Should You Apply for a Job You’re Not Qualified For?

You are looking at a job description. It lists 8 requirements. You meet 5 of them clearly, 1 you could argue, and 2 you do not have at all. Now you have a choice: apply, or move on. Most people in this situation freeze, then move on, then quietly regret it three weeks later when the role is still open.

The standard advice is “always apply.” That advice is not wrong, but it is not very useful either. It does not tell you which 3 missing requirements you can get away with, which ones will get your application rejected at first scan, or how to write the application so the gap is acknowledged rather than hidden. It also misses the fact that the Dutch labour market reads job descriptions slightly more literally than the US or UK norm, which changes the maths.

This guide is about how to decide quickly. It walks through the research that everyone misquotes, how to actually read a job description, when the 70 percent rule works in the Netherlands and when it does not, and how to write the application when you are light on a requirement. The goal is not to talk you into applying. It is to help you apply when you should and not waste a Saturday afternoon when you should not.

The famous “men apply at 60 percent of qualifications, women at 100” stat is real but widely misquoted. The actual finding from Tara Sophia Mohr’s 2014 follow-up survey: most people who skip applying did so because they thought required meant required, not because of low confidence. They were wrong about the hiring process.

Job descriptions are not equal. A real recruiter is screening on 2 to 4 hard must-haves. The other 4 to 10 items are nice-to-haves. Learning to tell the two apart is the practical skill.

Default rule for graduates: if you meet around 70 percent of requirements, including all the hard must-haves, apply. If you miss a hard must-have, do not waste your time unless you have a referral.

Dutch employers read job descriptions slightly more literally than the global norm. Where the rule flexes most: shortage occupations on the UWV kansrijke beroepen list, scale-ups, traineeships, and roles where you have a personal referral.

When you do apply underqualified, acknowledge the gap honestly in the cover letter rather than hiding it. The recruiter has already noticed.

If you have read more than two articles about job applications, you have probably seen this line: men apply when they meet 60 percent of the requirements, women only when they meet 100. The line traces to a 2014 Harvard Business Review article by Tara Sophia Mohr, which itself referenced an internal Hewlett-Packard report that has not been published. Treat the precise figures with some caution; the original HP data is not publicly available.

What is more solid, and more interesting, is what Mohr found when she ran her own follow-up survey of more than 1,000 men and women. She asked people who had decided not to apply for a job because they did not meet all the qualifications: why didn’t you apply?

The most common answer, given by 41 percent of women and 46 percent of men, was: “I didn’t think they would hire me since I didn’t meet the qualifications, and I didn’t want to waste my time and energy.” Confidence in their own ability was almost the least common reason. Only 10 percent of women and 12 percent of men said they did not apply because they did not think they could do the job well.

Mohr’s framing of this finding is precise: “What held them back from applying was not a mistaken perception about themselves, but a mistaken perception about the hiring process.” People assumed that listed qualifications were strict screening rules. They were wrong about that. The qualifications were closer to a wish list than a checklist.

LinkedIn 2019: the behavioural data

Five years later, LinkedIn looked at billions of job interactions across its platform and confirmed the pattern. Women apply to 20 percent fewer jobs than men, and they are 14 percent less likely to apply after viewing a job. But once they apply, women are 16 percent more likely than men to get hired, and 18 percent more likely for senior or stretch roles.

Two implications follow. First, applying when you do not meet every requirement is normal, not aberrant. Second, the people who do apply when they are stretching are getting hired at a higher rate than the people who hold out for a perfect match.

A typical Dutch job description has somewhere between 8 and 15 listed requirements. To you, they read like an exam. To the recruiter, who has to fill the role within 6 to 8 weeks, they sort into two piles: the things without which the candidate cannot do the job, and everything else.

The language patterns that signal must-have

These are the requirements where missing it usually means an instant rejection.

