One thing I have always struggled with is applying for jobs. This is not to say that I haven’t been employed in the past, I have had quite a few jobs. The biggest thing is the selection critera.
I look at what the employer has listed as ‘must have’ skills and qualifications, look at what I can do, and then work out if I tick all the boxes. If I don’t , I don’t apply for that job.
My reasoning is simple, if an employer has said these things are must have qualities, then that’s what they are looking for. Makes sense, right?
It seems that I’m not right!
I see so many neurospicy people and employment ‘experts’ post that you don’t need to fit everything listed in order to apply.
This doesn’t make sense to me on so many levels.
I know that when I was in the position of putting up a job advertisement, the criteria we listed were must haves for the role, and if someone didn’t have those skills or experience, then they were rejected! For those that didn’t fit the criteria, I felt like they were wasting my time.
With this perspective, I don’t send applications to employers where I don’t feel I meet their criteria as I don’t want to waste their time.
This is one reason I enjoyed working with recruitment agencies back in my 20s. They would assess my skills and experience against the required job and then put me forward. They both knew what I could do and what the employer required and matched us up. This was similar when I was talking with Jobs Victoria last year. They knew of a job, looked at my skills and experience and put me forward, and yes, I got the job.
I know my neurospicy brain takes things literally, and this includes the criteria for jobs, however, for me, it’s more than that. I have been on both sides – as an applicant and an employer – so I have this in mind with every application. This is also possibly why I’ve stayed in similar jobs my entire work life as those are the jobs I know I can do.
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