You counted 7 of 10 job requirements, closed the tab and called it a rejection. Nobody rejected you – you eliminated yourself before a human saw your name.
Quick answer: Yes, apply when you meet about seven of ten job requirements. A posting is a wish list that several people wrote, and the hiring manager usually cares about four items. Find those four, lead with your overlap on them, and don’t apologize for the rest.
Why do job requirements read like a bar you’re failing?
Because a committee wrote them. In my experience, a posting starts as one person’s ask, then four or five others add theirs. Nobody ranks the list or removes the duplicates, so the hiring manager cares about maybe four items. The rest is what the room wanted, along with world peace and a pony.
I’ve written postings like that myself. As I covered in how to read a job description, the document is a wish list, not a test score.
You may have heard that men apply at 60% of the qualifications while women wait for 100%. That line gets repeated everywhere, including in an HBR piece on why women don’t apply. Treat it as a rough pattern, not a rule. The useful part is the behavior underneath: smart people disqualify themselves from a list that nobody expects to fill.
Should you apply if you meet 7 of 10 requirements?
Yes, if the seven include the requirements that matter. Here’s the process I use with clients:
- Copy the job requirements into a doc, one per line.
- Mark the four that carry weight. Look for the ones in the title, the ones repeated in the responsibilities, and the ones listed first.
- Score yourself on those four only. Give yourself a yes, a partly or a no on each.
- Apply at three yeses, or two yeses and two partlys. That’s my rule of thumb, not a statistic.
- Skip the rest. If you meet 7 of 10 but miss the core of the role, it’s a no. Counting alone doesn’t decide it.
In other words, a high count with the wrong seven fails, while a lower count with the right ones wins.
Which job requirements actually disqualify you?
Fewer than you think. Treat these as hard walls:
- Legal or licensed requirements, such as a required certification, a security clearance or work authorization.
- Location rules you can’t meet, like an onsite role in a city you won’t move to.
- The core skill in the title. If it says “Staff Data Engineer” and you’ve never written a pipeline, that’s a gap you can’t bridge with a cover letter.
Everything else bends. Years of experience, tool lists and “nice to have” items are proxies, and a hiring manager will trade them for proof that you’ve solved the same problem. So don’t count a missing tool as a no. Ask whether you’ve done the work that tool supports.
How do you apply when you’re missing a few pieces?
Remember that unicorns don’t exist, but rhinos do. A rhino has a horn, four legs and a tail, which is close enough for a hiring manager to look at you and see most of what they asked for.
The pieces don’t have to come from the same job. Take the industry from one role, the level from another and the tool experience from a third. They need to know you’ve done it, but they don’t need to know you did it all at once.
So lead with the overlap, not the gap. That’s the R in my RHINO Method: Reposition. Put the matching work in your top third, name the problem you solved, and stay quiet about what you lack. Then hand them the dots instead of drawing the conclusion, which I explain in why interview answers need evidence, not claims.
Finally, test the approach. Apply to ten roles at 7 of 10, then check your last 10 applications and see how many turn into conversations. That number tells you more than any rule I can give you.
FAQ
Should I apply if I don’t meet all the job requirements?
Yes. Most postings list more than the hiring manager needs, so apply when you meet the core four, even if your total is 60 to 70 percent.
How many job requirements do I need to meet?
Meet the three or four that carry weight, such as the title skill and the repeated responsibilities. The count matters less than which items you hit.
Do years-of-experience requirements matter?
Rarely as a hard rule. They stand in for proof that you’ve done the work, so show a result that matches the problem instead of arguing about the number.
What to do next
If you want to know what a slow search is costing you, run the job search cost assessment. It takes 90 seconds and gives you a monthly dollar figure.
If a stretch role is the one you keep talking yourself out of, read how to land a stretch role your resume can’t justify next.
If you’d rather have someone look at your target list and tell you which postings to chase first, book a free strategy call.