What Job Postings Reveal About Your Market Value Right Now

Job postings reveal what employers actually want right now, not what they wanted five years ago when you learned your current role. Requirements change faster than most people update their skills. Reviewing postings identifies gaps before unemployment forces the research.

This isn't about applying for jobs. This is market research. You're gathering data about what your field values in 2025 so you can adjust while you're still employed.

Find five job postings for roles similar to yours. Use the same job boards recruiters use: LinkedIn, Indeed, industry-specific sites. Look for positions at your current level or one level above. Ignore obvious outliers from companies asking for unrealistic combinations of skills.

Read the requirements sections carefully. Not the descriptions about company culture or mission statements. The actual requirements: specific software, certifications, years of experience, technical skills, soft skills.

Make a list of every requirement mentioned across all five postings. You'll see patterns quickly.

Some requirements appear in every posting. These are table stakes for your field right now. If you don't have them, you'll be eliminated before anyone reviews your actual qualifications.

Other requirements appear in three or four postings. These are increasingly standard but not yet universal. Having them gives you an advantage. Not having them creates questions.

Some requirements appear only once or twice. These are either specialized for particular company needs or emerging requirements that haven't become standard yet.

The most frequent requirements tell you what you need to remain employable in your field. This information matters more than what your current job requires because your current job reflects what employers wanted when they hired you, not what they want now.

Common patterns that appear across industries:

Technical skills evolve quickly. The software you learned five years ago might still work, but newer versions or competing products have become standard. Your experience with the old version doesn't transfer as much as you think.

Data analysis appears everywhere. Jobs that didn't require data skills a decade ago now expect basic proficiency with spreadsheets, dashboards, or analytics tools. This isn't about becoming a data scientist. It's about demonstrating you can work with quantitative information.

Communication skills get listed explicitly. Where previous job postings assumed you could write and present clearly, current postings specify these as requirements. Remote work made communication skills more visible and more valuable.

Cross-functional collaboration appears frequently. Jobs increasingly require working with other departments rather than staying within functional boundaries. Experience limited to a single team or department is less valuable than it was.

Certain certifications show up repeatedly. Some fields require specific credentials that didn't exist or weren't standard five years ago. If the same certification appears in multiple postings, it's becoming a barrier to entry.

After reviewing five postings, you'll have a list showing which requirements appeared most often. Sort them by frequency.

Now compare that list to your actual skills and experience. Don't grade yourself on how well you do each thing. Note whether you can honestly claim the skill at all.

You'll find three categories:

Requirements you clearly meet. These confirm you're still qualified for your field. No action needed.

Requirements you partially meet. These are skills you have at a basic level but couldn't demonstrate in an interview. These need strengthening.

Requirements you don't meet at all. These are gaps that would eliminate you from consideration if you applied today.

The gaps tell you what to learn while you're employed and have time. Not everything at once. Start with the most frequently mentioned requirement you don't currently have. That's the skill most likely to matter when you need your next job.

This exercise takes thirty minutes and produces specific data about what your field values right now. The information becomes valuable later when you need to make yourself more marketable quickly. By then, you'll already know what matters.