It has been said that qualifications are more of a “wish list” for employers, who do not expect to find someone who meets all the requirements.
We’ve all experienced it. A dream job posting! Exactly the job you’d love to have and believe you can perform well. But then there’s that pesky list of requirements/qualifications. You meet some of them – but not all. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that most resumes submitted online are parsed by applicant-tracking software, which favors those who meet the most requirements and automates the process of rejecting those who don’t meet all qualifications.
Should you apply? After all, it has been said that qualifications are more of a “wish list” for employers, who do not expect to find someone who meets all the requirements. It has also been said that if you meet all requirements, you have no room to grow and challenge yourself in the job. If you do apply, how can you overcome the lack of some qualifications? And what’s the minimum percentage of qualifications you need to possess to not make the application a wasted effort?
A figure held up by current career experts like Jessica Holbrook Hernandez is 80-90% of qualifications. Hernandez notes on Harvard Business School Online, “If it’s a 10% match for skills and experience, don’t bother. You’ll be wasting both your time and the recruiter or hiring manager’s time. If it’s a dream job at a dream company and you’re the perfect culture fit, and your qualifications are an 80 to 90% match, I would advise that you apply.”
What if the proportion of qualifications you meet is somewhere between 10-80%? Hernandez points out that if you offer half the qualifications, many other candidates will more qualified (at least by the employer’s standards) than you are. Thus, you might consider applying if your percentage of qualifications falls into this range – and obviously, your chances are better the higher the percentage – but you will probably have to put extra effort into the quest for that job.
What might that extra effort look like?
Get a referral from a company insider. Employee referrals are consistently at or near the top of the list of sources of hire. Employers love hiring candidates recommended by trusted employees. Many an employer is willing to overlook a few missing qualifications if a referring employee vouches for the candidate.
Try to connect directly with the hiring manager. Use your network to see who knows this person and can arrange an introduction.
Get a handle on the transferability of your skills and experience. The appearance of weak qualifications often accompanies a switch in industries or significant change in roles. You may actually be qualified, but it doesn’t look that way on paper because you used a certain skill in a different industry or role. A good career coach or resume writer can help translate your past experiences into the qualifications sought.
Use your cover letter to qualify you. Cover letters are perfect for addressing issues your resume can’t. Use yours to describe the transferability of your qualifications, as well as to give examples of how you’ve previously gotten up to speed quickly and enthusiastically when you lacked a qualification. And don’t let your cover letter disqualify you by using negative phrases such as “I know I don’t possess all the requirements for this job….”
Outline the qualifications. A slideshow on cover letters from the University of Michigan School of Information Career Development Office suggests creating a requirements outline to respond to each requirement using your skills, experience, and accomplishments. Going through this exercise may help you discover you are more qualified than you thought.
Two More Tips
Assess the hierarchy of qualifications. Most employers list qualifications in job postings in order of importance. Thus, if you lack some of the top qualifications on the list, it’s probably best not to apply. Another way to get an idea of priorities is to paste the requirements list (or even the whole job posting) into a word-cloud generator. The words that appear in the largest font are those mentioned most often, and we can surmise, are most important. You may want to deploy additional research and ask company insiders how well the requirements list aligns with the actual priority of requirements.
Don’t let your gender hold you back. When applying for a job, women feel they need to meet 100% of the criteria while men usually apply after meeting about 60%, says LinkedIn’s Gender Insights Report.
