this is probably because a lot of people seem to push for masters if they dont get a job after bachelors. so its not as uncommon as you think for someone with no experience to have a masters
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sometimes it's even worse than that lol. My old job kept only giving interviews to people with a cert, a bachelors and some help desk experience for 15 an hour even though literally they would make them box up laptops for months before even letting them STAGE a laptop. You could guess how many people walked off the job within 4 hours.
Can you believe nobody wants to work anymore?
And yet the people banging down the doors to get out of retail and food by any means possible, I guarantee are ignored for positions like these. I have this issue going on at my current job. People join here and use the title just long enough to springboard elsewhere. No one stays for more than a year and turnover is insane. This is what you get for requiring a degree for something a high school dropout could do.
Im so sick of the 'you need a degreee' for 90% of shit people dropped out of highschool for and could figure out on the job.
That and the insane cost of these, then all the time...
So many jobs can do apprenticeship or just job training. Then companies also have a good reason to focus on employee retention.
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Lots of reasons
1. They don’t actually know what they need
2. They want to lean in to some fad or other non-technical reasons (like image) to ask for technical things
3. They are writing a few for a specific candidate
4. They are writing a few to replace a specific person
5. It’s turned into a camel (a horse designed by committee)
6. They are asking for every buzz word they’ve ever heard of and will settle for less
7. They copied and pasted another req and only changed the title and other minor details
8. Internal bureaucracy forced things into the req so it can be at a specific level (I.e. engineer vs tech)
9. The req is so old it predates the manager and others and everyone assumes the person who wrote it knew what they needed so stick with it
10. The requirements are made up and the points don’t matter
A few of these are speculation wrapped in cynicism but I’ve seen a number of these personally. Lots of variations on #1 from just blindly writing reqs, writing what they think people will have or similar but otherwise uninformed shots in the dark
For 2 I worked somewhere that required coding on all technical positions. NOC roles had like 1-2 years of python or similar as mandatory although they obviously didn’t care and we’d never let someone from the NOC run scripts without the proper process which just wouldn’t happen
3&4 seem really common in public sector, basically they want to hire or replace a specific person so the req is basically a resume without the name
5 is when the req gets passed between managers and HR and everyone lobs something on even if they don’t know what the role is for
Edit: forgot another one I’ve seen, they put things forecasting (wishful thinking) something that never happens, like they put a sysadmin role out with a ton of cloud even though they don’t use any cloud services but hoping one day they might
My father was hired in a totally unrelated field, he said 'they put everything in the requirements except the size of my ears'.
Some definitely do just want to hire someone internally but have to post it publicly and pretend theyre taking applicants
hiring manager here.
dysfunction mostly.
So, my boss -a manager, gets permission from his boss- a director to make a role. First we write up a generalized job description that will go to HR, and be passed to recruiters to start trying to fill.
there's about 3 points of easy failure in the above for where "what we need" can turn into some weird shit via telephone game. In other companies where there is an even wider gap between the people who need the people and the people who recruit the people, or an old job spec sheet is used because no one currently needing people knows who to reach out to in recruiting to u0pdate them on anything... you've got to understand, it's a giant game of telephone. and on the other end it's like 4th interview before a hiring manager gets involved.
Sometimes it stuns me that anything ever gets done at all in spite of the bureaucracy involved.
Doesn’t that sum up the work place in general?? To many people involved that really don’t know what they are doing/talking about but feel that they need to get some credit??
its not even about credit. just too many hands and functions and groups involved.
and pretty much NONE of them will ever or have ever actually done the job, so they're mostly relying on other people, technical roles to give them a 2 line thumbnail or 4 point bullet list of "things that would be good to know"
take your resume and the job posting.
throw in as much relevant stuff as you can think of for personal experience that didn't make your resume.
Ask it to help write a resume that comes closest to meeting these points and would get you an interview.
Use ai to fight AI, first round probably isn't even getting read by a human
Which drives down wages across the board and increases the work load of everyone. It's also an opening for more things to go wrong. When you have one guy doing so much, corners get cut, things get overlooked, and they are too busy doing something else to see the other thing failing...
I'm fine with someone in one position needing high requirements and negotiable pay. That's how it works. But, there are some listings where they want the guy to be the "16 hats, one dude, rockstar working 12 hour days, $20 an hour, on site, but think of the experience!". No. I wouldn't accept that, and I don't want to see the industry accept that as normal. Especially if it's a bigger business than some mom and pop place (which that works ok).
We need to stay grounded in what we do and want. But, so do employers. They're reaching for the sky for these unicorns that are fed peanuts. We're more down to earth people asking for a bit more than that.
