There is a small trap hidden in many vacancy notices: the split between required criteria and desirable criteria.
Some treat the desirable list as a secret second requirement list and quietly rule themselves out. No French? No prior UN experience? No exact regional exposure? Fine, close the tab, make tea, feel slightly defeated.
Others go in the opposite direction and treat the whole vacancy as a loose suggestion. The role asks for seven years, a master's degree, fluent French and experience managing donor-funded programmes. The candidate has three years, a bachelor's degree, school French and enthusiasm. The Apply button is still physically available, so perhaps destiny wants a chance.
In international organisations, that distinction does real work. It is one of the most useful clues in the whole vacancy.
Required criteria are the gates
Required criteria are the conditions your application normally has to satisfy before anyone can seriously compare you with other candidates: degree level, field of study, minimum years of experience, required languages, nationality, work authorization, grade rules, staff category, duty station restrictions, or the type of contract open to external candidates.
The private sector sometimes trains people to read requirements generously. A company may ask for five years and hire someone with three. International organisations can be less forgiving. Their recruitment processes are usually formal, documented and auditable. If a vacancy clearly requires a master's degree and gives no alternative, a strong bachelor's degree may not solve the eligibility problem. If French is required and you cannot work in French, a brilliant technical profile may still stop at the first gate.
Some vacancy notices build flexibility into the requirement itself. Phrases like "or related field", "or first-level degree with additional years of experience", "equivalent combination", "at least", "preferably", and "would be an advantage" all deserve careful reading.
The useful question is evidence.
Can your application clearly show that you meet the required condition, or one of the alternatives the vacancy itself allows?
If yes, keep going. If no, be careful with the opportunity cost. Applying anyway may feel productive, but it can eat the time you should spend on vacancies where your profile can actually compete. We wrote more about that first formal gate in Before a human loves your profile, HR must find you eligible.
Desirable criteria are clues
Desirable criteria tell you what the hiring office would be happy to see: a language that helps, a region that matters, a software tool the team uses, a donor the office works with, a type of stakeholder they expect you to handle, or a bit of institutional experience that would make onboarding easier.
If a vacancy says French is desirable and you do not speak French, that is a weakness. It is a much smaller weakness than failing a required language. If prior UN experience is desirable and you come from government, an NGO, consulting, academia or the private sector, you may still have a strong case if your work translates well. Our article on relevant experience in UN applications goes deeper into that translation problem.
Desirable criteria are useful because they show you where to put weight in the application.
Do not hide the exact thing the vacancy says would be useful. If the desirable list mentions donor reporting and you have handled donor reporting, say so plainly. If it mentions regional coordination and you have coordinated work across countries, do not bury that in the fourth bullet of a job from 2019.
Read the desirable list as a map of where your strongest proof should stand.
A small example
Imagine a vacancy with this structure:
Required:
- Advanced university degree in public policy, economics, social sciences or a related field; a first-level degree plus two additional years may be accepted.
- Five years of relevant experience in programme management or policy support.
- Fluency in English.
Desirable:
- Experience with EU or UN-funded programmes.
- Working knowledge of French.
- Field experience in West or Central Africa.
Read it like this.
The degree, experience and English requirements are the gates. You need to show them clearly, including the permitted alternative if you rely on the first-level degree route. The EU or UN funding, French and regional exposure are ranking signals. If you have them, bring them forward. If you do not, ask whether your required-fit evidence is still strong enough to make the application worthwhile.
That is the difference between a weakness and a blocker.
The criteria may be hiding in strange places
Vacancy notices are not always tidy. A nationality restriction may appear in an "Additional information" section. A local-recruitment rule may be in a footnote. A language condition may be mentioned in the duties rather than the qualifications. A grade or internal-mobility rule may sit in a separate policy paragraph. Some organisations scatter important details with the confidence of people who already know where everything is.
That is one reason dotint.careers looks across the full vacancy text, not only the most obvious requirements section, when checking eligibility. The aim is to catch the hidden gates before they become your wasted afternoon.
The platform then separates two questions: does the vacancy look formally reachable for this profile, and if it is reachable, how strong is the fit?
That second question is where the percentage match belongs. In simple terms, dotint.careers reads the vacancy and imagines two reference profiles: one that is barely eligible, and one that fulfils the required and desirable criteria as strongly as reasonably possible. Your profile is then placed between those points, using signals such as education, experience, skills, languages, responsibility level, international and sector background, and your stated preferences.
The score gives a structured answer to a practical question: among the vacancies you can plausibly pursue, which ones deserve serious attention?
Read with a pencil, not a mood
Vacancy notices can make people strangely emotional. A missing desirable language can feel like rejection. A long list of assets can feel like a message that the job has already been designed for someone else. A formal requirement you miss can tempt you to argue with the screen.
Try a colder, kinder method.
First, mark the gates. Degree. Years. Required languages. Nationality or work authorization. Grade or contract restrictions. Anything that sounds like "must", "required", "minimum", "essential" or "only".
Second, check whether the vacancy gives alternatives. Related fields. Additional years. Equivalent experience. Acceptable substitutions.
Third, mark the clues. Desirable languages, sectors, regions, donors, systems, stakeholders, management exposure and institutional background.
Then make the decision.
If you do not clear the gates, the opportunity is probably not worth your time. If you clear the gates but miss some desirable criteria, do not reject yourself too quickly. Use the desirable list to decide whether the role is promising, and to make your best evidence impossible to miss.
This is also why dotint.careers tries to keep your vacancy list calm. A larger pile of vacancies usually creates a larger pile of anxiety. Removing roles where your chances are very weak helps you focus on the ones where the requirements, the desirable signals and your own career direction line up well enough to justify a proper application.
Required criteria tell you whether the door is likely to open.
Desirable criteria tell you what to carry through it.