In the recently published ‘Pharmaceutical Medical Writing Competency Model’, a group of medical writers describes the knowledge, skills, and behaviours they considered essential for successful medical writers. Thus, this model represents a list of essential job requirements from within the medical writing profession. Using the job postings of the EMWA website (in total 146 adverts from 2009 to 2011), we investigated whether the competencies listed in the model are in line with the expectations of the employers of medical writers. In these adverts, we found that familiarity with the techniques of scientific writing and editing, a science background, the ability to comprehend scientific concepts, and the capability to author quality documents were the most frequently mentioned requirements. Generally, the Competency Model matched well with the requirements mentioned in the job adverts. However, certain essential attributes were rarely mentioned in job adverts; examples include proficiency in statistics and knowledge about publication guidelines. With regard to social skills, job adverts tended to ask for more general skills than those described by the Competency Model. The Competency Model distinguishes between publication and regulatory writers, and this distinction was reflected in the attributes mentioned in the job postings with adverts for regulatory medical writers listing a broader skill set than did those for publication medical writers.