applying to jobs in a niche field within nonprofits/universities, and I know that my specific field has a problem with over-education and under-employment. Is the situation in my field affecting my chances, or is this just bad advice overall?
It depends on the specific qualifications and how important they are.
It’s absolutely true that people get hired all the time without being perfect line-for-line matches with the qualifications listed in job postings. Sometimes ads are more like wish lists, where an employer is describing the dream candidate but would be willing to settle for most of what they listed rather than all of it. In other cases, the qualifications they list truly are requirements and they’re not going to consider candidates without all of them. In still other cases, employers think they’re in the second group (they don’t intend to compromise on any of the qualifications they’ve listed) but they end up hiring someone who doesn’t have every qualification because (a) they realize their original list was too rigid and they can find great people who will excel at the job with only some of those qualifications or (b) they realize their original list described a unicorn. And in still other cases, there’s a disconnect between the person who wrote the ad (often HR or a recruiter) and the person who’s doing the actual hiring, who really doesn’t care if you have a particular degree or eight years of experience with a software that’s only existed for five years or so forth.
Of course, you can’t know from the outside which of these situations you might be dealing with.
The best way to think of the requirements in job ads is that they’re intended to give you a sense of the profile of the type of person who would be right for the job. Instead of starting by measuring yourself against each line of the qualifications, step back and look at the qualifications as a whole. What’s the picture they’re painting of the person who they envision in the job? How close are you to that picture?
Then you do need to get more granular, of course, and look at how well you match up each of the listed qualifications. If they’re asking for 10 years of experience and you have two, that job isn’t for you. But if they’re asking for 10 years and you have eight and believe you can point to evidence that you’d excel at the job, it probably makes sense to apply.
In general, a good guideline is that if you meet 80% of the qualifications and you can point to evidence showing you’d excel at the job, go ahead and apply. The exception to that is if one of the qualifications you don’t meet is clearly a really key thing they’re looking for (like a teaching certificate for a teaching job or a science background for a science writing job). In that case, refer back to what I said above about getting a sense of the profile they’re looking for. If you’re missing a really core qualification, you’re not that profile. But if there’s a long list of 15 qualifications and you’re missing one or two that don’t seem central to the work of the role, go ahead and try.
But the people telling you to apply for jobs where you’re only 50% qualified … that’s too optimistic and is likely to be a waste of your time. Plus, when you’re in a highly saturated field with lots of under-employment, it’s easier for employers to find candidates who check off everything on their wish lists, which means that your success rate at even 80% is going to be lower than in a field where that’s not the case. That doesn’t mean you should stop, just that it’ll be harder.
should I apply to jobs I’m not fully qualified for? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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