The New York Times had an interesting article about this today. A trucking company in Indiana put out an ad for an adminstrative assistant and ended up getting 500 responses, including one from a woman who actually used to own her own trucking company. The manager weeded out anyone he thought was overqualified saying, “We like to get the fair and middling talent that will work for the wages and groom them from within.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us/22hire.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1256230835-0ajkSC4aFA9EM7fQo73ZTw
I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. My wife has been looking for full time work for awhile. She can’t seem to find any jobs she’s qualified for. But when she tries applying for something in, say, the retail sector, they seem scared off by her college degree.
Has anyone else here had problems like this? What’s an eager job applicant supposed to do? Dumb down their resume?
Recent graduate with minimal experience in my field (i.e part time during school). My field happens to be one that gets hit hard during recessions (first to be downsized I guess), which is IT.
So I have a degree but with all of the talent out there due to layoffs (I also live in the Seattle area now, which has a lot of IT talent), I’m way under qualified for even tech support jobs, or so It seems. Applying for non-degree related jobs, such as warehouse and factory jobs (8 years cumulative experience counting extra summer jobs during college), janitorial jobs, etc.
I’ve not yet applied for any retail… Thankfully my wife makes enough I can set my income limit at 9 bucks an hour (she is in pretty much a recession proof career - Physical Therapy). I’ve thought about just not putting that I have a degree, but I’m not comfortable with that.
I have that issue as well. Geez I have applied at Target, Kmart, Walmart, Taco Bell, and various other department stores. I even went the “I only want part time work” route thinking they would want me if they thought it was just to earn some extra money.
But I since wonder if it was my degree as I tried it at some places and just left off my college degree. I still didn’t get called back, so it may be my age 45, rather than the degree. Or maybe a combination of both.
I have a feeling this problem is only going to get worse. While I can understand some employers don’t want to take on people who’ll flee as soon as they find something better, or who approach a minimum wage job as beneath them, it seems horribly cruel to dismiss people from industries that just aren’t hiring. Dumbing down your resume does seem like one of the only ways to combat it, though.
I have no degree, and keep getting told I’m overqualified for jobs in my field (I DO have nearly fifteen years of experience). At first I figured it was a euphemism for “you want too much money”, but the last couple of times it was for jobs well within my salary range, and recently for a six week temp job! I mean, who cares if you’re overqualified for a six week temp job? The rate has already been negotiated with the agency, so why not get more than you’re paying for?
Prior to this year, I’ve never not been offered a job I interviewed for. It’s incredibly frustrating.
I think you have to look at it a bit more from their perspective. Even for temp jobs or bagging groceries or whatever, there’s a cost associated with hiring and training people. Being overqualified is a very real concern because it doesn’t bring them anything they need–theoretically, the qualifications should be all that’s needed to perform the job–but since you are qualified for higher paying jobs, what’s your incentive to stay when one of those becomes available?
Look at it from another perspective, forget about qualifications and instead imagine someone makes it very clear they’d like to move to Sweden as soon as they could afford to do it. Sure, you may think it’ll be a year before they could afford it at the salary you’d offer, but you don’t know what they have saved up or if they’ll get an inheritance or whatever. So compare that to someone else who is identical except you have no indication that they want to move away eventually. Purely from a cost perspective, the second person is a better hire because you’re more likely to get more of a return on the hiring cost.
But overqualified is a much more nebulous thing. Who’s to say that the hiring manager at Safeway knows anything about the IT industry? Who’s to say that, even if they do know, that it won’t turn around in just a couple months? Who’s to say that you don’t have some friends that can pull some strings for you to get you a job two months later? And, most of all, why should they feel sorry for you because your industry is down? Their first responsibility is running a successful business, and hiring people that may leave 2-3 months just because you feel sorry for them isn’t sound business practice.
As yes, I think the best way to combat this sort of thing is to simply leave off stuff that may over-qualify you. If I were applying to work at JCPenney’s to make ends meet while looking for another job, I seriously doubt I’d include any of my degrees and probably downplay a lot of what I’ve been doing at my current job. Similarly, I once knew someone who got a PhD but it overqualified him in the field he wanted to work and found he got better results by simply leaving it off his resume since everyone thought he wanted a research position when he mostly did it because he just really enjoyed the topic.
