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I recently came across a job listing that lists "5+ years professional experience [in the field]" as one of the requirements but under seniority level, it says "Entry level." What should one take away from this? I was under the impression that an entry level job was a job for fresh graduates or people transitioning from a different field but here, that's clearly not the case. Can it be used to refer to any job that is the lowest level within a team, i.e., "not senior?"

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    it's completely commonplace that job ads have typos, or nonsensical sentences. just ignore the seeminly whacky information.
    – Fattie
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 1:19
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    I just noticed on linked that EVERY software developer positions I can read in my country have this "Seniority level: entry level", even if they clearly ask for a "Team Lead Rockstar Architect Top Manager- 25years+ experience". IMO, it's some listbox / optional field that noone posting an ad notices, and that is more apparent for the candidates. I'd say, ignore this. Even if it's not linkedin, it probably comes from a template, and was overlooked. That would be the least of my concerns.
    – Pac0
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 9:48
  • Enrty Level = Low Pay.
    – Hilmar
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 12:47
  • I noticed the same thing about LinkedIn as @Pac0. Maybe you could clarify on which site(s) you are seeing these job posts?
    – zmike
    Commented Nov 20, 2020 at 0:52
  • "We are looking for much experience, but pay as if you dropped out of high school."
    – guest
    Commented Nov 20, 2020 at 13:47

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They've either got exceptionally high standards, or (much more likely) the person writing the job ad has no idea about the position they're recruiting for. Perhaps even more likely again is that there was a field that the person placing the advertisement didn't notice or read properly, and "entry level" was the default.

I'd look at the other requirements, and see if they describe a job you'd like to apply for. If they do, then apply, and you'll be able to discover what you need to know during the recruitment process.

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    Real job ad back from 2006: Must have 5+ years experience with VB.Net
    – Old_Lamplighter
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 13:58
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    Tech jobs are like this all the time. 5+ years of experience with something that's brand new, and doesn't even exist in academics.
    – Nelson
    Commented Nov 19, 2020 at 4:07
  • People take it so personally and get so bitter over not getting hired. These days people who fail interviews take to social media to attack the companies that didn't hire them, making up silly excuses that aren't real. -- EG -- I failed on a silly "algorithm question that isn't needed for the job" or "It asked for 50 years experience in React but was only released 7 years ago" etc... Most of these are made up and not real.
    – flexi
    Commented Nov 19, 2020 at 11:13
  • 1) How on earth do you know the alog question isn't relevant to the job. You can't know that. Also how do you know you failed on that question. Companies rarely give feedback that granular. ---- 2) Out of the thousands of job ads I've viewed, I've not seen one that has asked for more years experience than was possible.
    – flexi
    Commented Nov 19, 2020 at 11:14
  • FYI, if you've seen Twitter images of these silly job postings and not the original listing yourself, don't believe them... (cough) dev tools (cough)
    – flexi
    Commented Nov 19, 2020 at 11:15
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"Honestly ... who the hell knows?" Just apply for the job, and good luck.

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In my experience, if we are talking about LinkedIn job postings,

Majority of posters do not change that option and by default it is Entry Level

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If it's on every job listing, then like others have pointed out, it's probably a default field that was missed or a bug on the website.

However, entry level usually means a person just about meets the skills needed for entry, but not enough to work autonomously (without a lot of assistance from colleagues).

I was under the impression that an entry level job was a job for fresh graduates or people transitioning from a different field

Not necessarily. Years of experience doesn't translate to skills. You could have 10 years experience in the field, but if you've only ever used the basics, your skills can still be at junior level and you would only be able to get entry level positions.

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It means that you need to ask about the salary expectations that they have. Many places want to get someone with 25 years of experience, but pay for someone with only 1 year. If you expect to get paid for your experience, you need to ask for that and be prepared to walk when they do not match or even come close to what you need.

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They’re getting too many applicants.

You’re asking why this is done, so I’ll tell you the simplest reason: they’re getting too many applications, so they then proceed to raise the requirements to reduce the number of viable applications they receive; if they’re getting a thousand applications and 90% of them have less than 5 years experience, then they can list five years experience as a requirement so that they can toss 900 resumes in the garbage bin. The same thing has happened to university degrees; they used to be a lot rarer, so they were listed as required, and now everybody has one so they’ve become functionally mandatory.

Also, in IT specifically, you’ve got a similar phenomenon where companies don’t want to spend time and money training employees who might leave to work for someone else six months later, so they refuse to hire anyone who isn’t “ready to hit the ground running”.

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