My old boss was looking to hire some more people for entry level positions. He had me review his write up before he posted it. For some background, at this time I had been at the job for over 10 years. I started at the bottom and worked my way up to the top and then out of that team. I did nearly every job at some point and worked all the shifts to know the different jobs on those different shifts. I wrote 90% of the docs, I defined a significant number of the processes, I wrote all the tools, wrote all the training, interviewed countless people for jobs on the team at all levels, and personally trained dozens of them (across the country and globe). I was also told I had carte blanche to speak for the VP and the team, and could basically do whatever I wanted. I was very qualified to be on the team by pretty much any measure. In many ways I defined what the team was and how it worked at that point in time.
Reading the job description, I had no idea what it was asking for or talking about, felt under qualified for the job, and wouldn’t have applied. I didn’t think I knew anything it was asking for. I told my boss this and he ran with it anyway. I’d encourage anyone to read the job posting for any open positions on your team to see how disconnected from reality they are.
You’d think that experience would make me take other postings less seriously, as the level of BS was off the charts, but I still have trouble applying for anything where I can’t check off almost every box.