Four lines in a job post you should never skip

Last week, under one of my posts, a senior iOS engineer listed what goes wrong in the job posts he applies to. Remote that means one country. Visa rules that are never mentioned. A Staff title on a role that asks for two years.

He is right. Job posts are unreliable. Which is exactly why the reading matters more, not less: when the post cannot be trusted, the only filter left is yours.

You do not need to read the whole post. Most of it is the company describing itself. But four lines decide whether the application was ever possible, and they take thirty seconds.

1. Where you can legally work from. Remote often means remote inside one country, and the post rarely says which. Look for a location next to the word remote, a timezone, or a line about the countries they hire in. If none of it is there, treat it as unknown, not as yes.

2. The real level, not the title. Read the years and the scope, then ignore the title. Staff with two to four years asked is a mid-level role with a bigger name. Senior that asks you to own a whole platform may be a staff role paid as senior. Either way, you want to know before your CV goes in.

3. The one requirement that is not negotiable. Most requirement lists are wishes. Usually one line is not: a language, a framework, a domain, a clearance. Find it. If you do not have it, the rest of the list does not matter.

4. The work model at the bottom of the page. Hybrid has a habit of appearing in the last paragraph, after remote in the first. Read the end before the beginning.

And one question before you apply

When the post leaves any of the four unclear, ask the recruiter one thing first:

Can you hire someone working from where I am?

One message. It saves weeks of applications that were never going to reach a person.

If you have checked all four and the replies still do not come, the problem is usually not the post anymore. It is how your CV and LinkedIn read for that role. That is the part I rebuild in Engineer Career Rebuild.