• “Required”, “must have”, “essential”. Self-explanatory.
• Hard credentials. “BA-2 onderwijsbevoegdheid” for a teaching role. “BIG-registratie” for healthcare. “Bachelor in X” where the role is regulated by the Dutch government. These are not negotiable.
• Specific licences. “Rijbewijs B” for a role with travel, security clearances, language certifications. If listed, generally required.
• Years of experience expressed as a hard floor with no qualifier. “Minimaal 3 jaar werkervaring” in an established corporate JD. (Less binding at scale-ups; see Section 4.)
• Specific software for a specialist role. “SAP S/4HANA” for an SAP consultant. “Figma” for a UX designer. The tool is the job.

The language patterns that signal nice-to-have

These are the requirements where the recruiter is hoping for them but will interview without them.

• “Preferred”, “nice to have”, “pré”, “een pluspunt”, “bij voorkeur”. The Dutch idiomatic equivalents of “nice if you have it.”
• Soft skills as standalone bullets. “Great communicator,” “collaborative,” “results-oriented.” These are nearly impossible to screen on paper. Recruiters know this. They are scoring these in interviews, not in the application.
• Long experience requirements at junior or scale-up roles. A scale-up listing “5 years of experience” for a role budgeted as a junior is often aspirational. The actual filter is closer to 1 to 2 years.
• Adjacent tools or languages. “Experience with Python or R” for a data role: either is fine. “Experience with Power BI or Tableau or Looker”: any of the three counts.
• “Fluent Dutch and English” in a role at an international employer where the working language is clearly English. Often softer than it reads.

The 5-minute decoding exercise

Before deciding whether to apply, do this. Read the JD once, then go back and label each listed requirement with M (must-have) or N (nice-to-have). Use the language patterns above. Then count what you have.

• If you meet all the M’s and most of the N’s: strong fit, apply with a normal cover letter.
• If you meet all the M’s and roughly half the N’s: still apply. This is the underqualified-but-viable zone, where most graduates who land good roles actually live.
• If you meet all the M’s but only one or two N’s: apply, but with a cover letter that addresses the obvious gap and frames how you will close it.
• If you miss even one M: do not apply unless you have a referral or unique angle. Your application will hit the rejection pile in scan one.

A working version of the rule that survives scrutiny:

• If you meet around 70 percent of the listed requirements, including every must-have, apply.
• If you meet less than 70 percent, do not apply unless you have a strong angle (a referral, very unusual relevant experience, or a personal connection to the team).
• If you meet 100 percent of the requirements, you are probably overqualified and the role is too junior. Apply for a stretch instead.

That rule works almost everywhere. The Dutch wrinkle is small but real: Dutch employers tend to be a bit more literal about job descriptions than US, UK, or southern European norms suggest. A Dutch JD that says “5 years of experience” is more often genuinely looking for around that. A US listing of the same line is more often shorthand for “senior-ish.”

The reasons are partly cultural and partly structural. Dutch directness extends to job descriptions: if they did not need it, they tend not to list it. The labour market is also more CAO-bound and credential-driven than the global average, which makes hard requirements actually harder.

Practically, this means two adjustments to the rule for the Dutch context:

• Be slightly stricter about the must-have count. If a Dutch JD lists what looks like 4 hard requirements, treat all 4 as binding unless you have evidence otherwise.
• Be slightly more careful about overclaiming. In NL, a candidate who applied for a role they could not do is more likely to get a polite rejection in interview round one than to get a chance to grow into it.

1. Shortage occupations (UWV kansrijke beroepen)

UWV publishes a regularly updated list of around 300 occupations where there are more vacancies than candidates. These are the kansrijke beroepen, sometimes called krapteberoepen (shortage occupations). In these roles, employers cannot afford to be picky on the listed requirements; they need someone who can do the work.

Categories that consistently appear, relevant to graduates: ICT (data analyst, BI specialist, IT support, software developer); HBO and WO teaching positions in maths, exact sciences, economics, and ICT; healthcare-adjacent roles (HBO-V, orthopedagogiek). Certain marketing roles also make the list, specifically ones that require SEO, content, or data-analytics skills.

If your target role is on the list, the 70 percent rule is generous. 60 percent will often be enough.