It may feel uncomfortable, but you’re not looking for a permanent job, it’s a part time solution to make ends meet. A degree should be earned because you enjoy the topic or because it qualifies you, but all it does when applying for retail or a job for which it overqualifies you, is show that you’re overqualified. So just swallow your pride and leave it off if you’re finding it’s hurting your ability to get a job.
Specifically to Markxxx, I’d imagine age probably also offers as a bit of an overqualifying thing as well. Simply by being 45 years-old, you likely have more experience that could make you more likely to leave a job at Taco Bell than a 19year-old. Even if you both have the same level of education, maybe you’d quit Taco Bell when that manager position at McDonald’s or Pizza Hut opens up; surely not many 45 year-olds would be content to take near minimum wage as more than a stop gap which, of course, few people really want to hire.
Oh, my husband has been in this maelstrom for a couple of years now. After the last layoff, he swore he was never going to work for another company. He and a friend have been trying to make a go with their own consulting business. They both have plenty of contacts and network like crazy. The only problem? Almost every potential client either doesn’t have the budget or has already downsized
He’d like to change career fields, but we need the $. My paycheck just barely supports us.
During Current Employer’s last hiring wave, they disqualified many applicants because of this. There’s also the pay issue too – employers generally want to pay the least amount of $ they can get away with (retail is notorious for this, btw), so, from their perspective, it makes sense to hire somebody who’s “not a threat” – i.e., won’t jump ship at the first chance.
I got into my current field by leaving off nearly all of my post high-school education on my resume. Yes, my pride was deeply hurt. But, as the saying goes, you gotta do what you’ve gotta do :shrug:
Many years ago, one of my closest friends moved to New York City. She had just finished getting her Masters Degree in Art from a well known university.
She goes out to look for a job that will pay the rent and interviews with several agencies.They ALL tell her to leave the Masters degree off the resume. She refuses.
She eentually gets a receptionist job.
After she is there about a year she gets called to HR. They open with the fact that they were reviewing files with the idea of filling some job opening in-house and that they just realized that they had someone with a Masters Degree answering phones.
Good things ensued from there and she was ultimately very glad she put her degree on her resume.
Have a degree: check. 45 years old: check. No call backs for jobs: check.
I don’t have anything helpful to add, just thought I would commiserate with what you are going through.
The only problem with “dumbing down” your resume is that if you’ve worked in you field for any substantial time prior to your layoff, you can’t really leave that part of your employment history blank. And trying to understate your responsibilities is tricky without coming off looking like a slacker.
I can commiserate though, I have been overqualified for positions. The only potential advise I can give is to apply in areas where they expect high turnover. The flip side of that being that there’s usually a reason for high turnover.
I think you make some valid points about the concerns of hiring managers. But the service sector has high turnover anyway. Few people go into Wal-Mart thinking about making it a career. And those teenagers bagging your groceries - they’ll quit in a year or two once they go off to college.
A degree tells me that the person was at least dedicated enough to put in four years at a college, and if they have say 10 or 15 years experience at a company before getting laid off, that tells me they were doing something right.
Also an older person who finds themselves unemployed after spending a decade or two in the workforce and has a couple of mouths to feed isn’t going to have the same sense of entitlement as a twenty-something straight of college. They may not stay with your company for long, but during the short while they do spend there they’re going to be working their asses off.
I tend to conveniently forget my MS, as for some reason many people are scared by an MS in Theoretical Chemistry. Several of my ex-bosses confirmed that they would not have hired me if they’d known I was more “titlified” than them.
I wonder if this is my problem. I’ve just finished doing a master’s degree in England (I’m American) and want to stay here to get work experience in my field. I have to get my student visa changed to a post-study work visa before I can look for a job in my field, since the student visa has some work restrictions on it. The problem is, I finished school in September and I can’t apply for the visa until I get my official results sometime in November, and trying to apply from outside the country is unbelievably expensive, so I have to hang around here while I wait. I’ve been looking for a retail job that doesn’t violate the terms of my student visa, but I’ve been putting down my full education (otherwise I assumed the companies would wonder what I had been doing with myself all that time, especially since I don’t have much work experience) and I wonder if that’s why people are refusing to grant me interviews.
