How do I know if I am qualified for a job?
Separate the posting into requirements you clearly meet, partly meet, and do not meet — using evidence from your actual history, not your sense of yourself. Then check whether anything you miss is a hard gate like a licence or the core years of experience. Qualified means meeting the gates and most of the core, not all of the list.
Read the posting in four passes
- 1. Find the real job — The first two or three responsibilities are usually what you would actually do all day. The rest is often aspiration or boilerplate.
- 2. Mark the gates — Licence, clearance, work authorisation, years in the core discipline, a degree where it is genuinely required. These behave differently from everything else.
- 3. Evidence each requirement — For each one, name the specific thing you did that proves it. If you cannot name it, you partly meet it at best — regardless of how it feels.
- 4. Look at the shape of what is missing — Several small gaps across unrelated tools is normal. One gap in the thing the role is built around is the signal worth acting on.
Why 'qualified' feels harder than it is
Two failure modes, opposite and equally common. Some people rule themselves out of roles they would clearly clear because they read the wish list as a checklist. Others apply to roles they miss the gates on because the title matched. The pass above is designed to catch both, because it forces evidence rather than impression.
What this does not tell you
- You cannot see the other applicants, so qualified never means likely.
- Requirements are written by people who may not agree with each other. Two people at the same company will read the same posting differently.
- Titles mean different things at different companies; the responsibilities are more reliable than the name.
Sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Outlook Handbook — Primary source for what an occupation typically requires and how it is expected to grow.
Related questions
How Carir approaches this
The Carir AI Agent does this pass for you on every posting — requirements marked strong, partial or missing, each with the resume line behind it — so you are checking its reading rather than starting from scratch.