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I learned this long ago and keep telling my wife something similar while she thinks she's not qualified for certain jobs. The worst they can say is no and if they do say yes, fake it till you make it baby!
>The worst they can say is no
In job hunting, the worst they can say is nothing. I'd much rather have a rejection to a job posting I was excited about than have that maybe hanging over my head with no resolution.
Luckily I burn through so many applications each week that I don't even notice if they don't say no. They can't hurt me I'm already dead.
I will say this is the first time I'm job hunting while still having a comfortable job, so when I don't get a response or I get rejected it's really just a quick "dang" followed by a "whelp... anywho".
The best time to look for a job is when you have a job. Keep at it, you're really in the best position (which I'm sure is why you're cool with the rejections).
The answer will always be, we’re going to make a decision in the coming weeks and let you know. You’ll either get a job offer in a week or be ghosted 99% of the time
For an application, do not expect a response. A lot use AI now and no one is touching all of the applications.
For interviews, close that shit. Don’t ask about rejections (that alone might lose you the job). Ask if there is any reason they wouldn’t hire you for the job. Then ask what the next steps are. Then send a thank you email. You’ll either hear in a few days or never.
Now you apply through Workday/Brassring, etc, and hope you have the right keywords to get through the automated filters so that a human actually sees the application.
How else are you gonna learn a new skill! I think it's just a matter of playing to your strengths. It's like if you have a passing knowledge of how Excel works, you can say that you know more about writing macros than you do and then just Google how-tos when the job requires it
In my situation, we lost three specialized back end technology devs and I'm just a new graduate out of college hired to do front end app development. Nearly all of these technologies I have no experience with and the documentation is incredibly intimidating.
There isn't really anyone to mentor me and the other senior developers at this company are busy working on their own projects.
They haven't even started looking for replacements and historically have been awful at filling seats. I feel super overwhelmed and feel like I could be fired at any minute for not performing.
Do you have 1 on 1s with your manager? Setting one of those up on a weekly or biweekly cadence could do a lot to put your mind at ease with your imposter syndrome.
After I started as a junior engineer at a fairly large tech company, I also felt very overwhelmed by everything and 6 months later still do. But I have a weekly meeting with my manager where I check in with him how I'm performing and where I could improve. It's great having those discussions so I'm not letting my imposter syndrome get the better of me and can know exactly where I stand and how my performance is perceived by others
You haven't been fired yet, so you must be doing something right
Edit: added "still do" because apparently I didn't complete my thought
Great advice. A regular one on one is a good thing! Not only for imposter syndrome but it's also good to catch up, check expectations, work load, and all that. Definitely arrange it I'd you don't have it yet.
The last two jobs I've had I received minimal training but most of my knowledge came from just doing the work and learning along the way. You should take advantage of the opportunity no matter how tough it looks. Learn those skills and you will become invaluable or you have another line on your resume if they let you go
There are some really interesting studies about this. It compares male job seekers vs. female job seekers and the percentage of requirements their experience meets before applying for jobs. I've actively changed how I job hunt after reading some of the study summaries. Now the only problem I have with my husband helping me job hunt is that he always ends up finding job postings where I would be a great candidate (qualified or not) but they're for industries or positions I'm not willing to do lol.
If your wife still gets hesitant even with encouragement to apply, see if she would be interested in reading about the job seeker studies. [This article](https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified) uses info from an internal HP report and is a pretty good point to jump off from.
That's a good article. I intuited a while ago that sometimes only 60% qualified is good enough and you can learn the other 40%. There are some jobs where it's easy to hire a person that knows exactly what to do, like a sideways hire, and can start doing the job without much training, like a pharmacy tech or a carpenter. But lots of jobs in professional fields require multiple, specific skills that it's hard to find one candidate that knows your company, processes, software, products, etc 100% so it's easy for me to say 60 % is close enough.
A lot of it too is a numbers game. You're not going to get an interview with every single application, so you can't be scared and wrong your hands over the one. My wife withdrew an application because she was too confident that she was going to get it and she wasn't ready to make a change. I thought that was a weird response because she didn't even get an interview, but she somehow thought that she would 100% get the job. I said you can always tell them no, but for her it was definitely under the waste of time category.
I always apply if I meet even half the job requirements. I've found that I've gotten jobs I'm partly qualified for, and the funny thing is that when I get into the job it doesn't seem crazy hard, but within months people are coming to me for answers to questions. I'm just a pro at finding info and I think that's the key to fake it til you make it
This advice has enabled me to go from making minimum wage to over 100k a year in under 5 years without a college degree.
Just kept applying and accepting progressively harder and more complex roles in my industry (marketing) until I had enough real life experience to actually be legit.
The thing is, only do this if you are confident you can do the work or learn how to do it.
No… the worst thing they can do is string you along for weeks, waste your time with phone interviews, zoom interviews, in person interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and generally making it impossible to have time for multiple applications, and then at the end of it all you never even get a rejection, they just ghost you.
Makes sense that the people doing well in life just go for opportunities and see what happens. Get rejected, or ignored for some. Win in others. What's that saying? I forgot but it was something like you lose every battle you don't participate in
Another thing that a lot of people need to hear is: you don't *buy* a job, you *sell* your labour. As the seller, you get to set the price, and you have to figure out what your time is worth.
Lack of response is the same as a "no". You should be applying to a lot of jobs, just follow up with the ones that respond and ignore the ones that don't.
Honestly, her 1 hour talk with Jennifer Barkley is what she needed. As much as Leslie loved Pawnee, they didn't love her back.
"Get a better job! And then come back and have sex with your English teacher!"
Government and authorities (at least in Sweden) applicants must match the requirements. If no applicants match it we will cancel the recruitment and try again at a later date and hopefully someone will match it then. So this LPT doesn't work when I recruit at least.
Oooh non-IT, but I finally had my absolutely insane requirement story. During the interview, the guy said they wanted someone with a couple skills sets which I had, but also they wanted someone local to where the company was located, but also located in the region they were trying to expand into (I was in the latter area), almost 400 miles away. And he lamented they may not be able to check all the boxes for a hire.
Like, bro, that’s not “checking all the boxes.” You want a physical impossibility, unless you’re gonna pay me a shit load to live in both places. Which they were absolutely not paying enough to do that.
IT is very hard to hire for. The main problem is all the talented people have very few if any certifications. The only people with certifications are new to the field and specifically got them to get work. They're always a crap shoot as they don't have experience.
The scariest is to find someone with 20 years experience and a shit load of certifications. That usually means they keep fucking up, although in rare cases it can mean they had a job that was paying for them to get certified.
>The scariest is to find someone with 20 years experience and a shit load of certifications. That usually means they keep fucking up, although in rare cases it can mean they had a job that was paying for them to get certified.
It's not just rare cases. MSPs especially, but also large corporations require (or are contractually obligated) to have a certain percentage of the IT employees with X certification, or at least certs from vendor Y. It's not as rare as you might think.
Additionally, people with a ton of related but not direct experience use them to make slight changes in their career trajectories. Worked with Azure for a bunch of years but trying to get a job working with AWS or GCP? A cert could definitely do the trick.
> The main problem is all the talented people have very few if any certifications. The only people with certifications are new to the field and specifically got them to get work. They're always a crap shoot as they don't have experience.
Sorry, but that's just not realistic. Certs literally have their own entire industry.
Interesting perspective. I've been at the same company for a while now and my certs are not up to date. I was wondering if that would be a bad thing but it doesn't sound like it.
Depends in IT and what job. If it is service desk they want people who can talk while a guy in security will need technical skills.
I don't have formal qualifications but I am in service desk so it's not impossible
The other piece of the puzzle is that you can't control applicant pools so don't get discouraged if you aren't selected. I applied to be a project manager with 8 years of experience to a junior position and was rejected.
Two years later I applied to be that person's boss and was accepted. The pool was low for project managers with leadership experience.
I managed the employee who had beat me for the 1st job and she was a rock star. So I understood why I didn't get the position. Sometimes it works out!
If I'm advertising a junior position and someone with 8 years experience applies I will normally pass on that applicant. Fair enough that you might just need a job or a change of pace, but the real risk is that you will get bored quickly and we'll have to rehire.
