How many job advertisements are "padded"?

Wanderer2010

I notice on irishjobs.ie, monster etc, under the "skills needed" section of jobs, there is usually a bullet list of requirements, sometime quite lengthy. Some of these are just token additions like "Must adhere to industry standards" but do you think most of these jobs really only require one key skill and the rest are just padding?

Example, Im in the admin industry and I looked at a few jobs on websites. Now, I would be very competent at 4 out of the 8 requirements but the other 4 I either have no experience in or never had a chance to use it in my current role, would this work against me in an interview? I cant see many people having absolutely every single one of the requirements for a job. My workmates are convinced that companies really only want, for example, a Microsoft Word expert for a formatting job but pad out the description just to make it look better. Opinions?

Mr. Loverman

I think most job adverts have some padding, yes.

Think of the process:

A senior guy on the team writes the job spec. He knows it will be reviewed by his manager, probably the manager's manager, maybe the CFO/COO/CEO, and the HR person.

He doesn't want to look like a dick, so he puts in lots of professional sounding stuff.

...

As long as they like you and think you can do the job, you're probably grand.

Maximus_1

Yep I'd say alot of padding in some ads I have seen. I am in IT and when I look at some adverts I think bloody where are they going to get someone with all of that knowledge!