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Ask HN: Tips for applying for a position for which you're underqualified?
7 points by Ldorigo on Sept 6, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 11 comments
Curious of hiring managers' perspectives but also in your personal experiences: what's the best approach approach for cover letters/first contacts for positions where you're a little (or a lot) underqualified (e.g. senior position requiring 6 years of experience where you only have 2-3)?

Is it better to acknowledge it and try to show why you think you would make up for it? Or just gloss over it and focus on other strength? Option 3?



1) Most job applications ever done for any professional job don't have the job applicant meeting 100% of the actual job requirements. Don't stress out about applying. The worst thing that will happen to you is you won't get the job.

2) Please do recognize that we're in a down economic period and employers can afford to be more stringent with the requirements. Your odds of getting an interview are probably lower than average.

3) That said, wasting ~15 minutes of your life to make a half-decent application for a job you really want seems worth it.


Based on personal experience, eminently unqualified applicants can get hired if they went to high school with the hiring manager. You don't even need to be friends or in the same class, heck it might even be a different high school in the same time frame in the same general area.

But what if you didn't go to high school together? If you're in the same age range, snag some pictures from his (this will only work if he's a bro, by the way) facebook or yearbook and deep fake yourself into them. If you're not in the same age range, that's ok, maybe your brother was in his class. Get a list of names and nicknames from the yearbook so you can "remember" seeing him at a kegger or a house party, the time J-Dawg was making out with Ashley and blew chunks all over her.


I would still apply, and explain in the email / motivation letter why you qualify and they can benefit from you in this position. No need to highlight where you don’t meet the requirements.

Personal introductions also help.

As a manager I try to look at the entire picture and rather have someone ambitious and capable than someone resting in their laurels. Of course sometime you just need some seniority to stand up to your stakeholders, so it depends on the role.

I also wouldn’t be in the position that I am today if I just applied according to requirements.

So give it a try.


It seems really bad right now. Companies seem particularly eager to filter out anyone that doesn’t match the job listing exactly right now.

Every other job I see in my area of experience wants someone who’s has done a lot of work with their preferred proprietary software platform/APIs, low code tools, iPaaS, or some specific cloud product I don’t have experience with.

I could pick a lot of this stuff up quickly (have done it plenty of times in the past), but companies don’t seem to care, even if you make it past an ATS screen.


Wouldn't spend too much time on applying for that position, but if it's just a couple clicks, might as well try. I hear people who are extremely qualified are struggling to find jobs, so being underqualified would probably get you filtered pretty fast.


Not a tip, but: This reminds me of (I think it was in a Fireship video) a job listing asked for 5 years experience with the language Mojo.


People are rarely fully qualified. And often applying for a senior position gets you a job at a more junior position anyway.


Don't?


If the underqualified didn't apply, we wouldn't have applicants.

The bar is so low right now, at least in my experience and in my geographic area, this seems like the perfect time to make huge career leaps.


My best job required skills I only had from mucking around at home. The clincher was when I got out my notebook and started quizzing them about the company finances and structure. The atmosphere changed. YMMV


I arguably got where I am today because of a job I had no commercial experience in before I started, so I understand where you're coming from - but my point is that this type of lucky break is generally going to work out when they are already willing/planning to hire a junior anyway.




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