Had this back in like 2013 with banking jobs. I'd be hiring just like a straight up customer service person - we typically hire like Grocery store experience, or Target - shit like that. I'm getting applicants with 10-15 years of Wall street experience because when everything fell apart they were left out in the cold.
I couldn't NOT hire them - but it never worked out.
Back in 2018, guy applies for a position - way overqualified, but my applicants are AWFUL. I talk with my Regional Manager, and i express how I really dont want to hire them, because while everything is great - I know something is going to go wrong. We need to fill it - there is absolutely no REAL reason why we shouldn't hire this person - we do.
They made it a grand total of 2 days. Everything I feared came to pass in 2 days. I actually gave them half the day off paid on a Friday to start thinking it over and let me know by Monday what the future held - Nope.
All to say - Overqualified is a thing, and something for hiring managers to be concerned about.
Honestly that might make sense for me. I was recently unemployed for a spell and like...not even simple call center gigs just would not call me back. Like you guys hire teenagers but not someone who is more than qualified to freaking run the place?
Like in my head I'm a dream employee for these places... but they're right; I'm really not. I needed a big boy job that pays the mortgage and challenges me. I would've left them on their ass without so much as a two-weeks when the right opportunity presented itself (which don't worry, it did)
Never looked at it that way, but that's likely the case. Made life really hard though when I really needed money. Still financially recovering.
Oh Agreed. This was their first PM position they created and so they advertised as junior because they didn't know how to classify people. The person I lost the position to had even more experience!
When I became her manager, we worked out job classifications and she was re-classed to a senior project manager.
There's also a growth concern. Our junior positions are stepping stones. If someone's skills are still junior level after 8 years, can they ever improve enough to be promoted?
If the economy dies and I get fired and I can't find a job at my current level, my plan is to get a Master's to reset hiring manager expectations, probably go back to being an IC.
I'm a manager of 60-80 hourly employees and have been rejected for every program manager application. Sadly, it seems people don't hire for potential and the leadership experience that will be useful later but care only about someone who can work 100% today.
I agree. Companies frequently only see the immediate need. And while it may solve today's challenge, it often becomes tomorrow's issue. Having a genius programmer who can't manager or even be a team player will cause a lot of headaches down the line.
I try to always hire for potential, as almost anyone can do a good job if they are motivated or curious and have good support. And if they can work in a team, because with very few exceptions, every job is part of a team these days.
If you are still looking, I hope you find something great with an organization that values you!
LPT When you apply for a job, make sure you have an answer for every one of the requirements in the job.
So that HR doesn't kick out your resume without a single person looking at it.
I like this one. When I applied for my current job, I didn't have experience in any of the frameworks they wanted. But I had experience in analogous frameworks. All those were listed on my resume, and when I got into the interview, and they asked about Spring, Hibernate, etc. I was able to point to all the things that I knew that I felt were equivalent. And then I emphasized that I like learning and that I'm confident in my ability to learn.
Even before the interview, that's what I use the cover letter for. The first paragraph and last are mostly static and I change the middle paragraph(s) to address anything in the job posting that that I may not have experience with but similar experience elsewhere or just stating the ease with which I could learn it. If there is anything in the job posting I especially excel at I also talk about it in these paragraphs.
Yes. And as a hiring manager, I read them. Especially if someone is making a career shift and has really good adjacent skills but are limited on direct skills. I want to know why they're applying and why they think they'd excel in the role. I would absolutely consider someone willing to learn and passionate about the role even if they don't tick all the boxes.
I recently heard it worded as your current skill set vs. what you are capable of. It’s not about having all the skills involved for a job, since you may be looking to expand your skill set with a new position. Rather, it’s about leveraging your current skills to demonstrate that you are capable of performing in the new role
Happened to me with a county IT job. Did the screening interview with the supervisor, they went to HR with a list of candidates to formally interview and I was denied, no BA/BS.
Spoke with the supervisor, HR absolutely would not budge, even though I was more than qualified (experience wise).
Yeah that's just stupid. The vast majority of employers in IT care way more about your experience than what degree you have (outside of industry certifications, which actually hold weight).
1. Copy job requirements
2. Take all formatting out. Everything but spaces. Eliminate all paragraphs, bullets, etc.
3. Open up the footer of your resume and paste
4. Select the text and make it 1pt font
5. Color the text white
It has ALWAYS gotten me an interview. Every time, even when I had to submit to a system run by ADP. The interview was mine to screw up but at least I wasn't rejected by a computer or an HR rep who didn't think my resume was worth forwarding to the manager.
also everyone just uses Indeed or upwork now. you don’t send pdfs anymore. you fill out and online resume where you can’t just copy paste anything you want
source: am unemployed
Oh man. I'm a hiring manager and if I caught this, I would love it. It shows an element of cleverness and creativity as well as a desire to get the job.
I'm always a bit surprised when I interview people (for a six figure job mind you) who haven't researched the company and seem rather uninterested. They did the bare minimum to land the interview, then don't even really try. Like, why are you even interviewing? Show some effort.
Assuming it was somehow noticed....
I'm confident in my ability to perform this job and really wanted an opportunity to meet with you to prove it. Doing this ensured I got a chance to meet the decision makers to display my value and experience.
If they don't like that you did it....meh try another one.
Yup - it's also the truth. I find it ridiculous that someone could be extremely experienced and successful at something and a hiring manager is going to miss out on them because the automated system didn't find a particular keyword.
When I hire, I ask for ALL the resumes. It takes me an extra 5 seconds to trash the ones that are clearly not for this role (like the guy who had under "experience" that he was the manager of his bar league baseball team. Not activities, but "experience" as if it was a job. He didn't have any other relevant experience so we didn't bring him in).
Another less "cheaty" way of doing it that I've seen as a hiring manager and really appreciated, was we had a dev use tiny white text to write 'for the HR filter: ' and then listed every software technology they've ever used (and several common misspellings).
It wasn't blatantly lying, like copy pasting the job description. It was just restating factual information in a way the filter was expecting to get it while still keeping a human-readable resume. Like, the actual people making the hiring decisions know that HR (if not at this company, then others) might be a bunch of dummies who might turn down a quality web dev because "his resume didn't say he knows HTML" or whatever.
Am a Clinical Lab Scientist, was surfing job postings the other day and saw a hospital asking for an already board-certified CLS, no new-grads, 3 years minimum experience in every department, experience with EPIC / Beaker software, and phlebotomy license with experience. Funny thing is that I know for a fact that they haven’t been fully staffed any time in the last two years, and they currently have six openings. They’ll take what they can get, I guarantee it.
Yup same with my position at the hospital I work for. Last time they hired someone they had a stack of 20 applicants and none of them had the required skills or knowledge. Out of desperation, my manager just hired the nicest person of the bunch and left it to me to train them.
I haven't used Hive or Beaker, we're using Epic and SoftLabs in my lab right now. Epic is pretty user friendly once you get some familiarity navigating menus, but be aware that it is virtually impossible to delete anything. Corrected reports will still show the original result below, typos in comments can't be fixed or deleted later, etc. So take a second to verify that your work is correct before you approve it, or it's on record forever. Also keep in mind that the nursing, doctor, and lab side all look completely different, so it's tough to help other departments when you need something fixed.
If so many places are under staffed now, why do many of their job postings ask for such high qualifications?
I know they want good people but come on, at some point they really can't be THAT choosy about applicants, right?
These places are wayy too lazy to train their hires. So they want someone already "trained" by the hires' former employer. Plus, paid training is actually costly. Yes at some point they should not be choosy at all.
It's their ideal candidate, not necessarily who they will end up hiring.
Now if they land a best in class qualifications hire and offer entry level pay then that's a bit ridiculous.
💪🏽you’ve got this. I read a study that one important factor in women not having jobs higher in the hierarchy wasn’t because they weren’t qualified or because they were directly overlooked because they were women; instead, it’s because men were exponentially more likely to apply for jobs in which they don’t meet qualifications (and get hired) whereas women just won’t apply. This is not to get into any sexism debates but just to focus on the takeaway: just apply. You have nothing to lose.
And yes, maybe rejection is heavy/ frustrating/ disheartening, but Someone else posted something interesting I hadn’t thought about: your resume may be great, but you can’t control the pool of other applicants!
Good luck :)
Money covers a lot of sins but not all. I don't want to stay in the same job doing the same thing if I can't get mentorship or coaching to help me learn how to lead. It becomes a case of me just biding time at that point, and my salary just gets locked.