2. Scale-ups and growth-stage tech companies

Dutch scale-ups (companies in the 50 to 500 employee range, growing fast) are notorious for writing aspirational job descriptions. They list what they wish they could hire, then they hire who is available. The listed years of experience is often inflated by 1 to 2 years; the listed tool stack is often a wish list.

For scale-ups, look at the role title and the salary range, not the listed requirements. If the title says junior or medior and the salary is in the graduate band, treat the requirements as flexible. Apply if you meet around 50 to 60 percent.

3. Traineeships

Graduate traineeships are designed to recruit people who do not yet meet the requirements. The whole point of a traineeship is that you will be trained into the role over 18 to 24 months. Listed “requirements” in a traineeship JD are mostly about education level (HBO or WO), language (Dutch and/or English), and behavioural fit, not specific work experience.

If a traineeship JD lists 5 years of experience, the JD has been miswritten. Apply anyway. (See [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #19 Traineeship] for the full traineeship picture.)

4. Roles where you have a personal referral

This is the strongest single override. If someone inside the company is willing to refer you, the recruiter sees your application differently from the start. The 70 percent rule becomes the 50 percent rule. The referral is not a substitute for being able to do the job, but it is a substitute for being able to prove it on paper.

This is also the channel where the LinkedIn 2019 finding matters most: men were 68 percent likely to ask for a referral before applying, women only 32 percent. If you are not asking for referrals, you are leaving the single highest-leverage application channel on the table. (See [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #18 Build a Professional Network as a Student].)

1. Regulated professions and hard credential gates

Some Dutch roles are gated by law or by credential, and no amount of cover-letter creativity gets you past them. If the role requires a specific Dutch credential and you do not have it, you cannot do the job, full stop.

• Healthcare roles requiring BIG-registratie.
• Teaching positions in primary or secondary education requiring a Dutch onderwijsbevoegdheid (1e or 2e graads).
• Architectural roles requiring registration in the Architectenregister.
• Legal roles requiring inscription as advocaat at the Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten.
• Accountancy roles requiring RA or AA registration.
• Many medical specialties requiring specific specialist registration.

If the JD lists one of these as a hard requirement, do not apply without it. The rejection is automatic and impersonal; you cannot influence it.

2. Senior or specialist roles in established corporates

If a corporate (especially a Dutch bank, insurer, large consultancy, or multinational) is hiring for a senior role with explicit experience requirements, the listed years are usually genuine. “8 jaar werkervaring in audit” at a Big 4 firm is exactly that. “Bewezen ervaring met team leadership” in a senior consulting role means actual prior management.

These roles are not where graduate stretches succeed. Apply for the junior or medior version of the same job in the same company instead. They almost always exist.

3. Roles with very explicit, narrow Dutch JDs

Some Dutch JDs are unusually short and specific. Three or four lines of must-haves, no nice-to-haves, no soft-skills filler. If you see one of these, take it at face value. The recruiter has been precise on purpose. Reading flexibility into a JD that has none is the most common reason graduates burn time on doomed applications.

Answer in order. If the answer at any step is no, stop and follow the action.

Question 1: Do you meet every must-have requirement (M)?

• Yes: continue to Q2.
• No: do not apply unless you have a referral. Save the time.

Question 2: Do you meet at least half of the nice-to-have requirements (N)?

• Yes: continue to Q3.
• No: probably do not apply, unless the role is in a shortage category (kansrijk beroep), a scale-up role with a junior salary band, or a traineeship. In those cases, continue to Q3 anyway.

Question 3: Is the role gated by a hard credential, regulated profession, or explicit narrow Dutch JD?

• No: continue to Q4.
• Yes, and you have the credential: continue to Q4.
• Yes, and you do not have the credential: do not apply. Pursue the credential or target a related unregulated role.

Question 4: Can you, in 60 seconds, name how you would close the biggest gap?

• Yes: apply, and use the cover letter to address the gap honestly (Section 7).
• No: do one more research pass on the role and the gap. If you still cannot answer, the gap is probably bigger than the 70 percent rule covers, and you should reconsider.

Example

JD: junior data analyst at a 200-person Amsterdam scale-up. Listed: SQL (M), Python or R (M), Excel (M), Power BI or Tableau (M), 2 years’ experience (M-ish), economics or related degree (M), Dutch fluency (N), experience with dbt (N), commercial mindset (N).

