Should I apply for this job?

I work at Israemploy, and one of the services we offer is a large list of employment opportunities presented online daily to our members. A question that I am frequently asked by job seekers is whether they should apply for a particular job. It is worthwhile to explore the typical motivations for this question:

• I don’t meet all of the qualifications/requirements – Unfortunately, it is impossible to understand perfectly what the real profile of the employee being sought is. Many times when a job description is created, the implicit meaning is that this is the ideal candidate, but not necessarily will they find someone that meets all of the requirements. This can be true for language skills, or any other details. Thus, if you meet the majority of the job requirements and feel that you can do the job, you should apply. It is the employer’s job to do the filtering based upon their real job requirements. The job seeker should not be filtering themselves out of contention for opportunities that might well be appropriate.
• The company name is not listed – For a variety of reasons, jobs are often posted without the company name. Sometimes this is done by an employer that wants to maintain secrecy, while in other cases companies don’t seem to understand that this is important to job seekers and don’t bother to include the information. Some candidates are concerned that they have already applied for the job directly or via placement companies. Others want to be able to research/tailor their application according to the specific employer, or may simply be uncomfortable sending an application to an unknown destination. Even worse, you may be in a confidential search mode and concerned that your CV might get into the hands of someone you don’t want. The strictly confidential search mode issue is probably the most complex (and rare), and the decision of what action to take is an individual one. In the majority of the other cases, although it preferable to know which company you are submitting your application to, there is not much risk in applying “blindly”, and therefore better to do so.
• The job is not exactly what I am looking for – Sometimes to reach the job that you want; you have to go through intermediate stages. This is especially true for new immigrants to Israel and/or those changing professions, but the principle applies in many situations. So, if the company is not perfect, the location is not ideal, the job responsibilities (salary) is low…, think carefully before deciding whether to disregard the opportunity. In many cases such a job can serve as a stepping stone to your ideal job, providing (Israeli) work experience for the CV, networking contacts, a foot in the door at the company, an income, a chance to improve your Hebrew, some or all of which can make you more attractive when you seek your next job.

Seeking work is never easy, and the job seeker should do everything possible to maximize their changes. One way to do this is to apply for as many opportunities as you find that can be suitable, so that you don’t miss positions that might be excellent because you decided not to send an application.