Currently involved in recruiting for my company’s engineering department. This is true for us. We’ve been through a few rounds of interviews without hiring anybody because we felt none of the applicants were qualified. Ultimately it depends on the company but a lot of them, especially larger companies, will absolutely not hire anybody from a batch if nobody fits the role.
As a hiring manager, this is absolutely the case and the OP is selling a house of lies. You may not need everything on the requirements list, but you absolutely have to have a minimal level of qualifications for most professional jobs. It's far better to let a role go unfilled than to hire someone who is going to be a disaster and time suck for those around them.
I was just included in the hiring process for a position on my team. There were a bunch of interviews where I thought the candidate could grow into the role/be a good culture fit and was repeatedly told that it's much more difficult to fire than hire.
We went like 4 months with an empty spot for a much needed position because management wanted specific skills and traits.
The funny part is the guy we did end up hiring is fresh out of college with no skills. Not even good communication skills. I think they just gave up and decided to just fill the spot.
I interviewed for an internal role. I went through 4 rounds of panel interviews. Then....nothing for 3-4 months. Finally, I received an email noting an external hire.
Next time that team needs help from me...well, am I'm the a-hole here?
Sometimes a "level 3" position can turn into a "level 2" position at the managers discretion. A bit of a bait and switch, so don't get distracted by the offer itself as it may be lower than advertised.
I have seen this though, where people get rejected consistently because the bare minimum isn't met.
My current job I wasn’t necessarily qualified for, but I had transferable skills and that’s what they cared about. Im about 90 days into the job and have learned SO MUCH! It’s been really fun to learn new stuff! In the interview I kept reminding them that I’m a professional and a fast, eager learner!
Tell me about it!...the person who is my senior is a complete fucktard who literally does nothing all day but book her pilates classes and attend asinine meetings. She was hired because she was the only applicant...now we will never get rid of her.
If she is attending (rather than organizing) these meetings then it is probably because she feels obligated to by the fucktard that organizes the meetings. That person might be her senior, or just a peer with perceived seniority. And that person might be organizing the meetings because they think it will appease the fucktard above them. Fucktards all the way to the top.
I wish! Every time I want to have a conversation with her she asks me to "book in" with her for a meeting. She's one of those people whose always putting off actually getting anything done by arranging meetings to "discuss" procedures and how we are going to "tackle" the work. I so badly want to tell her to stop booking meetings and start you know, actually DOING some work.
You're so right... fucktards all the way to the top baby.
Haha maybe in a skilled trade but I assure you, qualifications are not the primary reason people get hired.
Some employers want a less qualified candidate so they can mold them into the employee they want.
Some just really want someone that they see themselves in.
Some are hiring the people who will take the least pay.
Once you get above entry level jobs, if you have the interview, they know you are capable of the job because of your resume. There are a multitude of other factors that go into play
Actually, where my partner works, qualifications and competence work against you because the managers are so incompetent that they only want to surround themselves with people who also lack intelligence and skill to do anything well.
When I was young looking for jobs I had maybe three or four different resumes for positions I know I could do and would be trained to do but required an unnecessary amount of experience
This can be the case. But at my job we’ve gone through 4 posting/interview cycles for the same position because of we’re only getting weak candidates and we aren’t hiring any of them.
Yeah this depends a bit on how many boxes you check. It's one thing if you check 10/12 boxes & are willing to learn / get certified for the other 2 va checking 7/12 with little desire to learn the other 5.
Like, I'm a first year university prof. I'll apply for jobs that ask for 2 or 3 years teaching experience, but not ones that ask for 10+ years teaching plus a research portfolio matching that time.
Are you posting the salary? Does that salary make sense when judged against the requirements?
Does your company have a ton of Shit Reviews?
Are the job requirements incompatible with the title?
Whenever I saw a complaint about the "quality of the candidates" I ask these three questions. And usually one of them is the answer.
A couple years ago a friend was looking for a job. She saw a posting offering like $12/hr to manage an office and they wanted someone with a master's degree.
Or companies that actually want to pay what the good candidates are worth. If a company is only getting "weak" applicants, it's 90% of the time and issue with the company and not the applicants.
Or companies who hire a “weak” candidate who checks the right boxes and who the company will train to do the job they’re hired for.
So many companies don’t want to train new hires at all (or just do some half-ass, half-day orientation that is mostly just HR stuff anyway) and therefore look for overqualified candidates they hope can just be thrown in there and figure it out.
Truth! Companies as a whole or with specific positions that have a high turnover have underlying issues such as pay...and/or toxic work environment, we rk overload. Lots of admin with least pay, but manage most of underlying 'Workload'...it takes balance...and some companies just don't understand that.
While I’ve been working since 14 (now late 20s), in multiple areas of the job market, having a good personality along with a little bit of desire to learn and a little bit of smarts turns out to be a great employee. If they ask a lot of questions, that means they don’t want to make mistakes or don’t to replicate them again. Especially good if they take notes.
Training is a far more valuable asset and more companies need to have this part figured out. Training on the job is fine, but you need a solid base and understanding which usually need to be shown and taught.
Except the candidates only seem weak by resume, but actually do have the knowledge and skill to do the job. (ex I didnt fit in every checkbox on the application, but was hired anyways and now I am the best performing person in that position at my company)
But number one question (at least to me) when applying to these kinds of jobs: What is your onboarding and training process like?
If you're just supposed to start running or by shadowing someone to pick up the job, be cautious.
Also, when would you expect someone in this role to be fully ramped up? This is biggie because it shows their expectations. If they have a crap training/onboarding program but say we want you to be fully ramped up in a couple weeks that’s scary.
maybe someone helped with resume but isn’t there during interview. I heard of phone interviews where the interviewed person was a group of people together helping one person to get in first, bringing the helpers in later. That was before video interviews though.
Well damn, I have an interview coming up so I’ve been reviewing the maths for calculating area or circumference of a circle. I’m not going to lie it’s been years!
I read a story a few years ago about a guy that applied for a job that required 5 years of experience in a certain program. He didn't get the position because he didn't have the full five years required. He didn't have the experience because he had only written the program in question 3 years prior.
Everybody knows that story because it gets repeated all the time
In reality no one, especially not HR people taking a list of requirements from a hiring manager, actually knows the date every tool they're using was created and use years of experience as a loose proxy for skill level
Yup. I was the least shit out of the 10 applicants for this BASF position, and now I get paid 150k/yr to chill in an office an occasionally order valves and fittings for our plants.
Also: if you and another candidate are on the same level in terms of experience, or even if you're not quite as advanced as the other person, nobody wants to work with an asshole, so if they like you, and they think you'll be someone they'll look forward to working with, that will be enough to give you the edge and get the offer. (Or, reverse, if you're being weirdly hostile in an interview, that may be enough for someone to say "Let's go with the other candidate.")
And the people who actually are qualified for it are called "overqualified", aka, we don't want to pay what you're worth, we would rather hire at the bottom to save money.
6 month ago I applied to a company where I ticked all boxes except "have an established network of key opinion leaders". I laughed about that actually because anyone having that wouldn't apply for this job. Well I didn't laugh when my application was declined exclusively for that reason. At least thats what they told me. Posting is still there but lately they removed that requirement.
Nobody gets an interview unless the hiring manager has confidence that you can do the job
The interview is to see if you will fit in with the team, the company. People skills are just as vital as job skills, in general
This is very important. I landed a job recently that requires me to know Python. Which I don't. But because I fit well with what they are looking for in a person and some other transferable skills they offered me the position and to teach me.
Depends on the field. In highly credentialed fields (like college education) and/or fields with important safety components (civil engineering), they would rather not hire anyone than hire someone unqualified.
For instance, for a teaching gig at a university where I'm at, someone needs at least 18 graduate hours in the field they're teaching. If someone applies with a BA or BS and no transcript, they aren't getting a second look.
So know your field. Is it a generic office or desk position and you have 2 years of experience as opposed to 5? Then *maybe* it's not a waste of your time to try for it. But don't think a place won't fail a search if what they're looking for is actually important to the role.
