The Career Tools Rule of Job Applications - 75% (2026)

Summary

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Career Tools Podcast: The Rule of Job Applications – 75%

Episode Date: June 11, 2010
Hosts: Sarah and Mark
Episode Summary:
This episode offers practical guidance for job seekers on when to apply for advertised positions. The hosts introduce and break down the "75% Rule," a straightforward, repeatable process to help you confidently decide whether to pursue a job—even without meeting every listed requirement. The discussion demystifies the application process, addresses job seeker anxieties, and provides step-by-step advice for evaluating your fit to a role.

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Main Theme

Purpose:
To empower job seekers with a clear decision-making framework—the 75% Rule—for applying to jobs, emphasizing that you don’t need to meet every single requirement to be a competitive candidate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Problem with Job Applications

• Two Types of Job Seekers: Those who only apply if they’re 100% qualified and those who apply to everything they see. Both extremes can hinder your job search.
• Insight: Recruiting can feel like a “black box”; applicants often receive no feedback and find it hard to judge their fit.

  “That's one of the reasons why people are so fearful of job searches, because it's a black box.” — Mark [02:24]

2. The 75% Rule Explained

• Rule: If you meet about 75% of the listed requirements for a job, apply!
• Why 75%? Job descriptions mix essential and desirable criteria, but rarely clarify which is which. The extra items are often a wish list, not strict requirements.

  “The rule says if you can do 75% of the job that you're reading about, apply for it. You do not need to have 100% of the skills… This is true for internal and external jobs as well.” — Mark [04:16]

• Avoid Extremes: Applying too narrowly (only to ‘perfect matches’) limits your opportunities; applying too broadly brings unnecessary rejection and discouragement.

3. No Such Thing as the Perfect Candidate

• Reality Check: Recruiters and managers know “perfect” doesn’t exist; they’re often searching for the best available, not flawless, applicant.

  “There are inevitably… skills or experiences very important to them, but they could be dropped if mitigated by another skill which isn't even listed.” — Mark [10:10]

• Analogy: Car shopping—your choice changes once you see what's available, just like hiring managers adjust criteria during interviews.

4. How to Assess If You’re at 75%

• Step-by-Step Process:
  1. List Job Requirements: Write down each from the job description, leaving space under each for your notes.
     • “On the top line, write the first requirement… leave four lines below blank… and continue on down the page.” — Sarah [14:38]
  2. Match Your Accomplishments: For each requirement, fill in relevant experiences or accomplishments from your career record (Manager Tools recommends a comprehensive ‘career management document’).
  3. Count the Matches: If you have two to three concrete bullets for at least 75% of the requirements, you should apply.

     “If they had 12 requirements and you have two bullets for six of them and three bullets for three of them, then it's worth applying.” — Sarah [19:38]

• On ‘Soft’ Requirements: Skip requirements like “works well under pressure” for the list—but be ready to speak to them in interviews.

5. Making Your Resume Work for You

• Tailor Your Resume: Put the relevant, requirement-matching accomplishments at the top of each section on your resume.

  “Make sure the accomplishments you've just written … are at the top of each of the accomplishment sessions.” — Mark [20:42]

• Efficiency Tip: This grading process helps high-detail job seekers minimize wasted time on applications where they likely don’t have a realistic shot.

6. Variations on the Process

• Alternative Method: Lay your long career document next to a job description, and just map items—no need to rewrite if you work better that way.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Perfection:
  “Recruiters and hiring managers know that there's no such thing as the perfect candidate.” — Sarah [08:24]
• Job Search Attitude:
  “You don't get any job you don't apply for.” — Mark [06:47]
• Cultural Laughs:
  “Potato, potato. Canadian.” — Sarah and Mark, joking about pronunciation [20:39]
• On Tailoring Resumes:
  “Because if you've got tons of jobs to apply for and you're always… creating a tailored resume, then this will help you make some decisions about what's worth my time.” — Sarah [21:36]
• On Podcast Ratings:
  “Please don't be applying the 75 rule to that. Five stars only, please.” — Mark [24:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Why Job Applications Are Confusing: [01:18–03:41]
• Introducing the 75% Rule: [03:57–06:47]
• No Perfect Candidate / Car Analogy: [08:07–11:32]
• Step-by-Step: How to Do the 75% Assessment: [14:38–16:01]
• Practical Resume Tailoring Advice: [20:30–21:36]
• Summary & Takeaway: [23:22–24:18]

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Takeaways and Action Steps

• Apply for jobs if you can substantiate at least 75% of the listed requirements with your own experience.
• Don’t get discouraged by “missing” items; job postings are wish lists, and hiring managers rarely find their unicorn.
• Use a structured, side-by-side comparison to evaluate your fit—whether by hand, with digital tools, or simply by intuition and experience.
• Always tailor your resume to highlight the experiences that most closely match the target job—make it easy for recruiters to see you fit.
• "Good enough" is often the best you'll ever need to be to get in the door.

