Want Ads

There might be a few generic types of want ads, but there is no universal pattern. The people who are placing the ads are too varied. About the only things that can be counted on are that: 

1. the actual job will have absolutely nothing to do with the stated requirements, and 
2. the stated requirements will have nothing to do with whether you get hired or not.

People place ads for all kinds of reasons, usually because they need some help, but not always. Sometimes it's political and sometimes it's to meet some regulatory requirement.

Big companies (the ones with HR departments) seem to be the ones that place the ads with the laundry list of requirements. I suspect this is because they expect a large number of applicants and they need some way for the HR department to winnow it down. In cases like this, your best bet is to cut the requirements from the ad and paste them in your resume. That should get you to stage two of the hiring process where someone calls to find out if you are a real person. After that your fate lies with the gods. Whether you get hired or not depends on your manner, your voice and how people see you. I am also equally certain that nine times out of ten they hire the wrong person, because after all, how can you ever predict whether someone is going to work out?

Inspired by an email conversation with my far-flung correspondents.