There is a piece of career advice that gets repeated constantly:
If you meet 70–80% of the requirements, apply anyway.
There is some truth in that.
Job descriptions are often written as wish lists. Hiring teams may combine the current role, the previous incumbent, future needs and a few “nice to haves” into one document. Very few candidates will match every line perfectly.
But the 70–80% rule is also too simplistic.
Because not every requirement matters equally.
The better question is:
Which requirement are you missing, and why does the company need it?
That distinction can make the difference between being a credible candidate with a reasonable gap and being fundamentally misaligned with the role.
Start With Why the Role Exists
Before deciding whether you should apply, try to understand the business problem behind the opening.
Why is the company hiring?
Are they replacing someone?
Building a new capability?
Entering a new market?
Scaling a function?
Professionalizing a process?
Integrating an acquisition?
Fixing a recurring problem?
Hiring because growth has outpaced the current team?
The reason matters because some requirements are listed because they are generally useful.
Others are listed because they are the entire reason the position exists.
Those are not the same thing.
If a company is hiring a supply-chain leader specifically because it needs someone who has scaled contract manufacturing, then lacking that experience may not be a minor gap.
If a company is entering an adjacent market and needs someone who already understands that customer base, industry exposure may matter far more than it would in a standard replacement hire.
If the role exists because leadership needs someone who has already built a team, promoted managers and created structure, then strong individual-contributor experience may not substitute for that.
The missing 10% can sometimes be the most important 10%.
Separate Core Requirements From Preferences
A practical way to read a job description is to sort the requirements into three buckets.
1. Core requirements
These are capabilities the person will need immediately in order to do the job.
They may include:
- a specific technical background
- direct experience in a certain market
- leadership scope
- financial responsibility
- regulatory knowledge
- a required license or certification
- travel or relocation requirements
- experience with a business model the company cannot teach quickly
If you are missing several of these, the role may simply not be aligned.
2. Transferable capabilities
These are areas where experience from another environment may translate.
For example:
- leading teams
- managing complex customer relationships
- improving process
- owning revenue
- building distributor relationships
- navigating cross-functional organizations
- introducing systems
- operating through change
A candidate does not always need to have performed the exact same job in the exact same industry if the underlying work is highly transferable.
3. Preferences
These are often the easiest areas to flex.
They may include:
- exact title history
- a particular software platform
- a narrow years-of-experience range
- experience with a specific internal structure
- exposure to a preferred but nonessential market segment
These can still matter, but they are often less determinative than the core business need.
Ask Whether Your Gap Is Teachable
Some experience can be learned relatively quickly.
Some cannot.
Learning a new CRM system is very different from learning how to lead a $200 million business.
Understanding a new product line is different from learning how to manage through private-label contract manufacturing.
Learning a company’s internal process is different from developing the judgment that comes from years of leading through acquisitions, restructures or complex customer negotiations.
When evaluating your gap, think about how quickly someone could reasonably learn it.
If the missing requirement is teachable within the normal onboarding period, it may not be disqualifying.
If it represents years of experience the business is specifically hiring to acquire, that is different.
Look for Evidence of Transferability
If you are going to apply despite a gap, you need more than optimism.
You need evidence.
It is not enough to say:
“I know I can do it.”
The stronger case is:
“I have solved a closely related problem before, and here is how.”
Maybe you have not sold into that exact market, but you have built a territory with a similar channel structure.
Maybe you have not led that exact function, but you have led a comparable team through the same kind of transformation.
Maybe you have not worked in that product category, but you have handled a technically complex sale with the same decision-makers.
Transferability becomes credible when you can show the connection.
Be Careful With Stretch Roles
A stretch role can be a great career move.
But there is a difference between stretching and skipping several levels of development.
A strong stretch usually means the candidate has most of the underlying capability and is taking on greater scope.
For example:
- larger team
- broader geography
- more strategic responsibility
- increased financial ownership
- more complex customers
- greater organizational influence
That is different from applying for a role where the core work itself is unfamiliar.
If you are trying to determine whether a role is a reasonable stretch, ask yourself whether you would be building on existing capability or trying to learn the fundamental job from scratch.
Do Not Self-Reject Too Quickly
There is also a danger on the other side.
Strong candidates often talk themselves out of opportunities because they do not match every bullet.
They see one missing requirement and assume it means they should not apply.
That can be equally unhelpful.
If the core work aligns with your experience, your results are relevant and the gaps are teachable, the role may still be worth exploring.
A job description is not a scoring rubric.
It is an imperfect attempt to describe what the organization believes it needs.
Your job is not to count matching bullets.
Your job is to understand the problem and determine whether your experience gives you a credible reason to believe you can solve it.
Read the Job Description Like a Recruiter
When recruiters review a background, we are rarely asking:
“How many bullets does this person match?”
We are asking:
- Does this person appear capable of doing the work?
- Have they solved similar problems?
- Is the scope comparable?
- Are the gaps material?
- Is there evidence that the experience will transfer?
- Does the background address the reason the client is hiring?
That is a much better framework than a percentage.
You may match 90% of a job description and still miss the one capability the company cares about most.
You may match 70% and have exactly the experience needed to solve the problem behind the hire.
Those are very different situations.
The Better Rule
So should you apply if you do not meet every requirement?
Sometimes, absolutely.
But do not ask whether you meet 80%.
Ask whether you understand the role well enough to know which 20% you are missing.
If the gap is peripheral, teachable or genuinely transferable, it may be worth applying.
If the gap is the reason the job exists, be realistic.
The goal is not to convince yourself you are qualified for everything.
The goal is to recognize when your experience creates a credible case for the work.
That is a much more useful standard than counting bullets.