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For more practical career guidance, visit www.manager-tools.com.

Transcript

[Sarah]

Welcome to Career Tools.

[Mark]

This is Sarah and I'm Mark.

[Sarah]

Today's podcast, the Career Tools rule of job applications 75% Part 1 of 1.

[Mark]

As always, our content has been crafted by humans and we're now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are, when should I apply for an advertised job? Do I need to have all the skills before applying for a job? How do I assess my skills for an advertised job?

[Sarah]

If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening.

[Maggie]

Manager Tools will be back in Europe in late November, early December. If you have been considering Manager Tools, deliver training to your organization and you are located in Europe, here is your chance to take advantage of bringing us on site with our standard training cost, no travel fees. Contact Maggie at customerserviceanager-tools.com to secure your dates. Now, our public conference will be in London starting November 24th and will include the effective senior manager conference on November 26th.

[Sarah]

Mark, I'm hearing more and more from community members. Manager Tools, Career Tools, Executive Tools, community members that are on the job hunt right now.

[Mark]

The market is improving. That's a good sign for those who are looking.

[Sarah]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I thought I'd give us a little bit more guidance today on the career hunt, the job hunt, just to continue to help those individuals who are currently in this situation. And folks, there are really two types of job seeker. Those who won't apply for anything they're not 100% certain that they're qualified for, and those who apply indiscriminately for any and every role which they come across. And we understand that as a job secret. It's difficult to understand the reaction of recruiters to our resume, especially when we've been through the confusing situation of being asked about roles we're not interested in, or even rejected roles, or rejected for roles, I should say, that we thought were perfect for us.

[Mark]

Yeah. I have to tell you, Sarah, that is one of the reasons why people are so fearful of job searches, because it's an entirely. It's a black box. And I wish more companies would do a better job of being more candid. Like, for instance, if you go in for an interview and three months later you still haven't heard and the company hasn't said boo to you. Gee whiz, guys, is that what you want people to think of? You know, you should be telling them also, if you rule somebody out, tell them you've ruled them out. Don't think, oh, I don't want to hurt their feelings or whatever. So, no, unfortunately, we have better. I mean, there's so much black boxness to the entire thing. And interviewing specifically as well. It's unfortunate.

[Sarah]

I mean, I want to know when I'm walking out the door.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Sarah]

If you know, if you know, I want to know. You're not going to hire me. Yeah. Anyone would.

[Mark]

Yeah. So what we've done here is to help you with making the decision about whether or not to apply. We've basically converted our experience as recruiters and hiring managers into an exercise. We're going to help you make the decision about whether or not to apply. It'll take some extra time initially as you get used to this process, but going through it a few times will help you understand the thinking required to make appropriate applications.

[Sarah]

So today's outline. First, the career tools rule of job applications, which is 75%. Then there's no such thing as a perfect candidate. And then ultimately how to assess the 75%.

[Mark]

All right, so I'll start us off with the 75% rule. The rule. I want to explain the rule. We know you'd like to get to the how, but in this case it's more important we cover the why. This reminds me, Sarah, of our conversation the other day. He who has a why can tolerate almost any how.

[Sarah]

Yeah. Yes, exactly. That's exactly it.

[Mark]

And so we're going to explain the why. The rule says if you can do 75% of the job that you're reading about, apply for it. You do not need to have 100% of the skills, traits, abilities, characteristics as a job description or advertisement ask. This is true for internal and external jobs as well. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is, even if it is not explicitly stated, the published job description is often a combination of essential and desirable experience. It's not just essential. Okay? Since the desirable is by definition not essential, you do not need to have it in order to apply or be successful in the role. Now, if you don't put the desirable stuff on there as a company and somebody doesn't apply because they have more stuff, the company's shooting itself in the foot. So by definition, there's always more in the job description or in the ad than is necessary. So given you can only guess which ones are essential, they don't flag you, and which ones are desirable. Yeah, that would be nice. Good. The 75% rule gives you a rule of thumb which is more secure and than just guessing.

