5 Tips for Reading Job Postings
We have all become really conditioned to focus on job titles and overlook the actual work, tasks and assignments involved in a particular job role. Don't make this mistake. As the founders of The HBCU Career Center job board, we encourage people to look past the job titles and really dive into job postings and job descriptions to explore a role fully.
As you are reading the job postings, you should be thinking about the skills and behaviors you have compared to what the employer wants in the candidate.
Tips for reading job postings:
1. Look for a match between the skills and experience you have and the skills and experience required in the job posting. This does not need to be a perfect match. Yes - you read that correctly, there does not need to be a perfect match between what you have done and what the employer wants. Typically, research suggests that women will tend to only apply for roles where there is an exact match, versus men who will go after roles because of interest.
2. Remember that your skills are transferable from one industry to the next or from one job to the next. Read job postings with the possibility of transferring skills in mind.
3. Keep in mind that statistics show that overall, about 80% of the people who get hired only have about 60% of the skills listed in the job description. You don't have to already have your experience doing exactly the same work in the same job title, in the same industry.
4. Job postings are just as full of keywords as your resume should be. Sometimes you have to read between the lines since the postings are written for the web, with SEO goals in mind. After all, the employer wants to make sure you find their job posting, just as much as you want them to find your resume and application.
5. Read between the lines and think about the "success behaviors" behind the job description. Yes, you might be reading tasks, but I want you to be thinking about behaviors behind the tasks. You must have a plan to showcase these behaviors both in your resume and explain them in your interview through your stories.