In every instance where I’ve been reading cvs for a job, the requirements have always been requirements. If we had nice to have features, they were listed as nice to have.
I work at a university. When hiring, if someone doesn’t have one of the “Required Job Qualifications”, they are immediately disqualified. We can wiggle a little if we can infer one of the qualifications from other experience, but that is pretty frowned upon.
If we have things that we’d like to have but are not required, they are listed as “Preferred Job Qualifications”. We then create a rating scale for each based on their relative importance and grade candidates one each of the preferred qualifications. We use the resulting rankings to determine who we will interview. We MUST interview every candidate above the lowest ranked candidate we interview.
When I have hired people, I rarely find someone that meets all the requirements. I think a wishlist is a good way to look at it. If someone hits 9/10 things at best and I need someone for the job, then they get it.
Ultimately, there is no standard way to do this as it is up to the person doing the hiring.
I’d also add that someone once specifically applied in a way that I said not to apply, but I was wrong and receiving the application through those means was actually very helpful and they met the other reqs so I hired them.
So much of this stuff is just based on intuition and your ability to demonstrate certain technical skills.