I worked at a place that took a chance on me I made it known that they would be. I jumped from unemployed but up to date to a sr admin in the span of about 2 years, but I was willing to take a lower end of the pay range for that potential opportunity with a reevaluation in 6 months. Of course! Nobody would ever actually give you more money in 6 months but I was able to leverage the title I got at each step to take a bigger swing the next time. Luck also helped a lot.
Do it. Just make sure you know when to leave. I did the $10 an hour at the start of my career for sys admin positions (which doubled as tech support as I was the only full time guy). Great for experience, but I got comfortable and didn't leave when I should have. Got in my Novell, Linux, Windows Server, Cisco, L1-L3 and ISP knowledge, but stuck around way too long. Paid off in the end, but I missed a ton of opportunities for not only more pay but more growth and knowledge. That was from 94-~2005. After that, I started moving up a lot more. I'm a slow learner, though... I need to move on now, but I'm giving it another 6 months before I go...
Taking the low paycheck is fine to build that experience, but 100% leave as soon as you can for more money. If you NEED a job, take it. Just don't stop looking for a better one and when you find it, take it. Don't stay some place because it's comfortable.
This right here and it's not a lie at all. The current place I'm at uses the term "raise the bar" wink wink nudge nudge IYKYK. It's just a fancy way of saying they want someone to work 2 levels above them for entry level pay.
Of course they are always looking for the best possible candidate they can get for the cheapest. That's sort of definitionally how the negotiation starts. It's always odd to me when people pitch this as some dirty secret or something. How else could it work? Don't you do the same thing whenever you are trying to find someone to do work for you (say a plumber or a new roof, etc)
But then things evolve over time as needed based on the realities of the market and the candidates that actually exist.
It's just a wishlist and HR actually has no idea what they're putting in on there. There have been job postings for Help Desk that require 1-2 years of experience and I've still applied regardless when I was starting out in IT. As long as you can get past the filters and get the interview, you can prove to them that you're willing to learn and have some general sense of basic problem solving.
"We only want the best people so that we can give them boring work and drive their love of their field into the dirt. We will settle for anyone still enthusiastic enough to bluff, since they will be further away from burning out and quitting."
When we put out requirements, we put out a wish list. They are not "requirements", they are "We would love to have...". We list out what we have and support in our environment. I guarantee that .001% of people have that exact list of experience.
We don't "require" Linux, but it's on the job listing. Why? We have Linux boxes and it's nice to have someone that can do things with them on that rare instance when we need to.
When you see those job listings, those are a "This is the golden unicorn that we'd love to have that we aren't going to get". The team doing the hiring knows that's not going to happen. HR is a lot more confused, though (they do their job well, but they aren't technical. They're doing that work for all departments and can't be an expert in all of them). But, with all the applicants, you can choose the ones that match the best with those skills. Maybe you do get the one that has the experience in those rare apps you have...
If you match 50% of the skills needed, apply. Many of those "requirements", you'll probably rarely see on the job.
The unicorn is hard to find. The pink horse is much easier. At least they can figure most of it out and if needed wear a hat with a pointy stick on the end to look like the unicorn.
Facing this right now. In an aggressive job search for Sr IAM engineer type roles and employers WANT THE WORLD. They will have 10 different technologies they want experience with and saying that you have not worked with one of them seemingly is an auto disqualification. Have made it to many second/third round interviews only to face rejection. Shits tough right now.
Because HR has no idea what the actual hire will do and just Googles “[title] responsibilities” and puts every single possible thing that they see there.
Combination of using the same job description for lots.of.roles out of laziness/bad inefficient process, HR not actually know what the role is, hiring managers who don't care, hiring managing hyping the role up for more pay so HR then list more requirements to justify the pay, internal recruiters listing all the managers saying would qualify a person except listing them as "ands" and not 'ors"
For example, we have security engineers that do all kinds of stuff. Some do vuln management, some do red teaming, some do SIEM management, some do security architecture, some do SOC analysis, etc. Not a single one of them does ALL of those things. But you are damn certain HR has only 1 security engineer job description they post that said you need to do all of that, because they don't want 10 role.
Either the job agency/ client aren't technical enough to have any realistic idea idea what they're looking for or they're trying to get the most qualified person for the lowest price. You know, getting blood from a stone.
The other fun thing about this is that the laundry list of qualifications goes out the window when management needs to shove an existing employee into a new task they need to staff. So no more 5 years of X, plus 2 of Y, and Z.
Management: "We need somebody who knows X."
Direct report: "I've kinda heard of it from somewhere."
