TL;DR
Yes, apply. If you meet roughly 60-70% of listed requirements, that is enough to be a real candidate. Most job postings are written as wish lists - hiring managers rarely find someone who ticks every box. Focus on meeting the genuine must-haves and treat nice-to-haves as optional. For licensed or regulated roles, requirements are genuine floors. For everything else, apply and make the case. MORT's compatibility scoring helps you triage which stretch roles are actually worth your time.
The anxiety is understandable. You find a role you want, read through the requirements, and count how many you are missing. Two years short on experience, no certification in the preferred tool, a different degree. The question is whether applying anyway is a genuine opportunity or just noise in someone else's inbox.
The short answer is that most job postings are not accurate descriptions of what the company will actually accept. Understanding why changes how you read every job description you see.
Why job postings are wish lists, not hard floors
Job descriptions are typically written by a hiring manager, sometimes with HR input, describing an ideal candidate rather than a minimum viable one. They are written at the start of a search, before the company has seen who actually applies. In practice, the final hire almost never matches every item on that list.
There are a few reasons this happens. First, hiring managers ask for everything they would want in a perfect world, knowing they will trade off. Second, requirements tend to reflect the person who last held the role or the aspirational version of the role, not the work that actually needs doing. Third, the people writing the description rarely know what the realistic candidate pool looks like before they see it.
The result is that most job postings describe a candidate who does not exist at the salary on offer. If companies only hired candidates who met every listed requirement, most roles would go unfilled. This is not a theory - it is why hiring timelines stretch and requirements get quietly softened during searches.
What the research suggests
A widely cited finding from Harvard Business Review, drawing on an internal Hewlett-Packard study, observed that men apply to roles when they meet about 60% of the criteria, while women tend to apply only when they meet close to 100%. The HBR article, published in 2014, used this to argue that the barrier is confidence, not competence. The original methodology has since been scrutinised, but the underlying point - that most applicants do not meet all listed requirements and still get hired - holds up in practice.
The practical implication: if you are waiting until you tick every box, you are waiting longer than you need to. The right question is not whether you meet all requirements, but whether you meet the ones that genuinely matter to the role.
The practical threshold - what "underqualified" actually means to a recruiter
Recruiters and career coaches often use 60-70% as a rough working threshold: if you can make a credible case for meeting that share of the listed requirements, you are worth the screen. This is practitioner consensus, not a precise science, but it reflects what actually happens in hiring.
What matters more than the percentage is which requirements you meet. A job posting has two kinds of requirements in practice: genuine must-haves and aspirational nice-to-haves. Meeting the must-haves is non-negotiable. Missing a few nice-to-haves is expected.
Must-haves are usually the items without which the role literally cannot be done: a licence to practise, a security clearance, a specific technical skill that is the core of the work. Nice-to-haves are everything else: years of experience in a specific tool, familiarity with a particular methodology, a degree in a specific field. These are preferences, not gates.
The confusion arises because job postings rarely label which is which. Both categories get listed under "Requirements" with the same formatting. Reading the language carefully helps: "must have", "required", and "minimum qualification" are signal words. "Preferred", "a plus", "nice to have", and "ideal" tell you something is aspirational.
For help reading a posting against your background, our guide to matching your resume to job descriptions walks through this step by step.
When to skip - the genuine hard requirements
Some requirements are real floors, and applying without them is a waste of everyone's time. The clearest cases:
- Licensed and regulated roles. If a posting says "must hold a current PE licence", "CPA required", or "RN with active state licence", this is not aspirational. The company cannot legally hire someone without it. Same applies to security clearances listed as a hard requirement.
- Language requirements. "Native or bilingual German required" for a client-facing role in Germany is a genuine filter. "German a plus" is not.
- Required degrees with no stated equivalent. "Medical degree required" or "JD required, no exceptions" in regulated fields is real. "Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience" gives you an opening.
- Technical skills that are the entire job. If a posting is for a Rust engineer and you have never written Rust, applying is not a stretch - it is the wrong role.
Everything outside this category is softer than it looks. Ten years minimum when you have seven, a preferred certification you could get in six months, a tool you have not used but could learn in a few weeks - these are not disqualifying on their own.
How to strengthen an underqualified application
Applying to a stretch role is not just about submitting and hoping. How you apply makes a real difference. A few principles:
Lead with fit, not gaps. Your resume and cover letter should open with what you bring, not the items you are missing. Recruiters scan for reasons to keep reading - give them compelling ones before they notice the gap. If your summary immediately highlights your strongest relevant experience, you earn the next thirty seconds of attention.
