Most jobs are terrible at distinguishing between requirements, responsibilities, and nice to haves. Most requirements are actually responsibilities which means you'll need to learn those skills but don't need to already know them. As long as you think you can pick them up you should be fine.

You apply anyway because half the time the things jobs "require" is the same marketing fluff they add everywhere. Similarly to you I have a hard time bullshitting because I try to be honest about what I know and what I don't, and for the first few years of my career I was incapable of bullshitting. Then my credentials were required for a project and I had to sit down with a sales person to "fix up" my resume. It went something like this:

"Was Power BI used in this project?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't really use it. I opened it maybe once."

"I'll mark it down as experience with Power BI"

Really opened my eyes to how things get done. Some of what gets added as "requirements" tend to never come up. During an interview it's always worthwhile to prod a bit at the requirements to see what is and isn't bullshit, because I guarantee there is always some bullshit that you will never need.

Similarly don't be afraid to bullshit a bit on your resume because you can't know everything about everything. Bit of technical jargon but I'll get to the point, I swear. My first job switch was for a position that required experience with microservices. This was in the early days when people were still figuring out what these mystical microservices are. I was then working on a project that was using a microservice architecture, but I never felt like the project was getting any real benefits from that decision and the applications didn't feel "micro". Nevertheless I put it down as experience and I rationalized it as it's experience either way. If it's done right and I see it done the same way in a different project then it does mean I have the experience. If it's not done right then I'll have the experience of how it could be done wrong which means I still have some experience. Kinda BS but it landed me the position. I then learned that my experience was both right and wrong, so I quickly learned from the mistakes of the previous project, learned how to do it right and applied them in the new project. In the end I was highly regarded in the project despite at first feeling like I bullshitted myself in. As long as you're willing to put in the effort to overcome your shortcomings you're allowed to bullshit a little, because nobody cares as long as things get done without huge issues. Just don't sell yourself on things you know you can't overcome.

Just be honest with yourself if you think you could do the job. If so, apply. If you get an interview, then Google how to do the job and watch some videos about that position, the software that is used, lingo, etc. 90% of the people interviewing you will have virtually no idea what the job is, they are just asking questions to see if seems like you think you know what you are doing. If you get the job, even if you DO know how to do it, still Google how to do it and keep learning and mastering it. The only people who perfectly know how to do a job are usually those who are ready to move to a new position or ready to retire.

My team is currently hiring, and I got to listen in on the conversation with HR when they were developing the job posting. The job posting includes requirements that the team knows they are unlikely to find, especially finding all of them in a single candidate. The posting calls them requirements, but really it's more of a wish list. If you come across listings where you meet half of their requirements (wish list), and think you can learn some of the others, you should apply.

Apply. Just be honest on your resume and honest in the interview. Source: I sometimes hire, but do not write the job postings.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it ever goes away..... I recently got invited to sit on the national licensing board for my field. I'm literally helping make the test to see if you're an imposter, and I still feel like an imposter.

Me too.

Not disagreeing, but what does that help the thousands who will still lose their jobs regardless?

Jokes on you, OP's job is parroting things that were scraped off the internet!

Funnily enough, that’s also what a large portion of people do too, just regurgitate stuff without comprehending its meaning.

Lots of people get phds masters and bachelors while just being able to answer textbook questions, start questioning them to get them to apply that knowledge and it’s just air. It’s literally what people call “book smart” vs “street smart”.

large language model, e.g. Bing Copilot or Google Bard

Holy fuck, we have a railroad tie retaining wall for the bank in our back yard, but that's keeping the bank from sliding towards the house, not for keeping the house up, and still, it's not even holding much back. I'd never trust that for anything critical. No way that would ever be approved today.