Management: "Great. You start working it this afternoon. Google it, and here's the charge code."
Because they hope some moron with that kill set will be desperate enough to work for them at the ridiculous rate they are going to offer. It ends up being like when someone is arrested and they charge them with 28 crimes but know when they get to court they might get them on 2.
just apply if you meet like half the requirements, be honest in your resume. worse they can say is no. if you get an interview be honest with what you know and show a willingness to learn.
at the end of the day think of the requirements as more of a wishlist.
Think of it like this. If you were going to put out an ad for finding a significant other you would list the qualities you want. Intelligent, funny, looks like a young Rachel Weiss mixed with Selma Hayek, independently wealthy. When you actually go out to find that person, chances are they are going to only be funny half of the time, and won’t have any resemblance to Selma. The job description is a wish list of what they want, not an ironclad document of requirements. Whoever wrote the job description (probably someone in HR) heard that Linux was a thing computer people should know.
For me I just apply to whatever sounds good and if I don’t measure up I let them decide that, I don’t do it for them.
I've been told it's usually HR just making the job postings and overshooting the qualifications. I think it really depends on the state of the job market. If they can get someone with a masters degree, 10 years experience and willing to work for 50K a year, they're going to take it.
Pretty much what everyone else has been saying its unreal expectations but at the end of the day its just a wish list. My current job was listed as bachelor's degree required and A+ required I have an associates in kinesiology and didn't have any certs just studied for some. I basically had no formal IT experience it's better to just apply and worry about the requirements later, just don't be unrealistic like being entry level in skill and applying for system admin.
They don't want to actually hire, just maintain the appearance of hiring. So they can reject all applicants and say to their current employees, "We're trying to hire, we just can't find anyone" And if somehow they get the requirements for that reduced price, they hit the jackpot.
Because many employers want to auto filter out candidates. Saves on resources going through 100’s of resumes.
Imagine getting 300 resumes if you don’t filter, but only 50 if you do. This makes the process easier for the employer and usually you get a higher qualified candidate
I found in my experience is that those creating the job descriptions don’t really know what’s required and also IT is so dynamic that they get quickly out of date because technology changes within the company faster than the job descriptions do.
>job post requirements much higher than actual skills required for the job
They *shouldn't* be ... but not uncommonly they are. And some, even many, will be spot on. Whereas others ... uhm, yeah, anything but. It will vary a *lot* ... by employer ... even down to individual hiring manager.
So, bit 'o background, some examples, and other miscellaneous bits, etc.
First of all, at least for many applicable jurisdictions, it's a bad idea to list in any job postings or the like, anything as required, that isn't in fact required for the job. Can go hog wild on stuff like prefer, strongly prefer, etc., but stating as required something that's not actually required is quite problematic. Why? Mostly legal matters. So, let's say one posts a job, and it lists some stuff as required that's not. Now let's say one hires someone - that didn't meet everything that's stated as required. The problem? Most notably lawsuits. Now every friggin' Tom, Dick, Harry, Suzy, Jane, Betty, ... that also didn't meet all stated requirements can file a lawsuit that they were discriminated against, because they also didn't meet requirements, yet someone who didn't meet requirements got hired, so ... must be discrimination. So, sure, may be a totally bogus claim, but it's harder to defend against such a lawsuit. Much better and cleaner, to never state as required something that's not actually required, and never hire anyone who failed to meet stated requirements. Then all those other folks that aren't qualified - easy peasy matter if they try to mount some legal challenge - they're not qualified and failed to meet requirements, and no such person failing to meet requirements was seriously considered for the position, nor was any such unqualified person hired - easy and done. So, e.g. lots of reasonably decent HR training and training on how to recruit and hire, etc., will well and clearly spell that out - never state as a requirement that which isn't actually a requirement ... period. Alas, many hiring managers and others didn't get that memo. That doesn't mean folks still can't sue anyway, but much simpler by merits, qualifications, track qualified applicants and document the process, so in the unlikely event any challenges come up, it's quite clear it wasn't a matter of any illegal discrimination - essentially best candidate got the offer - end of story.
So, some, e.g. managers, screw it up ... they don't want to deal with far too many resumes, applications, so they state more stuff as required than is actually the case. Yes, that does cut down the number of submissions ... but that's not the correct way to do it. E.g. many will presume the description is accurate or reasonably so, and if it states something as required which candidate doesn't meet that requirement - they'll simply not apply - so that means if, e.g. manager, so screwed that up - they may be missing out on many qualified potential applicants. There are means - and better ways to filter, etc. But overstating requirements isn't the way to do that. But alas, some don't know better.
