The Job Ad Trap: 'PM Experience Required' for a PM Job

You’ve been doing PM work for two years. The job ad for an actual “Project Manager” role still says “minimum 2 years’ experience as a Project Manager” — as if the title, not the work, is what counts. This is genuinely circular, and it’s worth understanding why it happens before you decide how to get past it.

Why the requirement exists in this exact circular form

Most of the time, this isn’t a deliberate trap — it’s a lazy job ad, copy-pasted from a template or a previous posting, written by someone who wants “experience doing this work” and reached for “years in this job title” as a shorthand, without thinking about how that shorthand excludes exactly the people doing the work under a different title. It’s a proxy for the thing they actually want, not a precise legal requirement.

Apply anyway, if the actual responsibilities match

Job ad requirements are frequently a wish list, not a hard filter — and “years as a PM” is one of the softest, most commonly waived requirements when a candidate’s actual evidence is strong. If the day-to-day responsibilities described in the ad match what you’ve genuinely been doing, apply, and address the title gap directly in your cover letter or application rather than hoping it goes unnoticed: “My title has been Project Coordinator, but my actual scope has included full ownership of…” — naming it removes the awkwardness of an interviewer discovering it themselves.

Use your network to skip the ATS filter entirely

Applicant tracking systems sometimes do filter on job title keywords literally, which is where a lazily-written ad becomes a real obstacle rather than just an annoyance. If you know anyone at the company, or even a second-degree LinkedIn connection, asking them to pass your CV directly to the hiring manager bypasses the keyword filter completely — and a warm introduction changes how your application gets read regardless of what your current title says.

If you keep hitting this wall, it’s a sign to build the evidence louder

If this specific obstacle keeps coming up across multiple applications, that’s a signal to make your real scope more visible before you apply, not just when you apply — see rewriting your LinkedIn headline and building a portfolio of evidence for how to make your actual experience legible before a recruiter or ATS ever gets the chance to filter on your job title alone.