I am acquainted with the notion of not applying to a position that I am not qualified for. But the question I wanted to ask is if it would be prudent to ask the recruiter for a position that is asking for 2-3 year experience if the company in question has positions for 0-2 years of experience.

Upon consulting a previous question that is similar in nature I come to the conclusion that applying for a position that I am unqualified for is wasting everyone's time. But would it be wasting the recruiter's time if I were to ask if there are other positions available?

In conversation with Lilienthal, he/she mentioned that this action would be viewed poorly by a recruiter as most large corporations, government jobs would have listings on their websites. But for smaller companies, private or public agencies, would asking the recruiter (or equivelent to HR department) be a viable tactic?

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    Not an answer, but anecdotally the answer is yes. It's how I got my current job ;)
    – Jane S
    Feb 3 '16 at 23:09

In what context is this conversation occurring?

If a recruiter calls you up, you chat for a bit, and establish that you probably don't have enough experience to be a good match, it would be perfectly reasonable to ask whether there are other open positions that you might be qualified for. If you've had a couple interviews and the feedback is that they like you but they're going with someone that has more experience, it's perfectly reasonable to ask if there are other open positions you might be a fit for. One more than one occasion, I've been involved in interview processes where we asked a candidate we liked if they were open to being considered for other positions that we had open.

On the other hand, it would be rather odd to contact someone solely to find out if they have other positions open. Presumably, if you are finding a position that looks interesting but that you are not qualified for, you can use that same source to look for yourself to see whether there might be a better fit available. If you're looking at the company's web site, for example, it would be very odd if they had other positions that weren't posted there. If you're looking on Monster or Dice or a job board like that, it would be odd if there were other similar positions available that weren't posted on that board.


I work for a large company, and the recruiters will sometimes take a resume they find interesting and match it against other positions.

Or when we bring someone in, they don't have to repeat the first phone interview if we talk to them, and we determine that they're actually a better match for another open position.

We would encourage you to ask about other positions that may match your skills better. Our team is selective and thinks they hire very highly qualified people, if we have a better match where your skills benefit the company more, we're encouraged to help you down that path.


As a HW/SW recruiter, I generally have multiple placements on my desk that might fit an engineer when I speak with them. From my perspective, certainly ask about other positions. When there aren't any positions available to them that day, I let them know that immediately. In short, totally ask.

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