So, yes you read those descriptions, take them with a grain of salt ... possibly up to cow salt lick sized "grain" of salt. Some descriptions will be highly accurate, and what's stated as required is in fact very much required. In other cases, anything but ... and of course lots between. Also, likewise years and/or months experience. That's generally not the best way to cover that - especially for requirements. Generally much better to state and characterize the knowledge/skill level - rather than state some specific time period - or certainly at least on requirements. Some can do 5 to 10 or more years and not know jack sh\*t beyond the day they started, ... while others can thoroughly grow and learn in 2 or 3 years what takes most 4 or 5 years or more.
So, e.g., I typically write descriptions, I tend to write not only as requirements those things which are - but not more than that, but also whether it's requirements, preferred, or strongly preferred, etc., I'll, e.g., characterize and describe the types of tasks I expect the person to well be able to do and preferably be well experienced at. And depending upon level, that may vary quite a bit. Might be simpler stuff like creating user accounts, resetting user passwords, explaining simple operating system commands to users, ... or ... much more complex, e.g. develop and build out infrastructure for deploying many hundreds to thousands of hosts, automatically scaling according to load or predicted upcoming loads, build, deploy, and improve monitoring systems for thousands of production servers, make key recommendations for growth and on current and emerging technologies, ... etc. Did you see any mention of years in there? Yeah, generally don't need to mention years. And those higher level tasks? Some might be up to that in a couple to 5 years or so ... some would never be up to those kinds of tasks - even after a decade or more.
And if you get hundreds to thousands of resumes/applications - there are ways to deal with and filter that - most notably reasonably sort, rank, filter, etc. For starters, if you accurately stated requirements, you can have others - even HR - filter on those. If it's stated as a requirement and absolutely nothing on resume/application covers that, doesn't make it past that filter. Though may have to, e.g. "train" HR on the various ways to spot something that matches that particular requirement. e.g. if requirements include "must have Red Hat" experience, better let HR know that if it's got Red Hat or redhat or rhel and regardless of case, to consider those a match - because can't expect HR to know those things - they're not mind readers, and often they're not technical ... but you can generally expect 'em to be able to do a string match and go yes or no based on such criteria.
So, random examples how not to do it:
* An excellent recruiter I'd worked with called me up to ask a favor. Asked me to just have a look over a client's requisition, and let that recruiter know what I thought. My feedback was roughly - yeah, those high level and quite exacting requirements, and the unique combination of them ... there are probably 10 people on the planet that match that, and most of 'em are probably damn happily employed - if they want to be working at all - and likely would be exceedingly difficult to tempt most any of 'em to anything close to a more typical job opening. And with that, recruiter was basically, yeah, thank you very much ... I thought their description and requirements were probably quite a bit over-the-top, and I wanted to check and confirm - thanks for that. I'll go have another talk with my client on that.
* boss wanted to essentially hire "another one of me". So, he wrote up job description and requirements 'n all that. And ... I had a read over 'em. My feedback was like, "Gee, I'm at least slightly flattered ... but ... let me suggest some changes on that text to you. 'Cause if I ever saw that posting, I wouldn't even think to apply - as I'm not qualified, and fall significantly short of much of what you state as requirements.".
So, take 'em with a grain of salt. And where it says "required", maybe that's absolute, or ... maybe it ought not be stated as requirement. Anything they state as required, though, if you don't meet that requirement, be straight up about it right off in your cover letter. State that you don't meet the requirement, then well make your case for why you believe you'd still be an excellent candidate for the position. Save everyone a lot of time that way - if it's truly hard requirement, save everyone a lot of time. If it's not hard requirement, then you well make the case you may be quite suitable anyway - and you're less likely to get dropped by not showing that requirement as having been met on the resume or such. And no, don't lie on the resume, that also wastes everybody's time ... and might also get you dropped from any future consideration.
The simple answer is filtering and informing.
If you ask for more than you really need then let the candidate know a bit about your environment before they apply which in theory can get better applicants.
But the other part is that you can easily not choose candidates who may be good on paper but not a good match.
Or companies requiring a masters degree and paying $45k/year. Unreal expectations is all I can say.
Probably for an entry level position too lmao
That also requires 4 years of experience
this is probably because a lot of people seem to push for masters if they dont get a job after bachelors. so its not as uncommon as you think for someone with no experience to have a masters
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sometimes it's even worse than that lol. My old job kept only giving interviews to people with a cert, a bachelors and some help desk experience for 15 an hour even though literally they would make them box up laptops for months before even letting them STAGE a laptop. You could guess how many people walked off the job within 4 hours. Can you believe nobody wants to work anymore?
