Guides / Reading a posting

How to read a job posting — and which requirements are real

A job posting is not a checklist. It's three different documents squashed into one: what the team actually needs, what they'd love in a perfect world, and boilerplate nobody read twice. Learning to tell them apart changes which jobs you apply to.

Who actually writes these things

Most postings are assembled, not written. A hiring manager jots what they need, a recruiter pastes it into last year's template for a similar role, HR adds the legal language, and somebody bumps the years-of-experience number because the last hire "felt senior." The result reads like a unified set of demands. It isn't — it's sediment. That's why postings so often contradict themselves ("entry-level role, 5+ years experience required").

The three layers, and how to spot them

• Deal-breakers are specific, repeated, and tied to the day-one work: a license or certification, a language, legal work authorization, a named tool the whole stack runs on, location for an on-site role. If it appears in the title, the first bullet, and the requirements, it's real.
• Wish list is everything phrased as "ideal candidate," "preferred," "a plus," "familiarity with" — and most long tool lists. Teams list eight tools; the job uses three daily. Missing wish-list items rarely kills an application that's strong on the core.
• Boilerplate is the culture paragraph, the "fast-paced environment," the twelve soft skills. It carries almost no signal about whether you'll get an interview. Skim it once for red flags, then ignore it.

The years-of-experience number

Treat stated years as a rough seniority label, not a gate. "3–5 years" usually means "not your first job, not a department head." Someone with two intense years doing exactly this work is routinely a stronger candidate than someone with six adjacent ones — and hiring managers know it, even when the posting's number says otherwise. If you're within shouting distance on years but strong on the actual responsibilities, the number alone is a bad reason not to apply.

Signals that a posting is worth your evening

• Specifics. Named team, named responsibilities, concrete outcomes ("own the monthly close," "run the vendor onboarding process"). A real manager wrote this for a real seat. Vague postings correlate with ghost jobs.
• A salary range. Increasingly required by law in many states, but a tight, plausible range still signals the role is scoped and budgeted. A $60k–$180k range means they don't know what they're hiring yet.
• Recency. Fresh postings get read. Details in when to apply.

So when should you apply?

A useful rule: apply when you clear the deal-breakers and can tell a true story about most of the core responsibilities — even if the wish list is half unmet. Don't apply when a genuine deal-breaker is missing and you'd need the company to change the job for you; that application costs you an evening and them nothing.