Too many people advise you to try to minimize your weaknesses. You need to embrace and advertise them.
What does this mean? Why would I say that? I’ll give you an example.
I had a recruiter reach out to me and say that he needed x + y. I only had half of the required years of experience with X and I was less familiar than he wanted with y. In my first response to his LinkedIn InMessage I told him where I think that it was a critical gap given the title and he agreed that it wasn’t the best match. Both of our time was saved.
When recruiters contact you, they see that you have some of what they want, and often in a job listing you will see that there are other things that you may not be the right person for. No one can know everything nor needs to in order to be valuable and employed. This means that instead of trying to hide what you can’t do, you need to point out where you may fall short and save yourself and others time.
I shared before that during a interview it was clear to me that I didn’t have the skills for this position and that they needed more than what I could do. I told them it was ok if I didn’t fit the position and thanked them for their time.
You need to be willing to reject almost every opportunity that comes your way. Does this sound crazy? What if we think of the opposite. You need to be willing to accept almost every opportunity that comes your way. That is equally crazy. You aren’t the best person for almost every opportunity, and you aren’t the worst person either. The hiring manager mostly decides if they like you, and you can’t control that. Hiring managers like to say its about technical skills, but it is about if they feel you are like them and what mood they are in that day. There is far more emotional and non professional behavior in business, than you are lead to believe.
Which is fine. People are human. Be human too and don’t allow people to waste your time if you suspect you lack the skills, or the desire to work with jerks.