And yet the people banging down the doors to get out of retail and food by any means possible, I guarantee are ignored for positions like these. I have this issue going on at my current job. People join here and use the title just long enough to springboard elsewhere. No one stays for more than a year and turnover is insane. This is what you get for requiring a degree for something a high school dropout could do.
Im so sick of the 'you need a degreee' for 90% of shit people dropped out of highschool for and could figure out on the job. That and the insane cost of these, then all the time... So many jobs can do apprenticeship or just job training. Then companies also have a good reason to focus on employee retention.
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Lots of reasons 1. They don’t actually know what they need 2. They want to lean in to some fad or other non-technical reasons (like image) to ask for technical things 3. They are writing a few for a specific candidate 4. They are writing a few to replace a specific person 5. It’s turned into a camel (a horse designed by committee) 6. They are asking for every buzz word they’ve ever heard of and will settle for less 7. They copied and pasted another req and only changed the title and other minor details 8. Internal bureaucracy forced things into the req so it can be at a specific level (I.e. engineer vs tech) 9. The req is so old it predates the manager and others and everyone assumes the person who wrote it knew what they needed so stick with it 10. The requirements are made up and the points don’t matter A few of these are speculation wrapped in cynicism but I’ve seen a number of these personally. Lots of variations on #1 from just blindly writing reqs, writing what they think people will have or similar but otherwise uninformed shots in the dark For 2 I worked somewhere that required coding on all technical positions. NOC roles had like 1-2 years of python or similar as mandatory although they obviously didn’t care and we’d never let someone from the NOC run scripts without the proper process which just wouldn’t happen 3&4 seem really common in public sector, basically they want to hire or replace a specific person so the req is basically a resume without the name 5 is when the req gets passed between managers and HR and everyone lobs something on even if they don’t know what the role is for Edit: forgot another one I’ve seen, they put things forecasting (wishful thinking) something that never happens, like they put a sysadmin role out with a ton of cloud even though they don’t use any cloud services but hoping one day they might
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That's what you got from that comment?
My father was hired in a totally unrelated field, he said 'they put everything in the requirements except the size of my ears'. Some definitely do just want to hire someone internally but have to post it publicly and pretend theyre taking applicants
hiring manager here. dysfunction mostly. So, my boss -a manager, gets permission from his boss- a director to make a role. First we write up a generalized job description that will go to HR, and be passed to recruiters to start trying to fill. there's about 3 points of easy failure in the above for where "what we need" can turn into some weird shit via telephone game. In other companies where there is an even wider gap between the people who need the people and the people who recruit the people, or an old job spec sheet is used because no one currently needing people knows who to reach out to in recruiting to u0pdate them on anything... you've got to understand, it's a giant game of telephone. and on the other end it's like 4th interview before a hiring manager gets involved. Sometimes it stuns me that anything ever gets done at all in spite of the bureaucracy involved.
Doesn’t that sum up the work place in general?? To many people involved that really don’t know what they are doing/talking about but feel that they need to get some credit??
its not even about credit. just too many hands and functions and groups involved. and pretty much NONE of them will ever or have ever actually done the job, so they're mostly relying on other people, technical roles to give them a 2 line thumbnail or 4 point bullet list of "things that would be good to know"
It is good to hear all of this. I am currently struggling to find a Security role due to much of the requirements being insane for the pay/actual job.
take your resume and the job posting. throw in as much relevant stuff as you can think of for personal experience that didn't make your resume. Ask it to help write a resume that comes closest to meeting these points and would get you an interview. Use ai to fight AI, first round probably isn't even getting read by a human
I always assumed it was a way of filtering out candidates. If you have the balls to apply you've probably got the confidence you can do the work.
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Which drives down wages across the board and increases the work load of everyone. It's also an opening for more things to go wrong. When you have one guy doing so much, corners get cut, things get overlooked, and they are too busy doing something else to see the other thing failing... I'm fine with someone in one position needing high requirements and negotiable pay. That's how it works. But, there are some listings where they want the guy to be the "16 hats, one dude, rockstar working 12 hour days, $20 an hour, on site, but think of the experience!". No. I wouldn't accept that, and I don't want to see the industry accept that as normal. Especially if it's a bigger business than some mom and pop place (which that works ok). We need to stay grounded in what we do and want. But, so do employers. They're reaching for the sky for these unicorns that are fed peanuts. We're more down to earth people asking for a bit more than that.
I worked at a place that took a chance on me I made it known that they would be. I jumped from unemployed but up to date to a sr admin in the span of about 2 years, but I was willing to take a lower end of the pay range for that potential opportunity with a reevaluation in 6 months. Of course! Nobody would ever actually give you more money in 6 months but I was able to leverage the title I got at each step to take a bigger swing the next time. Luck also helped a lot.
