It can be exhausting to sift through all the open jobs on LinkedIn. It’s even more exhausting when you slog through a half dozen and realize that you don’t meet all of the qualifications that any of them are requiring. Instead of continuing to look for the job ad that reads like your resume, you should know that it’s okay if you don’t tick every qualification listed in the job posting. Here’s why.
“Nice to have’s”
Unfortunately, companies are still writing, approving and posting job descriptions that are packed with “nice to have” qualifications. This makes reading and digesting the list of what you “should” have in order to be qualified for the job feel like you’re reading a dictionary instead of discerning how your skillset might align with the role. Ladies, we’re talking to you. You don’t apply for a job unless you think you’re 100 percent qualified, the Harvard Business Review explains that here. This means the list of “nice to haves” is likely causing you not to apply, and causing you to feel bad about seemingly not having what it takes to do the job.
In reality, there are often five or six core responsibilities that make up the average job. It is unlikely that every qualification on the job description is living up to how the Americans with Disabilities Act defines an essential function,
“Essential functions are the basic job duties that an employee must be able to perform, with or without reasonable accommodation. You should carefully examine each job to determine which functions or tasks are essential to performance. (This is particularly important before taking an employment action such as recruiting, advertising, hiring, promoting or firing).
Factors to consider in determining if a function is essential include:
- whether the reason the position exists is to perform that function,
- the number of other employees available to perform the function or among whom the performance of the function can be distributed, and
- the degree of expertise or skill required to perform the function.
Even though you didn’t have the definition of an essential job function at your fingertips the last time you were looking at job ads, you might have conjured up a memory of a time you were rejected from a job because someone had more experience or more relevant experience than you did. It can be hard to push away that memory in order to fill out an application, but your memory is just that, something that happened in the past. Don’t let it stop you from finding the job that defines your career or becomes your dream job, or both.
Have you seen this job market?
It’s not fair to say that we’re at the point where job descriptions no longer matter because employers are just happy to get someone with a pulse to work for them. However, with unemployment being at three percent for the last couple years, the pool of unemployed candidates is small. Employers and Human Resources departments are dialing in on the “must haves” when it comes to sizing up candidates, which means, the “nice to haves” have become even less important in this job market. However, their job descriptions likely do not reflect their widened horizons when it comes to considering candidates. For example, if you are six months shy of having two years of “previous (non-specific) managerial experience,” you should apply.
“Nice to have’s” are another reason to work with a recruiter
A recruiter will know what five or six things their client is looking for with each job they’re working on. A recruiter will also take the time to talk to you about your experience and pick pieces of your resume to highlight for their client that might be missed on your resume at first glance. A great recruiter will get a client to see how you have four of their six “must haves,” and your sparkling personality combined with your experience and talent make you a “must interview.”
The big takeaway is that a job description can read like the dictionary. It can sound like a whole lot of words strung together that separately make sense, but when put together to form a job description, don’t seem to have much in common. Don’t let a poorly written job description with too many “nice to haves” stop you from applying. And when you’ve had it with wading through a whole lot of job descriptions that don’t seem to describe your experience, it might be time to embark on a search to find a recruiter you click with.