An entry-level posting that asks for three years of experience is not a joke, and it is not a trap. It is a template. The recruiter copied the last posting and left the number in. The hire will have one year, or an internship, or a project that looks like a year. Our entry-level page tracks how many postings say junior and how many of those ask for experience anyway, and the gap has been there for a decade. Apply to them. The number is a wish.
Key points
- "Entry-level" plus a year count is a template. The hire will not have the years.
- Real entry-level roles cluster in a few industries and a few months. Our entry-level page shows which.
- Three things count as experience: internships, projects with users, and part-time work in the field.
- The requirements that bend are tools and years. The ones that do not are the degree, where it is legally required, and the location.
- Apply to the role, not the number.
What "entry-level" means now
Thirty years ago an entry-level role was a role for someone with nothing but a degree. Then hiring systems arrived and the posting became a form, and the form had a years field, and nobody put zero in it.
Today the word means the lowest rung the team has. On a team whose lowest rung is a junior engineer with a year of internships, the entry-level posting asks for a year. On a team that hires graduates every summer, it asks for nothing. The word does not tell you which. The rest of the posting does.
An entry-level posting describes the last person hired, not the next one.
Where the real ones are
Our entry-level page counts postings by level across the board and shows the share that are junior, by industry and by month. Three patterns hold.
- Industry. Healthcare, retail operations, customer support, sales and public sector hire at the bottom all year. Software and design hire at the bottom in waves, mostly around graduation.
- Season. Postings marked junior rise in late summer and in January. Internship postings rise in autumn for the next summer.
- Company size. Large employers run graduate programmes with fixed intakes. Small employers hire one junior when the senior is drowning, and those postings do not say entry-level at all. They say "junior" or nothing, and they ask for less.
Set an alert for the title without the level, and let the two-minute read find the junior ones.
Which requirements bend
| Requirement | Bends? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Years of experience | Yes | A proxy for level. Projects and internships are the same level. |
| A specific tool | Yes | Learnable in weeks. Name the tool you know for the same job. |
| A degree | Sometimes | Required by law in some fields. A template line in most. |
| A location | Rarely | Payroll and tax, not preference. |
| A language | No | If the job is in French, it is in French. |
| A licence or certification | No | Nursing, accounting, driving. The role cannot exist without it. |
What counts as experience
Three things count, and most people with none of the years have two of them.
- Internships. Paid or not. Three months on a real team with a real manager is a year on a resume, because that is how the manager reads it.
- Projects with users. Not a tutorial. A thing you built, that someone other than you used, that you can show. A site with a hundred visitors is a project. A course exercise is not.
- Part-time and volunteer work in the field. Six months of weekends doing the design for a charity is design experience. Say it the way a job is said: role, organisation, dates, three bullets.
Write all three up as roles on the resume. The guide on a resume with no experience has the layout, and the resume builder on this site holds a projects section for exactly this.
The letter and the first call
An entry-level application is read for two things the resume cannot carry: whether you can write a paragraph, and whether you know what the job is. A short cover letter does both. Three sentences on the thing you built, two on why this team, one that says what you want to learn first. The guide on a cover letter with no experience has the shape.
In the screening call, the question is "why this?". Answer with the job, not the company. "I want to do the research part, because that was the part of my project that changed the outcome" is an answer. "I love your mission" is not.
Questions
Do I apply to a posting that asks for three years when I have none?
Yes, when the repeats in the posting are things you have done in a project or an internship. No, when the repeats are things that only come from years, like leading a team.
Do graduate programmes beat open applications?
For large employers, yes. The programme is the only door for juniors, and it opens on a date. Our entry-level page shows when postings rise. Open applications work for small employers, where the programme does not exist.
Is an unpaid internship worth it?
Only if it is short, teaches a named thing, and is legal where you are. US law limits unpaid internships to ones that mainly benefit the intern. A six month unpaid role that does the work of a junior is a junior job without the pay.
What if I have a degree in something else?
Lead with the project, and let the degree sit in the education section at the bottom. The guide on a career change resume has the reframing, and it works at the start of a career as well as the middle.
How many entry-level applications before a reply?
More than at other levels. The reply rate at the bottom is low because the pile is deep. Thirty applications is the point where the numbers start to mean something, and the tracker is how you see them.