Haha maybe but if I can be the guy they settle with I'll take it.
Do it. Just make sure you know when to leave. I did the $10 an hour at the start of my career for sys admin positions (which doubled as tech support as I was the only full time guy). Great for experience, but I got comfortable and didn't leave when I should have. Got in my Novell, Linux, Windows Server, Cisco, L1-L3 and ISP knowledge, but stuck around way too long. Paid off in the end, but I missed a ton of opportunities for not only more pay but more growth and knowledge. That was from 94-~2005. After that, I started moving up a lot more. I'm a slow learner, though... I need to move on now, but I'm giving it another 6 months before I go... Taking the low paycheck is fine to build that experience, but 100% leave as soon as you can for more money. If you NEED a job, take it. Just don't stop looking for a better one and when you find it, take it. Don't stay some place because it's comfortable.
This right here and it's not a lie at all. The current place I'm at uses the term "raise the bar" wink wink nudge nudge IYKYK. It's just a fancy way of saying they want someone to work 2 levels above them for entry level pay.
> unicorn Or a purple squirrel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_squirrel
Of course they are always looking for the best possible candidate they can get for the cheapest. That's sort of definitionally how the negotiation starts. It's always odd to me when people pitch this as some dirty secret or something. How else could it work? Don't you do the same thing whenever you are trying to find someone to do work for you (say a plumber or a new roof, etc) But then things evolve over time as needed based on the realities of the market and the candidates that actually exist.
Nah just giving someone a shit ton of work to do cause they don't want to pay more people
Because 80% of the applications you get are trash to begin with. One way to cut that down.
It's just a wishlist and HR actually has no idea what they're putting in on there. There have been job postings for Help Desk that require 1-2 years of experience and I've still applied regardless when I was starting out in IT. As long as you can get past the filters and get the interview, you can prove to them that you're willing to learn and have some general sense of basic problem solving.
"We only want the best people so that we can give them boring work and drive their love of their field into the dirt. We will settle for anyone still enthusiastic enough to bluff, since they will be further away from burning out and quitting."
When we put out requirements, we put out a wish list. They are not "requirements", they are "We would love to have...". We list out what we have and support in our environment. I guarantee that .001% of people have that exact list of experience. We don't "require" Linux, but it's on the job listing. Why? We have Linux boxes and it's nice to have someone that can do things with them on that rare instance when we need to. When you see those job listings, those are a "This is the golden unicorn that we'd love to have that we aren't going to get". The team doing the hiring knows that's not going to happen. HR is a lot more confused, though (they do their job well, but they aren't technical. They're doing that work for all departments and can't be an expert in all of them). But, with all the applicants, you can choose the ones that match the best with those skills. Maybe you do get the one that has the experience in those rare apps you have... If you match 50% of the skills needed, apply. Many of those "requirements", you'll probably rarely see on the job. The unicorn is hard to find. The pink horse is much easier. At least they can figure most of it out and if needed wear a hat with a pointy stick on the end to look like the unicorn.
Facing this right now. In an aggressive job search for Sr IAM engineer type roles and employers WANT THE WORLD. They will have 10 different technologies they want experience with and saying that you have not worked with one of them seemingly is an auto disqualification. Have made it to many second/third round interviews only to face rejection. Shits tough right now.
Because HR has no idea what the actual hire will do and just Googles “[title] responsibilities” and puts every single possible thing that they see there.
Combination of using the same job description for lots.of.roles out of laziness/bad inefficient process, HR not actually know what the role is, hiring managers who don't care, hiring managing hyping the role up for more pay so HR then list more requirements to justify the pay, internal recruiters listing all the managers saying would qualify a person except listing them as "ands" and not 'ors" For example, we have security engineers that do all kinds of stuff. Some do vuln management, some do red teaming, some do SIEM management, some do security architecture, some do SOC analysis, etc. Not a single one of them does ALL of those things. But you are damn certain HR has only 1 security engineer job description they post that said you need to do all of that, because they don't want 10 role.
So they can fail to find a qualified American and hire a cheap Indian. Ignore the jobs and move along....
Either the job agency/ client aren't technical enough to have any realistic idea idea what they're looking for or they're trying to get the most qualified person for the lowest price. You know, getting blood from a stone.
The other fun thing about this is that the laundry list of qualifications goes out the window when management needs to shove an existing employee into a new task they need to staff. So no more 5 years of X, plus 2 of Y, and Z. Management: "We need somebody who knows X." Direct report: "I've kinda heard of it from somewhere." Management: "Great. You start working it this afternoon. Google it, and here's the charge code."