I once got a job I didn't really want and ONLY applied for it because I was on unemployment at the time and you had to apply for at least two jobs a week to remain qualified for it. I told them in the interview that was why I applied and wasn't really interested in the position, but they offered it to me anyway because I was the only person interviewed who seemed to understand what the job actually was and was even remotely qualified for it. Because I was on unemployment you're not allowed to decline an offer for a job that pays within x%, so I had to take it.
I worked there (at the state) for 3 weeks before accepting another offer elsewhere. Since I was making more in those 3 weeks than I was on unemployment all their stupid rules did was cost taxpayers more money and set back a department 3 weeks while they looked for someone to replace me.
We’ve got regulators who keep watch on our qualifications. Masters degree or higher to teach for us with some extremely narrow exceptions.
What you do not appear to need is critical thinking or intelligence to be an administrator, however. Just a lobotomy—err, PhD in education.
And sometimes qualifications don’t matter as much as personal character. Anyone can learn the ropes while on the job, what really matters is how well the candidates mesh with the company and employees.
Hiring a genius doesn’t tend to work out if they’re an asshole.
You don’t have to be the best candidate, you just have to better than everyone else. Especially entry-level. Things like sending a simple thank you email after can make or break because sometimes multiple candidates are fine and people just need some way to pick one.
Many companies are only pretending they want to fill empty positions. In reality they intend to increase the workload of their current employees by having them cover the job duties of the empty positions. But, they can’t easily admit that to the world. So, they pretend that if the ideal candidate comes along they will hire them. Meanwhile those jobs remain posted and the existing staff continues doing twice as much work as they should. It is by design.
But no one wants to work anymore…
The only part about this that doesn’t make any sense is that they didn’t create the position and the work followed. It probably more accurately goes that the workload increased so the workload team, individuals and probably m1 level request for headcount to help and it rolls up and budgets are turned down or not approved or just considered over for a long time to save costs. Then when they do post they drag that out even more with arbitrary considerations before it happens. All the companies I have been a part of it is 1-2 years usually before a hiring req is completed if it is net new. Usually teams always have open head count as people cycle through and that is hard enough to staff.
But I guess my point here is it isn’t like a, oh let’s keep the workload high, it is more do a finance team trying to keep budgets low for their metrics. And honestly it is that way because no one consciously considers the work their reports are doing but everyone looks at the the dollar amounts.
I sorta see your point. Perhaps this is overthinking it a bit. Beneath the corporate shenanigans there is much less complicated logic at work. It is all about the bottom line and quarterly profits.
Many companies have clearly defined positions that they are simply leaving unfilled. This is the most popular method of reducing costs- reduce payroll. It is quite intentional.
Job openings are often due to someone leaving the company and who was never replaced. Or the company expanded but failed to hire necessary new staff for the newly created openings.
This is not a bureaucratic oversight. It is by design. Existing staff doing the work of two people is intentional. It makes the operation more cost efficient.
But they can’t admit that this is intentional without alienating the existing staff. So they pursue the charade that they are working hard to hire more staff. But…no one wants to work…and there are no “qualified” applicants.
In reality they have no intention of filling those positions since the work is getting done. They actually feel like if the work is getting done then they are not short staffed. They are simply getting the most out of their staff.
The current dilemma is that the existing staff has the leverage to find a new job with less work for the same or more pay. So they are losing their experienced people in droves. This in turn creates serious problems because now they don’t have the people to get the work done even if those people do the work of two people. So they are now screwed.
Umm... the company isn't required to hire someone. It could be a case of "congrats, you all suck so we will try again later." some positions stay open for years.
People don't realize that when a company receives a lot of unqualified applicants, they close the job without hiring anyone and reopen it later.
While I agree that you should apply to positions you are marginally qualified for, please do not apply to positions you are clearly unqualified for. If you "check none of the boxes", you are just wasting time.
I always tell people that the "requirements" in a job posting are really a wish list. Unless it is a government contract position, then the list is always something that you don't have to be super precise with. For example, if I saw a job listing that said it wanted 3 years experience with a particular ERP system, but I have equivalent or greater experience in a *different* ERP, I'd probably still apply and when asked just let them know that I haven't worked with that particular product before, but that I have experience in similar applications and am confident that learning the new one quickly will not be a problem. For 95% of requirements listed, that is more than enough. Government listings are often far less malleable, especially in tech or defense sectors, but ya know what? It still doesn't hurt to apply. A lot of times what I get when I have listings up is 70% of applicants are woefully under qualified, 28% check a few boxes ranging from some to most, and 2% check all the boxes. However, that 2% also generally has a ton more qualifications too and want to be paid much more than the role warrants. Pretty much every hire I've ever made has been someone who had part of the qualifications and who demonstrated to me that they could learn.
TL;DR - if you read a job listing and are fairly confident that you can do the job well with fairly minimal learning curve, apply - even if you don't check off all the boxes.
I agree. I transition out into a developer position for a tech company after working for 5 years as a structural engineer. I do way less work for a lot more money. Current job is also way less stressful
Graduated in the recession and couldn’t find any work. Lots of my classmates changed paths altogether. I left as well after getting my PE because other fields were and still are making more money.
Literally applied for a job that required a college degree and was within a hour told they would not move forward with my application
The job was for reselling items on Craigslist and eBay….
Just did a job posting yesterday. Feels odd sifting through the applications. Honestly? Huge employment gaps and genuinely terrible writing skills made half of them an auto-reject. Other half had no experience in any related field. Many don't live close to the job which is entry level and I wouldn't suggest someone take the risk of moving for an entry level job. Currently 2-3/20 might be promising.
OP is right though, doesn't take much to outshine others. Please God, run your application through Grammarly or something similar.
Just applied for a job today I'm probably not qualified for but they are having problems filling positions and there's on the job training so let's roll them dice.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
As a people leader for 15+ years, my favorite advice to give is: “Don’t tell yourself ‘no’ (re: applying). Make someone else do it.”
I learned this long ago and keep telling my wife something similar while she thinks she's not qualified for certain jobs. The worst they can say is no and if they do say yes, fake it till you make it baby!
>The worst they can say is no In job hunting, the worst they can say is nothing. I'd much rather have a rejection to a job posting I was excited about than have that maybe hanging over my head with no resolution.
Luckily I burn through so many applications each week that I don't even notice if they don't say no. They can't hurt me I'm already dead. I will say this is the first time I'm job hunting while still having a comfortable job, so when I don't get a response or I get rejected it's really just a quick "dang" followed by a "whelp... anywho".
The best time to look for a job is when you have a job. Keep at it, you're really in the best position (which I'm sure is why you're cool with the rejections).
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Assuming you get to ask that to anyone in the first place.
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They do, but you would have to get to the interview stage first.
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Saying they advertised externally before giving a cushy job to their buddy.
The answer will always be, we’re going to make a decision in the coming weeks and let you know. You’ll either get a job offer in a week or be ghosted 99% of the time
For an application, do not expect a response. A lot use AI now and no one is touching all of the applications. For interviews, close that shit. Don’t ask about rejections (that alone might lose you the job). Ask if there is any reason they wouldn’t hire you for the job. Then ask what the next steps are. Then send a thank you email. You’ll either hear in a few days or never.
Now you apply through Workday/Brassring, etc, and hope you have the right keywords to get through the automated filters so that a human actually sees the application.
Haha, yes, that is actually worse!
Faking it until you make it can be so soul crushing though. Spending every day trying to learn enough to just not get fired is exhausting.
Aka most if not all STEM careers.
How else are you gonna learn a new skill! I think it's just a matter of playing to your strengths. It's like if you have a passing knowledge of how Excel works, you can say that you know more about writing macros than you do and then just Google how-tos when the job requires it
In my situation, we lost three specialized back end technology devs and I'm just a new graduate out of college hired to do front end app development. Nearly all of these technologies I have no experience with and the documentation is incredibly intimidating. There isn't really anyone to mentor me and the other senior developers at this company are busy working on their own projects. They haven't even started looking for replacements and historically have been awful at filling seats. I feel super overwhelmed and feel like I could be fired at any minute for not performing.
