Preferred Qualifications on a Resume: Required vs Preferred
Most job postings split their wish list into two blocks: required (sometimes "basic" or "minimum") qualifications and preferred ones. The split is not decoration. Hiring software reads the two blocks differently, and so do recruiters. Knowing how each block is used tells you when to apply, what to put first on your resume, and when a missing line on the list does not matter.
How hiring software reads the two lists
The clearest public description comes from Workday. Its HiredScore feature grades candidates on how well their resumes match the skills and qualifications in the job description, using four levels:
| Grade | Workday's definition, summarised |
|---|---|
| A | Meets all basic (required) qualifications, most preferred qualifications, and an average match above a set threshold |
| B | Meets all basic qualifications |
| C | Meets most but not all basic qualifications |
| D | Does not meet most basic qualifications |
The structure says it all. Basic qualifications separate B from C. Preferred qualifications only separate A from B. Workday is the most common identifiable system at large US employers: 87 companies in the ATS Resume AI analysis of all 503 S&P 500 careers sites and 9,260 live job postings, June 2026 (full breakdown).
LinkedIn's Job Match makes the same split visible to you. When it launched in January 2025, LinkedIn's Rohan Rajiv wrote that job seekers "will see a full match summary explaining how the qualifications from their profile match up every required and preferred qualification on the job" (LinkedIn).
Greenhouse lets recruiters build the same logic into a search. In Talent Filtering, "Required" keywords must all appear in an application, while for "Preferred" keywords only one must appear.
Where required really means required
Some requirements are enforced before anyone reads your resume. Greenhouse allows an employer to auto-reject applicants based on their answer to a Yes/No or multiple-choice application question, with the example of a role that requires a Class A commercial driver's license. Licences, certifications, work authorisation, security clearance and shift availability are the kinds of requirement an employer can enforce this way. If a posting asks such a question and the honest answer is no, that application is over.
Everything else on the required list is softer than it looks, because employers themselves do not hold hires to it. In the Harvard Business School and Accenture Hidden Workers survey of 2,275 executives, 47% said that only half or fewer of their middle-skills hires over three years met all the requirements in their postings, and only 21% said all their high-skills hires did. The same report found 88% of employers agreed that qualified high-skills candidates are screened out because they "do not match the exact criteria established by the job description."
How often degrees are actually required
Degree lines are the requirement people most often assume. Our posting data shows how rarely they are stated as hard requirements at large employers. The figures below are from the ATS Resume AI analysis of all 503 S&P 500 careers sites and 9,260 live job postings, June 2026 (role pages).
| Role | Degree explicitly required | Degree mentioned at all |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 1.6% | 12.7% |
| Data Scientist | 1.5% | 14.8% |
| Product Manager | 1.1% | 13.7% |
| Marketing | 1.1% | 9.2% |
| Finance | 1.2% | 20.3% |
| Sales | 0.2% | 8.9% |
| Operations | 0.0% | 6.9% |
| Customer Service | 0.0% | 6.3% |
In every one of the eight roles, an explicit degree requirement appeared in under 2% of postings in our analysis. Finance mentioned degrees most often, at 20.3%, which still leaves most finance postings silent on the subject. These are S&P 500 postings for eight role families, not all employers, but they show that "degree required" is far less common in practice than people expect.
Why postings over-ask
The Hidden Workers report explains part of the gap between the list and the hire. A majority (72%) of employers said they built new middle-skills postings by reusing an existing one or modifying it slightly (HBS/Accenture). Over time, the report says, requirements "come to resemble the rings on a tree trunk," with new items added to old ones. A long preferred list is often accumulated history, not a checklist every hire meets.
LinkedIn sees the other side. Rajiv's launch post states that "73% of hiring managers say that less than half the job applications they receive meet all the required criteria" (LinkedIn). Recruiters are filtering on the required block because so many applicants miss it. Meeting it puts you in the smaller group.
A worked example
Take a data scientist posting with this split:
- Required: Python, SQL, statistics, three years of experience.
- Preferred: A/B testing, experience with large language models, a master's degree.
Those terms are typical of the role. In the ATS Resume AI analysis of all 503 S&P 500 careers sites and 9,260 live job postings, June 2026, Python appeared in 37.6% of full-text data scientist postings, SQL in 29.7%, AI / LLMs in 23.8%, A/B testing in 22.8% and statistics in 21.8% (data scientist data).
A candidate with Python, SQL, statistics and four years, plus A/B testing but no LLM work and no master's, should apply. The resume should open with the required block in the posting's words:
Data scientist with four years of Python, SQL and applied statistics in consumer products.
The preferred item they have becomes a bullet with evidence:
Designed and analysed A/B tests on onboarding flows; the winning variant became the default for all new users.
The two missing preferred items are simply absent. Nothing in the grading schemes above requires them, and claiming them would only create a problem in the interview.
Sort a posting and tailor to it
Split the posting into three columns
Hard gates (licences, clearance, authorisation, anything asked as a yes/no question), other required items, and preferred items.
Mark each item: have, adjacent, missing
"Adjacent" means you have closely related experience you can describe honestly, such as Azure when the posting says AWS.
Decide whether to apply
Do not apply if you miss a hard gate. Apply if you have all other required items, or all but one with an adjacent match. Preferred items do not decide this.
Lead with the required block
Each required item you have should appear in the posting's wording in your summary, skills line or the first bullets of your most recent role.
Add preferred items as evidence
Each preferred item you genuinely have goes in a bullet with a result. These are what move a Grade B to a Grade A in Workday's scheme.
Bridge adjacent items in one line
Write what you did and name the related tool, for example "Built CI/CD pipelines on Azure DevOps (transferable to AWS CodePipeline)." Do not claim the missing item itself.
If you tailor with software, check that it does not invent a qualification to close a gap. Our optimizer returns terms it cannot trace to your resume as [confirm: …] for you to check, rather than writing them in.
Sources
- Workday HiredScore documentation, "Reference: Candidate Grades"
- Rohan Rajiv on LinkedIn, "The secret to job search success - targeting the right jobs with job match" (2025)
- Greenhouse Support, "Talent Filtering"
- Greenhouse Support, "Auto-reject"
- Harvard Business School and Accenture, "Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent" (2021, Internet Archive copy)
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between basic and preferred qualifications?
- Basic (or minimum, or required) qualifications are what the employer says a candidate must have. Preferred qualifications are extras that make a candidate stronger. Workday's HiredScore grading uses basic qualifications to separate grades B to D and preferred ones only to separate A from B.
- Should I apply if I meet none of the preferred qualifications?
- Yes, if you meet the required ones. Meeting all basic qualifications earns a B in Workday's HiredScore grading, which is a qualified candidate. Preferred items help you rank higher among qualified applicants.
- Should I list preferred qualifications I don't have?
- No. Only list what is true. If you have something closely related, describe what you actually did and name the related tool, so a reader can judge the overlap.
- Is a degree requirement really optional?
- Sometimes. In our June 2026 sample of S&P 500 postings, fewer than 2% explicitly required a degree in each of eight roles. When a posting does state one as a hard requirement or asks about it as a yes/no question, treat it as a gate.