Always Apply If You Meet at Least 50% of the Requirements

How often do you see requirements for a position that just seem unreasonable? Have you ever passed up applying for a job because you didn’t meet all the requirements?

Man, do we have great news for you!

TalentWorks has crunched the numbers and found that meeting all the requirements isn’t actually necessary — in fact, you don’t even have to meet almost all of the requirements:

You’re just as likely to get an interview matching 50% of requirements as matching 90%. We saw a clear upward trend in interview rates based on matching requirements, but with an upper bound. When users applied to jobs where they matched 40-50% of job requirements, they were 85% more likely to get an interview than when they matched less, and applying to jobs where they matched 50-60% of requirements made them an extra 192% more likely to get an interview over the 40-50% matches.

In other words, for most positions you’re just as likely to get an interview with 50% of the requirements as you are with 90% of the requirements.

Here’s what it looks like in graph form:

Reddit user Useful-Idiot sums it up this way:

The best advice I’ve ever gotten in my career is “let the company tell you no. Don’t tell yourself no.”

When I was first applying to jobs out of college, I turned myself down to probably 15 jobs because I thought I wasn’t qualified before my dad walked me through this.

When looking at a Job Listing, you should ask yourself if you would be able to do what they are asking if you had an expert to lead you through it. If the answer is yes, apply. You will never know everything going into a job. If you do, you haven’t stretched yourself far enough. Go in knowing that it’s a job you want to do, with a company you like, and learn the requirements as you go.

So there you go. Don’t let a few requirements keep you from applying for that job you think you’d love. Go for it!