[Sarah]

And folks, another thing to keep in mind is when you're applying for roles, they may be newly created Roles. And again, you may have, as a candidate who's applying, no idea whether it's newly created or it's filling a vacancy that's already existed. You don't know that. So because this is a newly created role, potentially the job description is often nothing more than a wish list. I mean, we'd be rich if we had a penny for every time we've heard a hiring manager say, you know, I'd really like it if they had this, but you know, I'm okay if

[Mark]

they don't, but that this is on the job description.

[Sarah]

But it's on the job description. Exactly. Exactly. And we know that by the time the job seeker sees that requirement in black and white, it looks as if it must be essential, but it really isn't. And frankly, it just never was essential. So the 75% rule saves you from the hiring manager's wish list that they're probably never going to get because they're attempting to hire a unicorn. But no one has ever done this job before, so they're going to ask for everything and see what they get.

[Mark]

Yeah. Now look, the reason this rule helps you is as a job seeker, there's an important balance for you to strike between applying for very few roles and applying for too many. We even have a saying for this one. You don't get any job you don't apply for. Okay. It's a subversion of the old one. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. On the other hand, applying for hundreds of roles and not even being invited to an interview is demoralizing. Most people don't say, I'm applying for 100 roles and I care about all of them equally. But even if you get told no at a job, you were just threw it out there just in case on a whim, you're still like, there's another no. You're going to get more no's the more jobs you apply to. So it's better to not be that broad. But it's also good not just to apply for one or two or three. So by applying the 75% rule and going through the exercise, you're going to avoid the negative of those two extremes. You're going to be able to find jobs that you have a legit shot at and you're going to have some math that you can do. Basic math about your abilities and your strengths and weaknesses and accomplishments and skills and so on and behaviors that you've proven.

[Sarah]

Exactly. So that takes us then to there's no such thing as the perfect candidate. And we include this for all of you who are concerned that 75% is just not enough of a fit to apply for the role.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Sarah]

No folks, recruiters and hiring managers know that there's no such thing as the perfect candidate. Especially at the resume stage when they can't even possibly know every single thing about you. Just what you can fit on your one page resume. And we work hard constantly to teach hiring managers the fact that they won't have 100% of the skills that you're looking for. And we're trying our very best, or they ought to be trying their very best to find a candidate that is a good enough fit for the role.

[Mark]

Yeah. Okay, let's give you an example. Suppose you're going to buy a car. There are three things that are really important to you. You live in the city, so city fuel economy is important. You have two small children, so safety is important. And third, you like to go off road. So a car with four wheel drive is important. Wow, that's an interesting mix, I gotta say. Then there's a whole list of things which you think are less important. You really like a red car, but blue is okay. You'd like to have something which is easy to clean though you could stain guard the seats yourself. And your budget is really $32,000, but you could spend another 5,000 for something you really love.

[Sarah]

So these are your, these are your requirements. That is the analogy or the comparison to the job description. But then you look at all the car dealers websites and decide on really three options which fit all of your criteria. But when you go down to the showroom, you then fall in love with the minivan which can't go off road but does have a built in entertainment center for, for your children.

[Mark]

Yeah. And we give you this example because hiring managers and recruiters work the same way. There is inevitably, inevitably, sorry, three or four, maybe more, maybe less. But generally around there, skills or experiences which are very important to them, but they could be dropped if they were mitigated by another skill which isn't even listed. I think sometimes people think they're perfect for job and they lose out to somebody who by skill is not as good as them. Skill to skill. But they're in the same industry as the company they're applying to. They know the rhythms of the industry. They know what the fiscal year is. They know how budgeting works in construction versus manufacturing versus consulting and so on. There's all kinds of things that can go into it. So yeah, this guy doesn't have these two things, but. But he's got this and this and this and this. And oh, by the way, this job has to. It has to send a weekly email to the C suite. And this guy's been an aide to a CEO in college, so he knows a little bit about the C suite, which most people in this role don't have. And that's the hardest thing for me to teach him. So if the job is close enough for you to be considering it and you go through the exercise, this exercise we're going to share with you and decide to apply, you probably have the things which are most important.

[Sarah]

Absolutely. Folks. Hiring managers can sometimes deny that this is the thought process they go through, in part because it's, it's an unconscious thought process.