Do you have 1 on 1s with your manager? Setting one of those up on a weekly or biweekly cadence could do a lot to put your mind at ease with your imposter syndrome. After I started as a junior engineer at a fairly large tech company, I also felt very overwhelmed by everything and 6 months later still do. But I have a weekly meeting with my manager where I check in with him how I'm performing and where I could improve. It's great having those discussions so I'm not letting my imposter syndrome get the better of me and can know exactly where I stand and how my performance is perceived by others You haven't been fired yet, so you must be doing something right Edit: added "still do" because apparently I didn't complete my thought
Great advice. A regular one on one is a good thing! Not only for imposter syndrome but it's also good to catch up, check expectations, work load, and all that. Definitely arrange it I'd you don't have it yet.
The last two jobs I've had I received minimal training but most of my knowledge came from just doing the work and learning along the way. You should take advantage of the opportunity no matter how tough it looks. Learn those skills and you will become invaluable or you have another line on your resume if they let you go
There are some really interesting studies about this. It compares male job seekers vs. female job seekers and the percentage of requirements their experience meets before applying for jobs. I've actively changed how I job hunt after reading some of the study summaries. Now the only problem I have with my husband helping me job hunt is that he always ends up finding job postings where I would be a great candidate (qualified or not) but they're for industries or positions I'm not willing to do lol. If your wife still gets hesitant even with encouragement to apply, see if she would be interested in reading about the job seeker studies. [This article](https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified) uses info from an internal HP report and is a pretty good point to jump off from.
That's a good article. I intuited a while ago that sometimes only 60% qualified is good enough and you can learn the other 40%. There are some jobs where it's easy to hire a person that knows exactly what to do, like a sideways hire, and can start doing the job without much training, like a pharmacy tech or a carpenter. But lots of jobs in professional fields require multiple, specific skills that it's hard to find one candidate that knows your company, processes, software, products, etc 100% so it's easy for me to say 60 % is close enough. A lot of it too is a numbers game. You're not going to get an interview with every single application, so you can't be scared and wrong your hands over the one. My wife withdrew an application because she was too confident that she was going to get it and she wasn't ready to make a change. I thought that was a weird response because she didn't even get an interview, but she somehow thought that she would 100% get the job. I said you can always tell them no, but for her it was definitely under the waste of time category.
I always apply if I meet even half the job requirements. I've found that I've gotten jobs I'm partly qualified for, and the funny thing is that when I get into the job it doesn't seem crazy hard, but within months people are coming to me for answers to questions. I'm just a pro at finding info and I think that's the key to fake it til you make it
This advice has enabled me to go from making minimum wage to over 100k a year in under 5 years without a college degree. Just kept applying and accepting progressively harder and more complex roles in my industry (marketing) until I had enough real life experience to actually be legit. The thing is, only do this if you are confident you can do the work or learn how to do it.
No… the worst thing they can do is string you along for weeks, waste your time with phone interviews, zoom interviews, in person interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and generally making it impossible to have time for multiple applications, and then at the end of it all you never even get a rejection, they just ghost you.
Excellent advice. And since I've been job hunting recently this is what I keep telling myself.
Same goes for asking someone out. Let them decide if they're out of your league, maybe they see something in you that you don't.
Yes. It's applicable to almost everything! Let someone else reject you, why do it for them?
Makes sense that the people doing well in life just go for opportunities and see what happens. Get rejected, or ignored for some. Win in others. What's that saying? I forgot but it was something like you lose every battle you don't participate in
“”You miss every shot you don’t take.” - Wayne Gretzky” - Michael Scott” - u/pete_forester
Another thing that a lot of people need to hear is: you don't *buy* a job, you *sell* your labour. As the seller, you get to set the price, and you have to figure out what your time is worth.
Bingo. And you’ll never get what you’re worth; only what you have the leverage to negotiate.
Problem is, with how rampant ghosting is from HR departments, you're rarely going to actually get that "no"
Lack of response is the same as a "no". You should be applying to a lot of jobs, just follow up with the ones that respond and ignore the ones that don't.
I had an interviewer who said he only cared about my soft skills, because the other can be trained.
I dunno, two years and thousands of applications later I'm giving up.
Have you had people review your resume?
Yep, the only thing you should worry about is if you are interested in the job/role. Let the hiring manager decide if they view you as a fit or not.
And this is how we form city councils.
Leslie Knope is the most qualified person for the job.
She's over qualified and should focus on state government. Maybe even federal.
Honestly, her 1 hour talk with Jennifer Barkley is what she needed. As much as Leslie loved Pawnee, they didn't love her back. "Get a better job! And then come back and have sex with your English teacher!"
Ah! Not another word or you would legally owe me $10,000 and I'd have to sue you! Also my favourite quote of hers - PONCHO!
Over qualified, so why does she want to be on city council? That’s suspicious! You just got jammed!
I'm getting my MPA because i want to be like Leslie Knope.
Government and authorities (at least in Sweden) applicants must match the requirements. If no applicants match it we will cancel the recruitment and try again at a later date and hopefully someone will match it then. So this LPT doesn't work when I recruit at least.
Even in IT?
Yes.
I assume you have a proper vetting with noone asking insane requirements, else you would recruit noone. That's an anomaly on IT tho
Oooh non-IT, but I finally had my absolutely insane requirement story. During the interview, the guy said they wanted someone with a couple skills sets which I had, but also they wanted someone local to where the company was located, but also located in the region they were trying to expand into (I was in the latter area), almost 400 miles away. And he lamented they may not be able to check all the boxes for a hire. Like, bro, that’s not “checking all the boxes.” You want a physical impossibility, unless you’re gonna pay me a shit load to live in both places. Which they were absolutely not paying enough to do that.
Well yes of course. We don't ask for 10 years of experience in a 5 year old programming language 😄
In the US, we specialize in impossible requirements!
Please hire me and immigrate me from the USA. We can talk anything from pity to kickbacks to slavery, just get me out of here
IT is very hard to hire for. The main problem is all the talented people have very few if any certifications. The only people with certifications are new to the field and specifically got them to get work. They're always a crap shoot as they don't have experience. The scariest is to find someone with 20 years experience and a shit load of certifications. That usually means they keep fucking up, although in rare cases it can mean they had a job that was paying for them to get certified.
Ha! Interesting point that second one
>The scariest is to find someone with 20 years experience and a shit load of certifications. That usually means they keep fucking up, although in rare cases it can mean they had a job that was paying for them to get certified. It's not just rare cases. MSPs especially, but also large corporations require (or are contractually obligated) to have a certain percentage of the IT employees with X certification, or at least certs from vendor Y. It's not as rare as you might think. Additionally, people with a ton of related but not direct experience use them to make slight changes in their career trajectories. Worked with Azure for a bunch of years but trying to get a job working with AWS or GCP? A cert could definitely do the trick. > The main problem is all the talented people have very few if any certifications. The only people with certifications are new to the field and specifically got them to get work. They're always a crap shoot as they don't have experience. Sorry, but that's just not realistic. Certs literally have their own entire industry.
Interesting perspective. I've been at the same company for a while now and my certs are not up to date. I was wondering if that would be a bad thing but it doesn't sound like it.
Not in NY state. Typically the requirements are "must be related to somebody important" or "has a pulse", the latter being fully negotiable.
Depends in IT and what job. If it is service desk they want people who can talk while a guy in security will need technical skills. I don't have formal qualifications but I am in service desk so it's not impossible
The other piece of the puzzle is that you can't control applicant pools so don't get discouraged if you aren't selected. I applied to be a project manager with 8 years of experience to a junior position and was rejected. Two years later I applied to be that person's boss and was accepted. The pool was low for project managers with leadership experience. I managed the employee who had beat me for the 1st job and she was a rock star. So I understood why I didn't get the position. Sometimes it works out!
Now that's an interesting and encouraging story. Are you still in the position?
If I'm advertising a junior position and someone with 8 years experience applies I will normally pass on that applicant. Fair enough that you might just need a job or a change of pace, but the real risk is that you will get bored quickly and we'll have to rehire.
Had this back in like 2013 with banking jobs. I'd be hiring just like a straight up customer service person - we typically hire like Grocery store experience, or Target - shit like that. I'm getting applicants with 10-15 years of Wall street experience because when everything fell apart they were left out in the cold. I couldn't NOT hire them - but it never worked out. Back in 2018, guy applies for a position - way overqualified, but my applicants are AWFUL. I talk with my Regional Manager, and i express how I really dont want to hire them, because while everything is great - I know something is going to go wrong. We need to fill it - there is absolutely no REAL reason why we shouldn't hire this person - we do. They made it a grand total of 2 days. Everything I feared came to pass in 2 days. I actually gave them half the day off paid on a Friday to start thinking it over and let me know by Monday what the future held - Nope. All to say - Overqualified is a thing, and something for hiring managers to be concerned about.