Tailor specifically. A generic application to a stretch role is double-penalised: you are short on requirements, and you have not made the effort to show you understand the role. Tailor the summary, skills section, and first few bullets to match the language in the posting. This is not about exaggerating what you have - it is about presenting what you have in terms that connect to what they need. See our comparison of mass applying vs tailoring for why this matters so much.
Address the gap honestly, briefly. If there is one obvious mismatch - you have seven years, they listed ten - you can acknowledge it in a cover letter without dwelling on it. "I bring seven years of X rather than ten, but have led Y and Z which required the same core judgment" is a complete treatment. Do not over-apologise or repeat it.
Target the application at the human, not the filter. ATS filters often screen on keywords, not on exact years or credential matches. If you have the relevant skills and use the right language, you can often pass the initial screen even on a stretch role. From there, the hiring manager makes the call - and hiring managers are more flexible than job descriptions.
Using MORT's compatibility scoring to triage stretch applications
The hard part of applying to stretch roles is knowing which ones are actually worth the effort. Applying to every role that looks interesting regardless of fit is a different version of the same problem as waiting until you're 100% qualified - it just wastes time in the other direction.
MORT is an AI job-matching platform for people who want to apply to more relevant jobs in less time. It scans thousands of company career pages, scores every job 0-100% for compatibility with your skills and experience, and generates a tailored resume for each application.
The 0-100% compatibility score is a genuine answer to "how do I know if I'm close enough to apply?" A role scoring 65-80% is typically a strong stretch: you are close enough to be competitive, the gap is not disqualifying, and a tailored application can make the case. A role scoring 30-40% is probably the wrong role, regardless of how interesting it looks. MORT is not a magic threshold machine - it is a triage tool that helps you direct your effort where the odds are reasonable.
For a fuller explanation of how the scoring works, see AI job matching explained.
| Requirement Type | Apply? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Must-have listed explicitly ("required", "minimum") | Only if you have it | Listed as required, likely checked in screen |
| Nice-to-have / preferred ("a plus", "ideal") | Yes | Rarely a hard gate - aspirational language |
| 10 years minimum, you have 7 | Yes, usually | Hiring managers often set a range, not a strict floor |
| Licensed role (e.g. PE, CPA, active RN) | Only if licensed | Hard regulatory requirement - not negotiable |
| Degree required (with "or equivalent experience") | Yes, if you have relevant experience | The "or equivalent" clause is a genuine opening |
| Tool or platform listed as required, core skill of the job | Only if you have it | If it is the whole job, absence is disqualifying |
Apply/skip guidance reflects general patterns in hiring, not a universal rule. Specifics vary by company, sector, and seniority. Treat this as a starting heuristic, not a guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
Does applying when underqualified waste the recruiter's time?
Not if you meet the genuine must-haves and address the gap honestly. Recruiters expect candidates who do not match every listed item - the posting was a wish list. Where you do waste their time is applying to roles with hard regulatory requirements you do not hold, or applying with a generic resume that shows no effort to understand the role.
How do I know which requirements are must-haves?
Look for language like "required", "must have", or "minimum qualification". Anything under "preferred", "nice to have", "a plus", or "ideal" is aspirational. For regulated roles, licensure and certifications listed as required almost always are. For everything else, years of experience and most technical skills listed as required are frequently negotiable in practice.
Will applying to stretch roles hurt my application to other jobs at the same company?
Generally no. Most ATS systems track applications per role, not per candidate across roles. Applying to two or three relevant roles at one company is common and usually fine. What creates friction is applying to many unrelated roles at the same company at once, which signals indiscriminate mass-applying rather than genuine interest.
How do I explain missing qualifications in a cover letter?
Lead with what you do bring, not with the gap. Name the missing item briefly, acknowledge it, and pivot to the closest related evidence you do have. Do not over-apologise or make the missing item the centrepiece of your letter. Recruiters can hold two things in mind: this person is short on X, but they have strong Y and Z and clearly understand the role.
What is the 70% rule for job applications?
The 70% rule is a career-coaching rule of thumb: if you meet roughly 70% of listed requirements, apply. It is not a precise scientific threshold, but it reflects the practical reality that job postings are wish lists and hiring managers rarely find a candidate who ticks every box. Meeting the genuine must-haves and most of the preferred criteria is enough to be competitive.
Know which stretch roles are worth your time
MORT scores every job 0-100% for compatibility with your skills and experience. Instead of guessing whether you are close enough to apply, you can see at a glance which stretch roles are genuinely within reach - and get a tailored resume for each one.
Sources
- Harvard Business Review, "Why Women Don't Apply for Jobs Unless They're 100% Qualified" (Tara Sophia Mohr, 2014 - drawing on an internal HP study): hbr.org
- 60-70% threshold: practitioner consensus in career coaching literature; no single primary source. Widely cited by LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Jobvite, and career coaches as a working rule of thumb.