Career Q&A: Unrealistic Job Descriptions are Killing Me – How Many Of The Skills Do I Really Need?

This Episode's Question
I'm in the petroleum industry. I have a two part question. One is - how would you go about finding six figure job openings?  And then from there, how would you approach a very cookie cutter job description? They seem so rigid - as if no one would fit the qualities, skills, and experiences they're asking for in that description.

 What You'll Learn

- How job descriptions get written behind the scenes

- Where to find six figure job openings

- Whether you should take all of the requirements seriously (education, skills, years of experience, competencies)

- When all of those things in a job description go out the window, and how applying "blindly" to job descriptions will not be your best bet

- How to get creative and get an interview, even if you don't meet the criterion on the job description

Tweetable of the Episode
Find a job description you love, then find a person to get you in the door.

Resource of the Episode
TheLadders - used to be 100k & above (only), now they've opened it up. They have salaries listed much of the time.

My favorite is Indeed- it's an aggregator that pulls from many sites, and lets you filter by salary.