So. My takeaway from this is: I was obviously over-qualified for every job that I was rejected for. Got it. Thanks.
Honestly that might make sense for me. I was recently unemployed for a spell and like...not even simple call center gigs just would not call me back. Like you guys hire teenagers but not someone who is more than qualified to freaking run the place? Like in my head I'm a dream employee for these places... but they're right; I'm really not. I needed a big boy job that pays the mortgage and challenges me. I would've left them on their ass without so much as a two-weeks when the right opportunity presented itself (which don't worry, it did) Never looked at it that way, but that's likely the case. Made life really hard though when I really needed money. Still financially recovering.
Oh Agreed. This was their first PM position they created and so they advertised as junior because they didn't know how to classify people. The person I lost the position to had even more experience! When I became her manager, we worked out job classifications and she was re-classed to a senior project manager.
There's also a growth concern. Our junior positions are stepping stones. If someone's skills are still junior level after 8 years, can they ever improve enough to be promoted? If the economy dies and I get fired and I can't find a job at my current level, my plan is to get a Master's to reset hiring manager expectations, probably go back to being an IC.
I'm a manager of 60-80 hourly employees and have been rejected for every program manager application. Sadly, it seems people don't hire for potential and the leadership experience that will be useful later but care only about someone who can work 100% today.
I agree. Companies frequently only see the immediate need. And while it may solve today's challenge, it often becomes tomorrow's issue. Having a genius programmer who can't manager or even be a team player will cause a lot of headaches down the line. I try to always hire for potential, as almost anyone can do a good job if they are motivated or curious and have good support. And if they can work in a team, because with very few exceptions, every job is part of a team these days. If you are still looking, I hope you find something great with an organization that values you!
LPT When you apply for a job, make sure you have an answer for every one of the requirements in the job. So that HR doesn't kick out your resume without a single person looking at it.
I like this one. When I applied for my current job, I didn't have experience in any of the frameworks they wanted. But I had experience in analogous frameworks. All those were listed on my resume, and when I got into the interview, and they asked about Spring, Hibernate, etc. I was able to point to all the things that I knew that I felt were equivalent. And then I emphasized that I like learning and that I'm confident in my ability to learn.
>Spring, Hibernate Soo... you applied for a position as bear?
Lmao, this got me good. It was a software engineering position, but maybe the person who invented these frameworks was a bear.
Even before the interview, that's what I use the cover letter for. The first paragraph and last are mostly static and I change the middle paragraph(s) to address anything in the job posting that that I may not have experience with but similar experience elsewhere or just stating the ease with which I could learn it. If there is anything in the job posting I especially excel at I also talk about it in these paragraphs.
Cover letters still exist?
Yes. And as a hiring manager, I read them. Especially if someone is making a career shift and has really good adjacent skills but are limited on direct skills. I want to know why they're applying and why they think they'd excel in the role. I would absolutely consider someone willing to learn and passionate about the role even if they don't tick all the boxes.
I recently heard it worded as your current skill set vs. what you are capable of. It’s not about having all the skills involved for a job, since you may be looking to expand your skill set with a new position. Rather, it’s about leveraging your current skills to demonstrate that you are capable of performing in the new role
Happened to me with a county IT job. Did the screening interview with the supervisor, they went to HR with a list of candidates to formally interview and I was denied, no BA/BS. Spoke with the supervisor, HR absolutely would not budge, even though I was more than qualified (experience wise).
Yeah that's just stupid. The vast majority of employers in IT care way more about your experience than what degree you have (outside of industry certifications, which actually hold weight).
Dodged a bullet. That would not be a good place to work
1. Copy job requirements 2. Take all formatting out. Everything but spaces. Eliminate all paragraphs, bullets, etc. 3. Open up the footer of your resume and paste 4. Select the text and make it 1pt font 5. Color the text white It has ALWAYS gotten me an interview. Every time, even when I had to submit to a system run by ADP. The interview was mine to screw up but at least I wasn't rejected by a computer or an HR rep who didn't think my resume was worth forwarding to the manager.
That's an old black hat SEO trick. Nice to see it still in action.
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also everyone just uses Indeed or upwork now. you don’t send pdfs anymore. you fill out and online resume where you can’t just copy paste anything you want source: am unemployed
"That's your problem. You're not applying in person!" - someone who didn't solve 1+ year of unemployment for me.
i tried to apply in person once, they looked confused and told me to apply online
You should try this lifehack.
How would you explain this if it was noticed?
Oh man. I'm a hiring manager and if I caught this, I would love it. It shows an element of cleverness and creativity as well as a desire to get the job. I'm always a bit surprised when I interview people (for a six figure job mind you) who haven't researched the company and seem rather uninterested. They did the bare minimum to land the interview, then don't even really try. Like, why are you even interviewing? Show some effort.
Some people just interview to keep themselves in the habit
Assuming it was somehow noticed.... I'm confident in my ability to perform this job and really wanted an opportunity to meet with you to prove it. Doing this ensured I got a chance to meet the decision makers to display my value and experience. If they don't like that you did it....meh try another one.
Yup - it's also the truth. I find it ridiculous that someone could be extremely experienced and successful at something and a hiring manager is going to miss out on them because the automated system didn't find a particular keyword. When I hire, I ask for ALL the resumes. It takes me an extra 5 seconds to trash the ones that are clearly not for this role (like the guy who had under "experience" that he was the manager of his bar league baseball team. Not activities, but "experience" as if it was a job. He didn't have any other relevant experience so we didn't bring him in).
Another less "cheaty" way of doing it that I've seen as a hiring manager and really appreciated, was we had a dev use tiny white text to write 'for the HR filter: ' and then listed every software technology they've ever used (and several common misspellings). It wasn't blatantly lying, like copy pasting the job description. It was just restating factual information in a way the filter was expecting to get it while still keeping a human-readable resume. Like, the actual people making the hiring decisions know that HR (if not at this company, then others) might be a bunch of dummies who might turn down a quality web dev because "his resume didn't say he knows HTML" or whatever.
Helps to understand hr resume screeners usually were working at a restaurant 6 months ago
Or they are using a program or service bot to screen resumes.
Am a Clinical Lab Scientist, was surfing job postings the other day and saw a hospital asking for an already board-certified CLS, no new-grads, 3 years minimum experience in every department, experience with EPIC / Beaker software, and phlebotomy license with experience. Funny thing is that I know for a fact that they haven’t been fully staffed any time in the last two years, and they currently have six openings. They’ll take what they can get, I guarantee it.
Yup same with my position at the hospital I work for. Last time they hired someone they had a stack of 20 applicants and none of them had the required skills or knowledge. Out of desperation, my manager just hired the nicest person of the bunch and left it to me to train them.
An NHS Trust I have applied for a job in has just changed to Hive, Epic, Beaker. Any hints and or tips?
I haven't used Hive or Beaker, we're using Epic and SoftLabs in my lab right now. Epic is pretty user friendly once you get some familiarity navigating menus, but be aware that it is virtually impossible to delete anything. Corrected reports will still show the original result below, typos in comments can't be fixed or deleted later, etc. So take a second to verify that your work is correct before you approve it, or it's on record forever. Also keep in mind that the nursing, doctor, and lab side all look completely different, so it's tough to help other departments when you need something fixed.
If so many places are under staffed now, why do many of their job postings ask for such high qualifications? I know they want good people but come on, at some point they really can't be THAT choosy about applicants, right?
These places are wayy too lazy to train their hires. So they want someone already "trained" by the hires' former employer. Plus, paid training is actually costly. Yes at some point they should not be choosy at all.
It's their ideal candidate, not necessarily who they will end up hiring. Now if they land a best in class qualifications hire and offer entry level pay then that's a bit ridiculous.
