Women are less aggressive than men when they apply for jobs -- applying for fewer positions and asking for help less frequently -- according to a LinkedIn  survey.

However, they should: While women apply to fewer jobs, they're 16% more likely to get hired after they apply. For senior roles, women are 18% more likely to cinch the job than men.

The study builds on a benchmark internal report from Hewlett Packard that found women tend to apply for a new job only when they meet 100% of the listed criteria, compared to men who usually apply when they meet about 60% of said criteria.

Even though both genders were similarly interested in new jobs, compared to men, women applied to 20% fewer jobs and were 16% less likely to apply after viewing a job, the results said.

Women were also 26% less likely to ask for a referral even when they had a connection to someone at the company that was hiring, the results said.

The data was gathered from over 610 million users around the world over the course of 2018.

The disparity may not be about women's confidence in their ability to get the job done, but about taking the job qualifications too literally.

What held them back from applying was not a mistaken perception about themselves, but a mistaken perception about the hiring process.

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