[Mark]

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

[Sarah]

They're not really thinking of it this way. They see the 10 or the 15 resumes that HR or the recruiter allows them to see and imagine that out there in the vast pool, there's this mythical perfect candidate. And they say, well, let's just keep looking. But again, at manager tools, we're trying our very best to educate them, but if you come across an uneducated hiring manager, we are doing our very best to help them understand that there's this need to identify the most important skills or, and as, as you just said, mark this idea that there are some skills which we may think we really, really want or need, but could very well be taken care of or fulfilled by some set of that prove that person has got enough of what the hiring manager wants to be successful in that role.

[Mark]

Yeah. And I want to take them through how to assess the 75%. But I also want to say this. If you're a particular person, if you're a high C or you're a high D and you like facts and numbers and so on, then this is great for you, okay. Because it gives you a process to get you to feel good about the outcome of what you're applying to and whatnot. On the other hand, if it were me, I probably wouldn't need. Not at this point in my career. I'm 65 years old. But to me, I would not have used a point by point comparison of my resume to a job description. I would just look at it and say, yeah, I think I can do that job. That's how I would do it. And I would probably look for things on the job description that would tie to my resume and I would definitely prepare significant accomplishment answers that address that. Okay. So in this case, some of you will find this a nice help. Some of you'll find you. You will find it indispensable. Like, wow, I can actually do some math. Not exactly math. I can do a detailed comparison of my resume and this job description or this advertisement. And I can tell I can do that job. I don't have to have everything, because you'll never have everything. But 75% is a good barrier and once you reach it, you don't have to go any further. You apply to that job. So how do we work out Whether we have 75%? First, you need the job description or the advertisement in front of you. Take a sheet of paper on the top line, write the first requirement. If it's digital, you could probably drop it into AI, your AI bot and get some information out of that. Okay, for example, you'd write, or maybe the bot would write for you experience implementing Oracle database structure or experience in sales in Southeast Asia. Right, Those are both responsibilities of the job. No, they're requirements of the job. Hiring requirements.

[Sarah]

Yeah, and then on that same sheet of paper, folks, leave the four lines below that blank and then write the next requirement. Then again, leave four lines blank and write the next requirement and continue on down the page writing all of the listed requirements until you have them all written down with again, four blank lines between each.

[Mark]

Yeah, now you're done with the advertisement or the job description. Now you pick up your career management document. For those of you, by the way, who have not heard of our systematic career documentation Podcast, that's the document which lists all of your responsibilities and accomplishments you've ever had. It's basically a super long resume from which you take out the key parts that are relevant to job A, and there'll be different key parts that are relevant to job B and to create

[Sarah]

your tailored resume from.

[Mark]

Yeah, exactly. So under experience implementing Oracle database structure, you would Write delivered Oracle 19C Implementation Project on time and on budget across four European countries. Just to help you remember, write the employer name after that on the same line so you remember that's the part of your resume that thing is coming from.

[Sarah]

Yeah, exactly. And folks, we would then recommend that you do this for all of the requirements and all of your accomplishments. Some of the accomplishments are going to repeat themselves. They'll be in multiple different requirements. And that's okay, that's fine, Totally fine. Exactly. Only you're going to see this accounting also. So keep in mind, it doesn't need to be neat if you're doing it by hand. If you're scratching it on a piece of paper, that's totally fine. It's going to facilitate your interview prep later on. So you do want it to be somewhere that you can maintain it, you can keep it, you can return to it. You do want it to be tidy enough that you can go back and you can read it and you can understand it. I mean, that's why, to Mark's earlier point, we say write down the employer on the same line so that it jogs your memory when you're doing that interview prep, studying piece of it. So keeping it in a location, saving it in a folder or a file somewhere that, that you can refer to it, those things are going to be valuable because you are going to want to go back to it later.

