Why you’re more qualified than you think

In the business we drink a lot of toxic lemonade. We hear a lot of things that are not true and we start to believe them. We think that we can’t apply for a job unless we have all the qualifications and Essential Requirements listed in the job ad.

Job ads are nonsense. I’m an HR person and have been one since forever. The person who gets the job in the end may have thirty or forty percent of the requirements listed on the job ad. Hiring managers get delusional when they sit down to write a job spec.

They ask for the moon, the sun, the stars and a few minor planets. Real living people don’t come with all those crazy requirements, but managers put them into their job specs anyway.

The hiring manager will come back down to earth after he or she conducts a few interviews. He or she will realize that it doesn’t matter whether the person they hire has experience with some obscure software application. It doesn’t matter that someone has seven years of Marketing or only five (or none). There are more important things to know about a job-seeker, like “Can they think?” and “Can they solve problems?”

You can apply for jobs you don’t feel qualified for, and you can get those jobs, too. You have to change your mindset. You have to see the Business Pain lurking behind the job ad, although it is seldom addressed in the ad. You can read between the lines.

You can ask yourself “Why is this manager spending money to hire a new person?” The hiring manager has a problem. Otherwise he or she would save the money!

You can’t decide on your own to become a physician and start performing surgery. You can’t decide one day to put up a shingle and start practicing law.

That still leaves thousands of jobs you can do. You are way more qualified than you think! If you’ve worked one white-collar office job, you’ve pretty much worked them all.

People will scoff at you and say “You know nothing about this industry!” A lot of people will try to get you to drop your ambitious career plans. They say that when a lobster tries to crawl out of the pot of boiling water, other lobsters will pull it back in.

The secret of business is that industries don’t really matter, and functions don’t really matter, either. Learning about a new industry or function simply means learning new jargon and processes. Anybody can do it. You get to pick your next job or career path. You are never limited except by your own hesitation and doubt.

You have to change your mindset first. We call that process Getting Altitude on Your Career. You have to change your branding, to show how you’ve already spent time solving the same kinds of Business Pain your new hiring manager is up against.

Last, you have to change your job-search approach. You won’t be able to step out of your conventional career box by applying for jobs online using Black Hole automated recruiting sites.

You’re going to change your approach and reach your hiring managers directly with Pain Letters sent together with your Human-Voiced Resume.

When we work with clients on their job searches and career shifts, the first thing we have to do is to remind them how qualified they are. Most people minimize their experience. They are very humble — too humble! They don’t see how qualified they are or how broad their career options are.

We remind them. We get them to talk their story out loud. That’s a powerful experience! They come away realizing that they get to choose what they want to do next. The range of possibilities can be overwhelming. The first step is to realize that you are not limited by what you’ve already done or what kind of education you have.

Godzilla, the scaly edifice of traditional business rules and ideas, gets its power from our belief in it. The minute we shift our thinking, our muscles grow. When we think we are powerless and mighty employers hold all the cards, then that will be true.

When we realize that we have tremendous power over our lives and careers — all the control we need — our outlook brightens.

“Wait a second! If one manager turns his nose up at me because I don’t have the specific college degree he’s looking for, so what? There are lots of more hiring managers in pain out there!” That’s exactly right. Somebody needs what you bring and they need it very badly.

When you believe you have the morphine a manager needs to make his or her pain go away, you gain power. Do you believe it? What could you accomplish in your career if you stopped limiting yourself?

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Author: Liz Ryan is the CEO and Founder of the Human Workplace.

Image: A Businesswoman is silhouetted as she makes her way under the Arche de la Defense, in the financial district west of Paris, November 20, 2012. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann.