I spent some time today reading entry-level job descriptions on LinkedIn. There seems to be a widespread misconception that entry-level means “doesn’t have a lot of experience”, but entry-level means “no experience” — it’s right there in the name.

In addition to requiring a couple of years experience, these jobs also seem to require skills that would be very hard to obtain without a job. It’s shortsighted and very unlikely to result in good hires.

Imagine what this employer is thinking: There is a person with 2 years experience at a job where they got all of this great experience, and now they are going to move to your (excuse me) shitty job. They are not.

Let’s assume this person is great—I hate to tell you, but they are not looking at junior/entry-level jobs. Either their current employer is smart enough to know how to retain them (hint: with money), and so they will not be considering you or, if they are looking, they are looking to move up.

The person with 1-2 years experience that is fine with another entry-level job is doing this for a reason. In the best case scenario: they are in a bad job and need to get out—guess what, your job looks just as bad. My evidence for this is that you don’t know what “entry-level” means and are likely going to have unrealistic expectations and be another bad job. They know this. They missed the red flags before, but they see them now.

Posting entry-level jobs that are not entry level is a signal that your job sucks.