Then again, it might be the American thing. I don’t know.
Right, but retail people are thinking in terms of comparison to turnover that they know. Having worked in call center management, I interviewed too. The turnover we actually had was around 250% or more – that’s every position filled 2.5 times each year. Still, being overqualified was a genuine concern. We’d get people who basically wanted to use the job as a filler for a few weeks before they got a real job. That doesn’t work for us (considering training’s two weeks – it’s just a straight loss).
I did hire lots of overqualified people, but I did ask questions about it. One guy was a COBOL programmer who said, “Look, I worked for one company for thirty years. They didn’t update their technology and there’s no way I can get that kind of job again. They laid me off. I’ve been working as a cabinet maker to make ends meet but I’m old, and it’s hard on my hands. I can’t afford to retire. I really do want this job…” I hired him and he stayed with us for a good long time.
I did get played by one young couple – we hired both of them – who told me a grand sob story that turned out to be false. They stayed about 3 weeks and quit. Turned out that they just heard we hired quick and had just moved to town; they stayed just long enough to have one of them work out a real job offer.
Now, I didn’t screen resumes – we hired temp-to-hire through an agency, so the first time I saw the resume was in the interview – but I tried to be fair and decent about it. Then again, we were always hiring so it’s not like I could choose between “overqualified” and “not”.
I’d probably address the reason why you want to change industries / positions in the cover letter and hope for the best. Be prepared to discuss in the interview as well.
Long ago I had this problem. Short version is I wouldn’t get asked for interviews…or I would get an interview and it would go great but no job. Finally, by being persistant, I met a nice person who took pity on me and told me I was ‘overqualified’. This took me completely by surprise because I had NO EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD!
I dumbed down my resume and started getting much more hits.
As with my previous post, I think what is happening, IMO, is not that you want too much money but a combination (as someone mentioned above) is not that if you find a better job you will leave so much but is mainly a product of the 2 things:
Good, old-fashioned ‘age-ism’. Gee…you’re old…shouldn’t you be much further up the chain then you are now? Gosh, when I’m as old as you and if I was appying for this job I would be ashamed…so as a self-defense to my sense of security I will assume this cannot happen to me and so must be 100% your fault - you must be a loser. Plus, a younger person will have more energy and take much more shit.
You have 15 years experience? Wow…you should be paid much more than we are paying. This makes me feel bad. I will hire someone else because I will feel guilty if I hire you.
I’ve considered the age-ism angle, but I’m only 38, and honestly look quite a bit younger. As for “further up the food chain”, well… I’m an executive assistant. That’s a job title that covers an infinite number of job descriptions, really. At most big companies, your title is “EA” whether you answer the phones for a mid-level manager, or take meetings for (not with, FOR) the CEO. My experience falls more toward the latter end of that scale, so I am genuinely overqualified for a lot of “EA” positions (and tying back into the ageism thing, you won’t usually find 25 year olds repping for the CEO. It’s a position that generally requires a certain gravitas). I’m okay with that. What’ I’m not okay with is being told I’m overqualified for the “support the CEO” type jobs.
Oh, and as for the pay scale… well, historically I’ve been paid like someone who is very good at her job, by people who are in a position to both appreciate that, and distribute the loot. I’m not applying for anything that I’m not interested in living on. I may well be running up against “you want too much money”, but I seriously doubt I’m running up against “we should be paying you more”.
And believe me, I’ve done my best to combat the “she’ll leave as soon as the economy picks up” thing. My last job was obtained in early October of 2001. It wasn’t a good time to be out of work either, and it wasn’t my dream job, but it didn’t suck, and it paid my bills, which is all I need from a job. I was there for seven years.
If you are just dropping off resumes and expecting to get called back on these low-level jobs, you are doing things the wrong way. You need to walk in there and ask when would be a good time to speak to the manager. When you get the manager, explain who you are and what you can bring to the table as an employee. Then, come back. Come back twice a week and ask if they have any openings. Eventually they will get so sick of you that they will either hire you or call the police on you.
Remember, one reason why people don’t hire “overqualified” people is that it’s got to awfully intimidating to be- say- a grocery store manager with a high school education trying to manage a bagger with a master’s degree. They may not be comfortable around people who are more qualified than them- especially in a supervisor position.