You have: SQL (yes), Python (yes), Excel (yes), Tableau (yes, from one internship), 1 year of experience (close), economics degree (yes), Dutch fluent (yes), no dbt, comfortable with commercial framing.

Q1: All hard musts met (SQL, Python, Excel, Tableau, degree). Years of experience is short by 1, but the role is junior at a scale-up: the years-requirement is soft. Continue.

Q2: At least half of the N’s met (Dutch yes, dbt no, commercial yes). Continue.

Q3: Not regulated, not credential-gated. Continue.

Q4: Biggest gap is dbt. You can say in one sentence: “I have not used dbt, but I have built equivalent transformation pipelines in SQL stored procedures. The syntax is close enough that I would expect to be productive in two weeks.” That is a closable gap. Apply.

If you have decided to apply with a known gap, your cover letter has one extra job: it has to acknowledge the gap and close it, in two or three sentences. Most graduates either ignore the gap (which makes the recruiter assume you have not noticed, which reads as careless) or apologise for it (which makes you look weak before they have even read your CV). Neither works.

The gap-acknowledgment paragraph (3 sentences)

Place this paragraph in the middle of the cover letter, after the opening hook and the relevant-experience paragraph, before the closing.

Sentence 1: name the gap directly. “I noticed the role lists 3 years of experience and I currently have 1.”

Sentence 2: say what you do have that is the closest equivalent. “In that year, I led the data infrastructure for a 12-person product team, owned a quarterly reporting cycle, and shipped 3 dashboards used by leadership.”

Sentence 3: say how you will close the gap, briefly. “My expectation is that the depth of judgment a 3-year role calls for will take me 6 to 9 months to build; I would rather start that clock now than wait two years to apply.”

Worked example

Below is a full middle-of-cover-letter example for the data analyst role from Section 6, where the candidate is short on dbt and short on a year of experience.

“[… opening paragraph about why this company and this role …]

In my year as a data analyst at [previous company], I owned the analytics layer for the growth team. I built and maintained 14 SQL transformation queries that ran nightly, designed and shipped 3 Tableau dashboards used in the weekly leadership meeting, and worked closely with engineering on event tracking. The work covered most of what your job description describes.

Two areas where I am lighter than your listing: I have used SQL stored procedures rather than dbt for transformations, and I have one year of experience where you have indicated two. I expect both to close quickly. The dbt model is close enough to what I have already built that I would plan to be productive in two weeks. The judgment depth that a second year of experience builds is harder to shortcut. But starting now and learning on the role beats waiting twelve months. I would rather earn that year inside your team than at my current one.

[… closing about availability and next steps …]”

The hardest part of this is not the rule. It is doing the read of a real job description against your own CV honestly, in 10 minutes, without flinching. Most graduates either over-apply (waste a Saturday) or under-apply (hold out for a fit that does not exist). The middle path is doing the assessment fast and acting on it.

Aurora, GradGuide’s free AI career coach, can carry the read for you. Paste in the job description and your CV, and she will mark each requirement as must-have or nice-to-have, score your fit honestly, flag the biggest gap, and draft the gap-acknowledgment paragraph for your cover letter. She will also flag the four softening categories from Section 4 if your target role is in one of them, and the three hard-stop categories from Section 5 if it is not.

Try it at gradguide.nl/aurora and bring a job description you have been on the fence about.

Internal links

• [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #5 How to Write a CV That Stands Out]: keyword matching, gap framing on the CV.
• [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #6 Cover Letter That Gets You Noticed]: cover letter structure into which the gap-acknowledgment paragraph fits.
• [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #18 Build a Professional Network as a Student]: referrals as the strongest override on the 70 percent rule.
• [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #19 Traineeship]: when traineeships make sense as the right path for an underqualified application.
• [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #1 Working in the Netherlands as an International Graduate] and [LINK PLACEHOLDER: post #2 Dutch Work Contracts, Benefits and Salaries]: salary-band and visa-floor context for international graduates.