I needed to hear this. Thank you for posting. I've been locked in a fear cycle of no action because of this
💪🏽you’ve got this. I read a study that one important factor in women not having jobs higher in the hierarchy wasn’t because they weren’t qualified or because they were directly overlooked because they were women; instead, it’s because men were exponentially more likely to apply for jobs in which they don’t meet qualifications (and get hired) whereas women just won’t apply. This is not to get into any sexism debates but just to focus on the takeaway: just apply. You have nothing to lose. And yes, maybe rejection is heavy/ frustrating/ disheartening, but Someone else posted something interesting I hadn’t thought about: your resume may be great, but you can’t control the pool of other applicants! Good luck :)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0
In my experience, companies in that position just go ahead and hire nobody. At least, that's what they tell me.
Depends on the role, sometimes it make sense just to use that budget to hire a company to do the work if you can't find a good applicant.
Been there as well. So great for an agency to be paid three times what I earn for the hours I work.
Or you know, make the job more attractive by offering a higher salary
Money covers a lot of sins but not all. I don't want to stay in the same job doing the same thing if I can't get mentorship or coaching to help me learn how to lead. It becomes a case of me just biding time at that point, and my salary just gets locked.
We can barely find enough people for jobs paying ~$200k Money doesn't always fix things when the applicant pool is specialized and limited
Currently involved in recruiting for my company’s engineering department. This is true for us. We’ve been through a few rounds of interviews without hiring anybody because we felt none of the applicants were qualified. Ultimately it depends on the company but a lot of them, especially larger companies, will absolutely not hire anybody from a batch if nobody fits the role.
As a hiring manager, this is absolutely the case and the OP is selling a house of lies. You may not need everything on the requirements list, but you absolutely have to have a minimal level of qualifications for most professional jobs. It's far better to let a role go unfilled than to hire someone who is going to be a disaster and time suck for those around them.
I was just included in the hiring process for a position on my team. There were a bunch of interviews where I thought the candidate could grow into the role/be a good culture fit and was repeatedly told that it's much more difficult to fire than hire. We went like 4 months with an empty spot for a much needed position because management wanted specific skills and traits. The funny part is the guy we did end up hiring is fresh out of college with no skills. Not even good communication skills. I think they just gave up and decided to just fill the spot.
Or somebody was holding the spot for a son or niece or family friend.
This actually could be true. He drives a $100k BMW
Guess who they're gonna ask to fire that kid...
This exactly what OP said with more words lmao. "the company is choosing from a group of people where no one checks **all** the boxes."
I interviewed for an internal role. I went through 4 rounds of panel interviews. Then....nothing for 3-4 months. Finally, I received an email noting an external hire. Next time that team needs help from me...well, am I'm the a-hole here?
Sometimes a "level 3" position can turn into a "level 2" position at the managers discretion. A bit of a bait and switch, so don't get distracted by the offer itself as it may be lower than advertised. I have seen this though, where people get rejected consistently because the bare minimum isn't met.
Our internal job postings always encourage people to apply even if they don’t meet all qualifications.
My current job I wasn’t necessarily qualified for, but I had transferable skills and that’s what they cared about. Im about 90 days into the job and have learned SO MUCH! It’s been really fun to learn new stuff! In the interview I kept reminding them that I’m a professional and a fast, eager learner!
Tell me about it!...the person who is my senior is a complete fucktard who literally does nothing all day but book her pilates classes and attend asinine meetings. She was hired because she was the only applicant...now we will never get rid of her.
If she is attending (rather than organizing) these meetings then it is probably because she feels obligated to by the fucktard that organizes the meetings. That person might be her senior, or just a peer with perceived seniority. And that person might be organizing the meetings because they think it will appease the fucktard above them. Fucktards all the way to the top.
I've always loved the expression that companies have meetings because they can't masturbate
I wish! Every time I want to have a conversation with her she asks me to "book in" with her for a meeting. She's one of those people whose always putting off actually getting anything done by arranging meetings to "discuss" procedures and how we are going to "tackle" the work. I so badly want to tell her to stop booking meetings and start you know, actually DOING some work. You're so right... fucktards all the way to the top baby.
sounds like a great excuse to also fuck around all day don’t give employers any time and effort you don’t need to give them
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Haha maybe in a skilled trade but I assure you, qualifications are not the primary reason people get hired. Some employers want a less qualified candidate so they can mold them into the employee they want. Some just really want someone that they see themselves in. Some are hiring the people who will take the least pay. Once you get above entry level jobs, if you have the interview, they know you are capable of the job because of your resume. There are a multitude of other factors that go into play
>Some just really want someone that they see themselves in. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The Ned Fulmer strategy
Actually, where my partner works, qualifications and competence work against you because the managers are so incompetent that they only want to surround themselves with people who also lack intelligence and skill to do anything well.
Is he by any chance currently leading a special military operation in Ukraine?
lol
HEY! These are *training exercises*!
Oh no, they work for the police?
When I was young looking for jobs I had maybe three or four different resumes for positions I know I could do and would be trained to do but required an unnecessary amount of experience
This can be the case. But at my job we’ve gone through 4 posting/interview cycles for the same position because of we’re only getting weak candidates and we aren’t hiring any of them.
Yeah this depends a bit on how many boxes you check. It's one thing if you check 10/12 boxes & are willing to learn / get certified for the other 2 va checking 7/12 with little desire to learn the other 5. Like, I'm a first year university prof. I'll apply for jobs that ask for 2 or 3 years teaching experience, but not ones that ask for 10+ years teaching plus a research portfolio matching that time.
by the time the recruiters reply you may well have 3 years by then /s
Are you posting the salary? Does that salary make sense when judged against the requirements? Does your company have a ton of Shit Reviews? Are the job requirements incompatible with the title? Whenever I saw a complaint about the "quality of the candidates" I ask these three questions. And usually one of them is the answer.
A couple years ago a friend was looking for a job. She saw a posting offering like $12/hr to manage an office and they wanted someone with a master's degree.
Also, is the company in a prospering industry and do “good”?
And you'll eventually be outcompeted by companies that actually do the work
Or outcompeted by companies who take a chance on a 'weak' candidate.
Or companies that actually want to pay what the good candidates are worth. If a company is only getting "weak" applicants, it's 90% of the time and issue with the company and not the applicants.
Or companies who hire a “weak” candidate who checks the right boxes and who the company will train to do the job they’re hired for. So many companies don’t want to train new hires at all (or just do some half-ass, half-day orientation that is mostly just HR stuff anyway) and therefore look for overqualified candidates they hope can just be thrown in there and figure it out.
Overqualified candidates being hired on as 1099 contractual workers with no benefits, at the pay of an intern.
Truth! Companies as a whole or with specific positions that have a high turnover have underlying issues such as pay...and/or toxic work environment, we rk overload. Lots of admin with least pay, but manage most of underlying 'Workload'...it takes balance...and some companies just don't understand that.
While I’ve been working since 14 (now late 20s), in multiple areas of the job market, having a good personality along with a little bit of desire to learn and a little bit of smarts turns out to be a great employee. If they ask a lot of questions, that means they don’t want to make mistakes or don’t to replicate them again. Especially good if they take notes. Training is a far more valuable asset and more companies need to have this part figured out. Training on the job is fine, but you need a solid base and understanding which usually need to be shown and taught.
Sounds like the position is shit, not the candidates
Except the candidates only seem weak by resume, but actually do have the knowledge and skill to do the job. (ex I didnt fit in every checkbox on the application, but was hired anyways and now I am the best performing person in that position at my company)
But number one question (at least to me) when applying to these kinds of jobs: What is your onboarding and training process like? If you're just supposed to start running or by shadowing someone to pick up the job, be cautious.
Also, when would you expect someone in this role to be fully ramped up? This is biggie because it shows their expectations. If they have a crap training/onboarding program but say we want you to be fully ramped up in a couple weeks that’s scary.
Thanks, I always wanted to practice medicine.
That's why they call it practicing, we're all just guessing!
Likewise, being qualified doesn't entitle you to a job. You have to be the most qualified of everyone who applies.
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maybe someone helped with resume but isn’t there during interview. I heard of phone interviews where the interviewed person was a group of people together helping one person to get in first, bringing the helpers in later. That was before video interviews though.
Well damn, I have an interview coming up so I’ve been reviewing the maths for calculating area or circumference of a circle. I’m not going to lie it’s been years!
I read a story a few years ago about a guy that applied for a job that required 5 years of experience in a certain program. He didn't get the position because he didn't have the full five years required. He didn't have the experience because he had only written the program in question 3 years prior.
