Science of job search, part VII: you need to meet only 50% of the "requirements" of the vacancy

Article Translation: 50% of Job “Requirements” by The Science of the Job Search, Part VII
By: Claire Jaja
Publication date: November 27, 2018

Need a project manager. 5+ years of experience, Six Sigma certification , advanced understanding of deep learning and the ability to perform an operation if necessary.

Who really fits all of the above? It turns out, by and large, no one. And you have the same chance to get an invitation to an interview whether you have 50% of the competencies required in a job, or 90%.

We were curious how many requirements for a vacancy really needed to be met - so we decided to analyze vacancies and resumes from our database in more than 6000 cases of applications in 118 industries. We found that meeting the requirements listed in the job is important, but there is no need to meet them all.

• Your chances of being invited to an interview begin to grow from where you meet approximately 40% of the requirements.
• If you meet 90% of the requirements, your chances are not much higher to get an invitation than if you have 50% of the required skills.
• For women, the numbers are about 10% lower. That is, the probability starts to grow from 30%, and at the level of 40% the probability is the same as at 90%

You need to have only 50% of the skills of the vacancy

If you have 50% or 90%, you are equally likely to get an interview. We have noticed a clear growing dependency that has ceased to grow at a certain level. When users with a match of 40–50% applied for a job, their chances of getting interviews were 85% higher compared to people in the “40%” group. The “50–60%” group of requirements is 192% more likely, compared to the 40–50% group.

But after the 60% mark, there was not a big change in the chances of getting an invitation to be interviewed.

Council in job search №1: If you meet at least 50% of the requirements of a vacancy - submit.

For women,% compliance is even lower.

Perhaps you have seen before this story that women, as a rule, do not apply for a vacancy, if they do not meet 100% of the requirements . It became interesting to us, maybe there is something in it - maybe gender discrimination and hr-managers are more demanding on women. But it turns out, our discovery refers to women as well as to men. And in fact, the chances of getting an interview for women are starting to grow by meeting 30% of the requirements.

As you can see on the graph, the overall trend for women is the same as for men, but starting with 40% of job requirements, the chances are almost the same as by 90%. Also, on average, women are more likely to be invited to interview than men.

Despite this, we found the same tendency as in other studies - women more often refuse positions where they meet only part of the requirements. Over the past 8 weeks, 64% of our female users refused at least one position, where they met only 50–60% of the requirements, while among men these were 37%.

So, girls, you, too, should be given to the position where you meet only part of the requirements.

Council in search of work №2: Stop guessing - you deserve this job.

You do not necessarily get an invitation to an interview, even if you have 90% of the requirements of the vacancy

The baseline scenario is a 15% chance of being invited to an interview. Applying for an interview or a new position is a game with numbers - the more applications you leave, the more likely you are to get an interview, and the more interview you will pass, and as a result, more chances to get a job offer.

Or in other words, if you want to get a job offer, then the number of applications that you need to leave is a function of the “coefficient in the interview” (what% of the applications goes into the interview) and the “coefficient in the job offer” (what% of the interview turns in "job offer"). More specifically: the number of applications sent, required to receive a proposal = n / "coefficient in interview" / "coefficient in the job offer"

Obviously, increasing your “coefficient in interviews” and “coefficient in job offers” is beneficial, but what if you can't find 45 jobs that suit you? Never harmful to expand the scope of the search. Naturally, your “interview rate” will be lower, but it will be balanced by a greater number of job applications.

Job Search Tip # 3: Serve as much as you can for different jobs to increase your chances of being invited to an interview.

Summary

If you are looking for a perfect job, do not be afraid of the long list of requirements for a job!

• Even if you meet only 50% of the requirements, feel confident and click "Apply"
• The rule works for girls no worse than men (and in fact, even better)
• Expand your search to increase your chances of being interviewed.

And remember that getting an invitation to an interview is a big breakthrough - this is your chance to prove to yourself that you can do work, even if you don’t meet all the “requirements” of a job.

Methodology

Initially, we randomly selected 6348 applications for work from 668 different users of our platform [ TalentWorks ]. After that, using our algorithms, we selected the competencies of the original vacancies and the competencies of the people who applied to them. Finally, we grouped the results by the coincidence of these competencies and performed a regression for the “interview rate”. All analytics and graphics are made in Python: pandas, sklearn, scipy and bokeh.