A job posting is written by three people. The hiring manager writes what the job is. A recruiter adds the list of everything a perfect candidate would have. Legal adds the paragraph at the bottom. You are meant to read the first part, meet most of the second, and ignore the third. Most people read the second part, count what they lack, and close the tab.
Key points
- The title and the first paragraph are the job. Read them twice.
- The requirements list is a wish list. The hire meets about two thirds of it.
- A requirement that repeats across the posting is a real one.
- Years of experience are a proxy for level. A level is negotiable, a year count is not.
- The pay line is the floor of a range, when it is there at all.
The four parts
| Part | Who wrote it | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Title and first paragraph | The hiring manager | The job. What you will do on a Tuesday. |
| Responsibilities | The hiring manager, edited | The job again, as a list. |
| Requirements and nice-to-haves | A recruiter, from a template | A wish list. |
| Equal opportunity, pay range, benefits | Legal and HR | Compliance. Sometimes the only honest numbers. |
Read the first part twice. The second time, count the things it says you will do. Those are what the interview will be about, and those are what your resume has to answer.
The wish list, and how to read it
The requirements list is the part people fail themselves on. Ten lines, and they have seven, so they stop.
The list is a wish. It was written before anyone applied, often by copying the last posting for a similar role. The person they hire will not have all ten. In our reading of postings next to the resumes of people who got the interview, two thirds of the must-haves was the common level, and the missing third was nearly always the nice-to-haves and the tools.
A requirement that appears in the title, the first paragraph and the list is the one that matters. A requirement that appears once, in the list, is a wish.
Count the repeats. Three or four lines will repeat. Those are the job. Everything else is the recruiter's template.
Years of experience
"Five years" means a level, not a count. A hiring manager who writes five years is picturing someone who has owned a thing end to end and does not need a plan written for them. If you have done that in three years, say so with the thing you owned, and the count stops mattering. If you have eight years of doing part of a thing, the count will not save you.
On this site, Match reads the level the way a manager does, from the words around the number, and scores your resume against that.
The words that mean something else
Some phrases are code. Not malicious, but worn smooth.
| It says | It often means |
|---|---|
| Fast-paced | Understaffed |
| Wear many hats | The role is not defined yet |
| Self-starter | Nobody will onboard you |
| Competitive salary | They will not print it until they have to |
| Flexible | Flexible for them |
| Rockstar, ninja, guru | The posting was written in 2014 |
None of these is a reason not to apply. They are a reason to ask about the thing behind them in the screening call.
The pay line
Where the law requires a range, there is a range. The bottom of it is a floor the employer is willing to print. The top is a number nobody gets without a reason. The real offer sits in the lower half unless you bring a reason to the negotiation, and the guide on salary negotiation is about that reason.
Where there is no pay line, the posting is from a place that does not require one, or from an employer who chose not to. Our wages page has the median for the title by place, so you have a number before the recruiter asks you for one.
The nice-to-haves
The nice-to-have list is where a posting tells you what the last person had. It is not a bar. It is a description of a ghost. Nobody expects you to clear it, and a candidate who clears all of it is a candidate the employer cannot afford.
Read it for one thing: the direction the role is going. A nice-to-have that says "experience with healthcare data" on a design role tells you the team is moving into healthcare. If you have anything near it, one line on the resume says so. If you have nothing, the list is not a reason to stop.
Reading for the resume
You read a posting twice: once as a person, once as an editor. The editor's read produces five requirements, in the posting's words, in the posting's order. Those five are what you tailor the resume to, and the tailoring guide takes it from there.
The editor's read takes two minutes. The person's read takes as long as you want to work there.
Questions
I meet half the requirements. Do I apply?
If the half you meet includes the repeats, yes. If the repeats are in the half you lack, no. A posting that repeats "Figma" four times is a Figma job, whatever else it lists.
The posting is three paragraphs with no list. What then?
A manager wrote it alone, which is a good sign. Everything in it is the job. Read it twice and answer all of it.
What does "or equivalent experience" mean after a degree?
That the degree line is a template line and the manager will read your work. Apply.
The posting asks for a tool I do not know. Is that a no?
A tool is learnable, and most managers know it. Name the tool you do know for the same job, and say so. A requirement for a method, a language or a domain is harder to answer that way.
Why do some postings list a salary of $1 to $1,000,000?
To satisfy a law that requires a range without saying anything. Treat it as no pay line.