How do I tell a real junior role from a disguised senior one?

A junior role trains the tools and asks for little or no professional experience. A list of five years plus a stack of products is not junior, whatever the title says.

Should I apply if I have half the skills?

Apply if you have the requirements and can learn the preferences. Do not apply by claiming years you do not have.

Do Caribbean tech jobs all require a degree?

No. Read the line that says required. Support roles often do not. Some development and data roles do. The advert is the source, not a general rule.

Reference

How to Read a Caribbean Tech Job Ad

The Evolve Team26 September 2026Careers

Separate the tools an employer will teach from the years of experience they actually require. The title is the least reliable line in the advert.

This is the page to read before you apply for anything else in the careers series. A supportive title on a demanding list wastes your week and, if you exaggerate, wastes theirs.

Required

Must, required, you will have. If this is false, do not apply.

Taught

Willing to learn, training provided. Say which of these you have not used.

Decoration

A list of products with no verb. Ignore it until a sentence makes one required.

Mark every line

Print it or copy it into a note. Mark each line:

Required. “Must”, “required”, “you will have”. These are the gate. If you do not have them, this application is a wish.
Taught. “Exposure to”, “willing to learn”, “training provided”. These are preferences. You may learn them on the job. Say which ones you have not used yet.
Decoration. A paragraph of products with no verb. Treat it as atmosphere until a sentence makes one of them required.

“Junior developer, five years of React, Kubernetes, and AWS” has a junior title and a senior gate. Believe the gate. The same test applies to “entry-level data scientist” with a list of models. That role is described more honestly in data work that is not data science.

If it does not, ask them before you accept an interview that costs you a day’s transport:

Where is the work, and which days are in that place?
Who will show you the system in the first month?
Is the pay stated, or will you only hear it after three interviews?

This page will not invent a salary. A number with no employer and no date is a rumour. If the advert states a figure, that figure is the one you discuss. If it does not, ask.

How to answer without inventing a career

Use two pieces of proof you can show on a phone or a laptop.

For support: a problem you fixed and the note you would have put on the ticket. See IT support as a first job.
For development: one small program from the path in CXC IT to a junior developer.
For security: an explanation of a phishing message, not a claim that you have hacked anything. See the first security certificate.

Do not paste the advert, with the company’s private details, into a public chatbot to “rewrite your CV”. Remove the company name and any personal data first, and follow what never to paste.

Apply to fewer adverts. Send the ones where the required lines are true.

Discussion

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Questions the advert should answer

How to answer without inventing a career

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