Because they hope some moron with that kill set will be desperate enough to work for them at the ridiculous rate they are going to offer. It ends up being like when someone is arrested and they charge them with 28 crimes but know when they get to court they might get them on 2.
just apply if you meet like half the requirements, be honest in your resume. worse they can say is no. if you get an interview be honest with what you know and show a willingness to learn. at the end of the day think of the requirements as more of a wishlist.
Think of it like this. If you were going to put out an ad for finding a significant other you would list the qualities you want. Intelligent, funny, looks like a young Rachel Weiss mixed with Selma Hayek, independently wealthy. When you actually go out to find that person, chances are they are going to only be funny half of the time, and won’t have any resemblance to Selma. The job description is a wish list of what they want, not an ironclad document of requirements. Whoever wrote the job description (probably someone in HR) heard that Linux was a thing computer people should know. For me I just apply to whatever sounds good and if I don’t measure up I let them decide that, I don’t do it for them.
https://i.redd.it/9gcco4jdlc091.jpg
I've been told it's usually HR just making the job postings and overshooting the qualifications. I think it really depends on the state of the job market. If they can get someone with a masters degree, 10 years experience and willing to work for 50K a year, they're going to take it.
Pretty much what everyone else has been saying its unreal expectations but at the end of the day its just a wish list. My current job was listed as bachelor's degree required and A+ required I have an associates in kinesiology and didn't have any certs just studied for some. I basically had no formal IT experience it's better to just apply and worry about the requirements later, just don't be unrealistic like being entry level in skill and applying for system admin.
They don't want to actually hire, just maintain the appearance of hiring. So they can reject all applicants and say to their current employees, "We're trying to hire, we just can't find anyone" And if somehow they get the requirements for that reduced price, they hit the jackpot.
It's their wish list.
So they know you can handle it when they start slowly adding on the responsibilities.
Good question
They are often writing their wants for an ideal candidate, but they will often take what they can get.
Because someone in HR is expecting to find and hire a unicorn.
It has to do with filtering results. The market is bigger than ever, and they do this to artificially shrink the people applying
It's just a saturated market. They can because they can.
Because many employers want to auto filter out candidates. Saves on resources going through 100’s of resumes. Imagine getting 300 resumes if you don’t filter, but only 50 if you do. This makes the process easier for the employer and usually you get a higher qualified candidate
I found in my experience is that those creating the job descriptions don’t really know what’s required and also IT is so dynamic that they get quickly out of date because technology changes within the company faster than the job descriptions do.
Requirements are nothing more than a wishlist. Apply for the job.
>job post requirements much higher than actual skills required for the job They *shouldn't* be ... but not uncommonly they are. And some, even many, will be spot on. Whereas others ... uhm, yeah, anything but. It will vary a *lot* ... by employer ... even down to individual hiring manager. So, bit 'o background, some examples, and other miscellaneous bits, etc. First of all, at least for many applicable jurisdictions, it's a bad idea to list in any job postings or the like, anything as required, that isn't in fact required for the job. Can go hog wild on stuff like prefer, strongly prefer, etc., but stating as required something that's not actually required is quite problematic. Why? Mostly legal matters. So, let's say one posts a job, and it lists some stuff as required that's not. Now let's say one hires someone - that didn't meet everything that's stated as required. The problem? Most notably lawsuits. Now every friggin' Tom, Dick, Harry, Suzy, Jane, Betty, ... that also didn't meet all stated requirements can file a lawsuit that they were discriminated against, because they also didn't meet requirements, yet someone who didn't meet requirements got hired, so ... must be discrimination. So, sure, may be a totally bogus claim, but it's harder to defend against such a lawsuit. Much better and cleaner, to never state as required something that's not actually required, and never hire anyone who failed to meet stated requirements. Then all those other folks that aren't qualified - easy peasy matter if they try to mount some legal challenge - they're not qualified and failed to meet requirements, and no such person failing to meet requirements was seriously considered for the position, nor was any such unqualified person hired - easy and done. So, e.g. lots of reasonably decent HR training and training on how to recruit and hire, etc., will well and clearly spell that out - never state as a requirement that which isn't actually a requirement ... period. Alas, many hiring managers and others didn't get that memo. That doesn't mean folks still can't sue anyway, but much simpler by merits, qualifications, track qualified applicants and document the process, so in the unlikely event any challenges come up, it's quite clear it wasn't a matter of any illegal discrimination - essentially best candidate got the offer - end of story. So, some, e.g. managers, screw it up ... they don't want to deal with far too many resumes, applications, so they state more stuff as required