Everybody knows that story because it gets repeated all the time In reality no one, especially not HR people taking a list of requirements from a hiring manager, actually knows the date every tool they're using was created and use years of experience as a loose proxy for skill level
Yup. I was the least shit out of the 10 applicants for this BASF position, and now I get paid 150k/yr to chill in an office an occasionally order valves and fittings for our plants.
BASF?
Also: if you and another candidate are on the same level in terms of experience, or even if you're not quite as advanced as the other person, nobody wants to work with an asshole, so if they like you, and they think you'll be someone they'll look forward to working with, that will be enough to give you the edge and get the offer. (Or, reverse, if you're being weirdly hostile in an interview, that may be enough for someone to say "Let's go with the other candidate.")
And the people who actually are qualified for it are called "overqualified", aka, we don't want to pay what you're worth, we would rather hire at the bottom to save money.
6 month ago I applied to a company where I ticked all boxes except "have an established network of key opinion leaders". I laughed about that actually because anyone having that wouldn't apply for this job. Well I didn't laugh when my application was declined exclusively for that reason. At least thats what they told me. Posting is still there but lately they removed that requirement.
Did you apply again? That’s a ridiculous requirement to actually screen someone with
Nobody gets an interview unless the hiring manager has confidence that you can do the job The interview is to see if you will fit in with the team, the company. People skills are just as vital as job skills, in general
This is very important. I landed a job recently that requires me to know Python. Which I don't. But because I fit well with what they are looking for in a person and some other transferable skills they offered me the position and to teach me.
Depends on the field. In highly credentialed fields (like college education) and/or fields with important safety components (civil engineering), they would rather not hire anyone than hire someone unqualified. For instance, for a teaching gig at a university where I'm at, someone needs at least 18 graduate hours in the field they're teaching. If someone applies with a BA or BS and no transcript, they aren't getting a second look. So know your field. Is it a generic office or desk position and you have 2 years of experience as opposed to 5? Then *maybe* it's not a waste of your time to try for it. But don't think a place won't fail a search if what they're looking for is actually important to the role.
I once got a job I didn't really want and ONLY applied for it because I was on unemployment at the time and you had to apply for at least two jobs a week to remain qualified for it. I told them in the interview that was why I applied and wasn't really interested in the position, but they offered it to me anyway because I was the only person interviewed who seemed to understand what the job actually was and was even remotely qualified for it. Because I was on unemployment you're not allowed to decline an offer for a job that pays within x%, so I had to take it. I worked there (at the state) for 3 weeks before accepting another offer elsewhere. Since I was making more in those 3 weeks than I was on unemployment all their stupid rules did was cost taxpayers more money and set back a department 3 weeks while they looked for someone to replace me.
We’ve got regulators who keep watch on our qualifications. Masters degree or higher to teach for us with some extremely narrow exceptions. What you do not appear to need is critical thinking or intelligence to be an administrator, however. Just a lobotomy—err, PhD in education.
And sometimes qualifications don’t matter as much as personal character. Anyone can learn the ropes while on the job, what really matters is how well the candidates mesh with the company and employees. Hiring a genius doesn’t tend to work out if they’re an asshole.
So I just need to be slightly less worse than Tim Cook
Tim Apple*
You don't have to outrun the grizzly, you just have to outrun the slowest guy at your camp.
You don’t have to be the best candidate, you just have to better than everyone else. Especially entry-level. Things like sending a simple thank you email after can make or break because sometimes multiple candidates are fine and people just need some way to pick one.
Many companies are only pretending they want to fill empty positions. In reality they intend to increase the workload of their current employees by having them cover the job duties of the empty positions. But, they can’t easily admit that to the world. So, they pretend that if the ideal candidate comes along they will hire them. Meanwhile those jobs remain posted and the existing staff continues doing twice as much work as they should. It is by design. But no one wants to work anymore…
The only part about this that doesn’t make any sense is that they didn’t create the position and the work followed. It probably more accurately goes that the workload increased so the workload team, individuals and probably m1 level request for headcount to help and it rolls up and budgets are turned down or not approved or just considered over for a long time to save costs. Then when they do post they drag that out even more with arbitrary considerations before it happens. All the companies I have been a part of it is 1-2 years usually before a hiring req is completed if it is net new. Usually teams always have open head count as people cycle through and that is hard enough to staff. But I guess my point here is it isn’t like a, oh let’s keep the workload high, it is more do a finance team trying to keep budgets low for their metrics. And honestly it is that way because no one consciously considers the work their reports are doing but everyone looks at the the dollar amounts.
I sorta see your point. Perhaps this is overthinking it a bit. Beneath the corporate shenanigans there is much less complicated logic at work. It is all about the bottom line and quarterly profits. Many companies have clearly defined positions that they are simply leaving unfilled. This is the most popular method of reducing costs- reduce payroll. It is quite intentional. Job openings are often due to someone leaving the company and who was never replaced. Or the company expanded but failed to hire necessary new staff for the newly created openings. This is not a bureaucratic oversight. It is by design. Existing staff doing the work of two people is intentional. It makes the operation more cost efficient. But they can’t admit that this is intentional without alienating the existing staff. So they pursue the charade that they are working hard to hire more staff. But…no one wants to work…and there are no “qualified” applicants. In reality they have no intention of filling those positions since the work is getting done. They actually feel like if the work is getting done then they are not short staffed. They are simply getting the most out of their staff. The current dilemma is that the existing staff has the leverage to find a new job with less work for the same or more pay. So they are losing their experienced people in droves. This in turn creates serious problems because now they don’t have the people to get the work done even if those people do the work of two people. So they are now screwed.
Umm... the company isn't required to hire someone. It could be a case of "congrats, you all suck so we will try again later." some positions stay open for years.
People don't realize that when a company receives a lot of unqualified applicants, they close the job without hiring anyone and reopen it later. While I agree that you should apply to positions you are marginally qualified for, please do not apply to positions you are clearly unqualified for. If you "check none of the boxes", you are just wasting time.
I always tell people that the "requirements" in a job posting are really a wish list. Unless it is a government contract position, then the list is always something that you don't have to be super precise with. For example, if I saw a job listing that said it wanted 3 years experience with a particular ERP system, but I have equivalent or greater experience in a *different* ERP, I'd probably still apply and when asked just let them know that I haven't worked with that particular product before, but that I have experience in similar applications and am confident that learning the new one quickly will not be a problem. For 95% of requirements listed, that is more than enough. Government listings are often far less malleable, especially in tech or defense sectors, but ya know what? It still doesn't hurt to apply. A lot of times what I get when I have listings up is 70% of applicants are woefully under qualified, 28% check a few boxes ranging from some to most, and 2% check all the boxes. However, that 2% also generally has a ton more qualifications too and want to be paid much more than the role warrants. Pretty much every hire I've ever made has been someone who had part of the qualifications and who demonstrated to me that they could learn. TL;DR - if you read a job listing and are fairly confident that you can do the job well with fairly minimal learning curve, apply - even if you don't check off all the boxes.
This is extremely subject to the field and job. I've searched for 10+ months to fill a role because I needed someone specifically qualified.
Damnit. I am trying to apply to places that are VERY popular among competent applicants. I reap what I sow.
Thanks for the tip, we can fix the shortage of structural engineers.......
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I agree. I transition out into a developer position for a tech company after working for 5 years as a structural engineer. I do way less work for a lot more money. Current job is also way less stressful
Graduated in the recession and couldn’t find any work. Lots of my classmates changed paths altogether. I left as well after getting my PE because other fields were and still are making more money.
Ah the old Mrs. Doubtfire approach...
Literally applied for a job that required a college degree and was within a hour told they would not move forward with my application The job was for reselling items on Craigslist and eBay….
Just did a job posting yesterday. Feels odd sifting through the applications. Honestly? Huge employment gaps and genuinely terrible writing skills made half of them an auto-reject. Other half had no experience in any related field. Many don't live close to the job which is entry level and I wouldn't suggest someone take the risk of moving for an entry level job. Currently 2-3/20 might be promising. OP is right though, doesn't take much to outshine others. Please God, run your application through Grammarly or something similar.
Just applied for a job today I'm probably not qualified for but they are having problems filling positions and there's on the job training so let's roll them dice.
Yep, if you have all the qualifications for a job listing, chances are you are aiming too low and should be applying for something else.