1The 60% Rule Is a Starting Point, Not a Formula
You've probably heard "apply if you meet 60% of the requirements." The guidance comes from research showing women tend to apply only when they meet near-100% of requirements while men apply at much lower thresholds, to the advantage of neither.
But the 60% rule treats all requirements as equal weight. They aren't. Meeting 60% of requirements where you're missing the primary technical skill is structurally different from missing 40% of preferred qualifications at the bottom of the list. The percentage doesn't capture what actually matters.
2How to Read Requirements by Weight
Core technical requirements (top of the required section)
These are real filters. If a data engineering role lists "Python and SQL" in the first bullet and the team writes Python and SQL all day, that's not aspirational. Missing these is a hard gap.
Domain or industry experience
Often softer than it looks. "Healthcare industry experience preferred" frequently means "we'd like it but we'll take someone with strong fundamentals who can learn the domain." Worth asking about in the recruiter screen.
Years of experience
Almost always negotiable. The number is a proxy for skill level and outcome quality. If you've done the work in less time, the number is less important than the evidence of what you built.
Specific tools and platforms
Transferable when you have experience in analogous tools. Salesforce vs. HubSpot, AWS vs. GCP, Sketch vs. Figma. The underlying competency matters more than the specific platform in most cases.
Preferred qualifications (listed separately)
The company wants them but won't filter on them. An otherwise strong candidate who's missing preferred qualifications gets through. Read these as "tiebreakers," not blockers.
Requirements in a JD aren't listed in random order. They're roughly organized by how critical they are to the daily work. The pattern across most job descriptions:
3The Gaps That Are Actually Blockers
A requirement is a real blocker when it appears multiple times in the JD, sits in the required section (not preferred), describes something the team does every day, and would require significant ramp time to develop while simultaneously delivering in the role.
A requirement is probably not a blocker when it appears once, sits in the preferred section, relates to a specific tool that has transferable alternatives, or reflects the last hire's background rather than the actual job requirements.
The question to ask for any gap: "If I were to start this role tomorrow, would this missing skill make me ineffective in the first 60 days?" If yes, it's a real gap. If no, it's worth addressing in the application but probably not disqualifying.
4What the Fit Score Shows You
The Skills Match dimension of a fit score reads the JD and identifies which requirements carry the most weight based on frequency, position in the JD, and context clues about how central each skill is to the role.
A 40-point Skills Match deduction concentrated on one core technical skill is different from a 40-point deduction spread across 8 minor gaps. Both produce the same score, but they're fundamentally different candidacy situations. The Why Not 100 breakdown shows you which gaps are driving the deduction.
Use the breakdown to decide whether to apply and what to prepare for the screening call. If the biggest gap is a soft skill or a tool you have a transferable alternative for, that's your opening talking point with the recruiter.
See the Skills Match breakdown and Why Not 100 analysis for any job.
Score a Job5A Practical Decision Framework
Apply if you meet all the core technical requirements, even if the experience years are short and several preferred qualifications are missing.
Apply with caution and address the gap directly if you're missing one core technical requirement but have a strong transferable alternative or relevant adjacent experience.
Skip or deprioritize if you're missing two or more core technical requirements that are central to the daily work. Build the skill first, or find a role that bridges the gap.
- Meet all core technical requirements: apply
- Missing one core requirement with a clear transferable alternative: apply and address it explicitly
- Missing two or more core requirements: deprioritize in favor of a better-matched role
- Only missing preferred qualifications: apply without concern
- Only missing the years-of-experience number: apply with specific outcome evidence
Written by
Jesse Johnson
Founder, ShouldApply
Founder of ShouldApply. I write about job search strategy, hiring, and how to spend your time on opportunities that actually fit. Full bio →
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Frequently Asked Questions
For core requirement gaps: yes, and be specific about the transferable alternative. "I don't have Salesforce experience but I've managed complex pipelines in HubSpot for 2 years and have completed Salesforce admin training" is better than silence or vague reassurance.
The research on this is nuanced. The original LinkedIn data showed a pattern, but follow-up analysis suggests the reason women underapply isn't just confidence: it's often a calculated expectation that the application won't succeed given the gap. Both the hesitation and the solution (apply anyway, with framing) are valid outcomes of understanding what requirements are actually filters.
Meeting all requirements makes you a qualified candidate, not a selected one. If the fit is strong but the interviews aren't coming, look at posting age and applicant volume first. Then review the resume for keyword match and outcome quality. Meeting all the requirements is the floor, not the ceiling.
Ask in the recruiter screen. "I saw [preferred qualification] listed. How central is that to success in this role?" A recruiter who says "that's really more of a nice-to-have" confirms it's a tiebreaker. One who says "honestly it's pretty important to the team" is telling you it's closer to required.
The fit score includes a Skills Match dimension that reads the JD and weighs requirements by frequency and context, not just presence. The Why Not 100 breakdown shows which specific gaps are driving the largest deductions.
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Required vs. Preferred Qualifications: What Actually Filters You Out
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A structured framework for self-assessing qualification before committing to an application.
Should I Apply If I'm Underqualified?
When the gap is real and when it's worth applying through it.
The percentage doesn't tell you which gaps matter.
The Skills Match breakdown shows you which requirements are driving deductions and whether the gaps are real blockers or background noise.
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