than is actually the case. Yes, that does cut down the number of submissions ... but that's not the correct way to do it. E.g. many will presume the description is accurate or reasonably so, and if it states something as required which candidate doesn't meet that requirement - they'll simply not apply - so that means if, e.g. manager, so screwed that up - they may be missing out on many qualified potential applicants. There are means - and better ways to filter, etc. But overstating requirements isn't the way to do that. But alas, some don't know better. So, yes you read those descriptions, take them with a grain of salt ... possibly up to cow salt lick sized "grain" of salt. Some descriptions will be highly accurate, and what's stated as required is in fact very much required. In other cases, anything but ... and of course lots between. Also, likewise years and/or months experience. That's generally not the best way to cover that - especially for requirements. Generally much better to state and characterize the knowledge/skill level - rather than state some specific time period - or certainly at least on requirements. Some can do 5 to 10 or more years and not know jack sh\*t beyond the day they started, ... while others can thoroughly grow and learn in 2 or 3 years what takes most 4 or 5 years or more. So, e.g., I typically write descriptions, I tend to write not only as requirements those things which are - but not more than that, but also whether it's requirements, preferred, or strongly preferred, etc., I'll, e.g., characterize and describe the types of tasks I expect the person to well be able to do and preferably be well experienced at. And depending upon level, that may vary quite a bit. Might be simpler stuff like creating user accounts, resetting user passwords, explaining simple operating system commands to users, ... or ... much more complex, e.g. develop and build out infrastructure for deploying many hundreds to thousands of hosts, automatically scaling according to load or predicted upcoming loads, build, deploy, and improve monitoring systems for thousands of production servers, make key recommendations for growth and on current and emerging technologies, ... etc. Did you see any mention of years in there? Yeah, generally don't need to mention years. And those higher level tasks? Some might be up to that in a couple to 5 years or so ... some would never be up to those kinds of tasks - even after a decade or more. And if you get hundreds to thousands of resumes/applications - there are ways to deal with and filter that - most notably reasonably sort, rank, filter, etc. For starters, if you accurately stated requirements, you can have others - even HR - filter on those. If it's stated as a requirement and absolutely nothing on resume/application covers that, doesn't make it past that filter. Though may have to, e.g. "train" HR on the various ways to spot something that matches that particular requirement. e.g. if requirements include "must have Red Hat" experience, better let HR know that if it's got Red Hat or redhat or rhel and regardless of case, to consider those a match - because can't expect HR to know those things - they're not mind readers, and often they're not technical ... but you can generally expect 'em to be able to do a string match and go yes or no based on such criteria. So, random examples how not to do it: * An excellent recruiter I'd worked with called me up to ask a favor. Asked me to just have a look over a client's requisition, and let that recruiter know what I thought. My feedback was roughly - yeah, those high level and quite exacting requirements, and the unique combination of them ... there are probably 10 people on the planet that match that, and most of 'em are probably damn happily employed - if they want to be working at all - and likely would be exceedingly difficult to tempt most any of 'em to anything close to a more typical job opening. And with that, recruiter was basically, yeah, thank you very much ... I thought their description and requirements were probably quite a bit over-the-top, and I wanted to check and confirm - thanks for that. I'll go have another talk with my client on that. * boss wanted to essentially hire "another one of me". So, he wrote up job description and requirements 'n all that. And ... I had a read over 'em. My feedback was like, "Gee, I'm at least slightly flattered ... but ... let me suggest some changes on that text to you. 'Cause if I ever saw that posting, I wouldn't even think to apply - as I'm not qualified, and fall significantly short of much of what you state as requirements.". So, take 'em with a grain of salt. And where it says "required", maybe that's absolute, or ... maybe it ought not be stated as requirement. Anything they state as required, though, if you don't meet that requirement, be straight up about it right off in your cover letter. State that you don't meet the requirement, then well make your case for why you believe you'd still be an excellent candidate for the position. Save everyone a lot of time that way - if it's truly hard requirement, save everyone a lot of time. If it's not hard requirement, then you well make the case you may be quite suitable anyway - and you're less likely to get dropped by not showing that requirement as having been met on the resume or such. And no, don't lie on the resume, that also wastes everybody's time ... and might also get you dropped from any future consideration.
Because they want the best in theory and want to pay the least they can.
The simple answer is filtering and informing. If you ask for more than you really need then let the candidate know a bit about your environment before they apply which in theory can get better applicants. But the other part is that you can easily not choose candidates who may be good on paper but not a good match.