[Mark]

Yeah, there are some requirements, job requirements, which it is impossible to demonstrate on a resume or on a written application. Now, we have a second document for those of you who are licensees that's going to be available on the website with these show notes. And it's called a worked example. And what we have done is we've got a job description there. The job description is for a project manager in the City of London in the IT and telecoms sector. And then we have somebody from our community's systematic career management document, cmd. And we did the comparison, we worked this example through to determine whether or not this particular person's background met the 75% criteria suggesting that they should apply. So the one we cover is works well under pressure. Okay? If you've achieved great results, it's likely that you can work well under pressure. On the other hand, you wouldn't write I work well under pressure on your resume, okay? Unsubstantiated statements like that are disregarded by the reader and even electronic systems. Instead, you demonstrate that at the interview by describing a situation where you were under pressure and the result was positive. You can skip writing any of those requirements when you write your list. Okay? When you're doing this list, you don't have to. On our list, we've written parentheses, disregarded next to it. So you know we didn't just forget. Okay? Now, when you're preparing, if you reach the 75% level, you'll want to remember that when you go back and prepare the accomplishments that do, you have to have at least one accomplishment which you work well under pressure.

[Maggie]

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[Sarah]

okay, so now the accounting. If you have two to three bullets for 75% of theirs, then apply for the job. And just to be clear, folks, if they had 12 requirements and you have two bullets for six of them and three bullets for three of them, then it's worth applying. It may be that the three essential requirements are the three you don't have any bullets for. But again, the system is not foolproof. It's unlikely that they're going to let you know which ones are mandatory versus which ones are preferred or optional bullets. And again, the method is better than guesswork to help you make decisions about for which roles to apply.

[Mark]

Now, there's a caveat which I think I was just recording with you earlier today, Sarah, and you said caveat?

[Sarah]

Yeah, caveat.

[Mark]

Yeah, caveat. Yeah, exactly. So just depends.

[Sarah]

Potato, potato, potato, potato. Canadian.

[Mark]

Potato. Canadian. There you go. Don't. So here's our caveat. Since we're in America and I'm American, don't forget that applying is not just about having the accomplishments, but demonstrating those skills. So when you tailor your resume for your application, make sure that the accomplishments you've just written onto your list are at the top of each of the accomplishment sessions. Right? We want the, we don't want the fifth accomplishment to be the one that ties you most closely in terms of the job requirements and what we've done in, in our worked example, we've created a resume from Bob, our mythical candidate, so you can see how he goes from his systematic career management document, cmd, into creating his tailored resume that has the right accomplishments that he would then list, he would account for, and that would go on the resume going to the company.

[Sarah]

Yeah. And again, folks, at the end of the day, some of you may not desire to use this method, but for those of you that are again, Those, those high Cs, those in the weeds, individuals. I mean, Mark, I even think to myself that this could be a valuable exercise for individuals who just want to pare down the amount of time spent on tailoring resumes, right? And absolutely applying for all of the jobs that may exist. Because if you've got tons of jobs to apply for and you're always going back to your career management document, you're always creating a tailored resume, then this will help you make some decisions about what's worth My time. What's not worth my time? Like, where should I focus those. Those energies knowing that I can't necessarily apply for all of them?

[Mark]

Right. Well, what I. When Wendy and I were developing this cast years ago. God, it's gotta been 15 years ago. I told her, I said, look, there's another way to do this. And she recommended we present the guidance this way. But the other way to do it is to get a bunch of copies of your career management document. Get a bunch of the job descriptions or advertisements you're looking at and put your CMD next to that and say, okay, which one of these tie to which one of those A ties to a, B ties to B, and so on. And then you could do a 75% that way without having to write anything down. You've got a folder for XYZ Company they're hiring for ABC job. You put XYZ slash ABC on that career management document and you're just mapping it and you're going to say, how do I feel about it? And what's going to happen is you probably don't even have to worry about the 75%. You're going to discover some jobs. It's not there.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Mark]

And other jobs. Yeah, it's there.

[Sarah]

Exactly.

[Mark]

Simple and fast.

[Sarah]

And fast. So, folks, when deciding whether to apply for a job, you can use the 75% career tools rule. If you can demonstrate you meet 75% of the listed requirements, just apply. Job descriptions are rarely a perfect match for any candidate. They combine essential and desirable criteria, and frankly, they're often just nothing more than a wish list. Recruiters and hiring managers know the perfect candidate doesn't exist. So to assess your 75%, you can list each requirement from the job description, then match your accomplishments from your career management document against them. And if you have two or three bullets for 75% of the requirements, apply. When you do, make sure those accomplishments are prominently featured on the resume, which you tailor for this job application.

[Mark]

Huh? Good one.

[Sarah]

It's a good one. I like it. We hope this one helped you folks. Now help us help others and tell your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. And remember, five stars only, please don't

[Mark]

be applying the 75 rule to that. Five stars only, please. Good one, Sam.