I hear people say “over qualified”, but how can that be a bad thing?
How can a person be over qualified for a job because to me that means that the person has all the qualifications for the job and more but maybe it means something else. So how can a person lose out on a job for being over-qualified?
Because there is a concern that the person will leave a soon as a better position becomes available, thus leaving the employer with the position open again.
They may need too much money, or at least they’ll think they’re worth more money than they are for the job at hand. Also, they may quickly become bored with the job at hand.
OM got a large part of it right. But even if the person stays, there is the fear that he/she will think that doing the grunt work necessary to get the job done is “beneath them”. They may be bored and, as a result, sloppy. While it certainly can work out that someone “over qualified” actually does works out OK, as a a manager you are better off trying to match someone’s ability and aspirations with what the job offers.
An anecdote: A friend of a friend had a BSc, MSc and PhD in some field (probably EE engineering). All his job applications were rejected on the grounds that he was overqualified. So, he created a new resume that didn’t make any mention of his PhD. Problem solved!
I don’t know if this is legal or ethical, but if you have too much problem finding a job, it might be a good idea to omit some of your qualifications.
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Must be some school he went to, to learn to engineer electrical engineering.
August “Department of Redundancy Department” Derleth
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And, as I understand it, it’s perfectly legal to leave things out of a resume, if you really need a job and can’t move to a place where your skills are valued. But that’s a pretty damned sad situation to be in.
A prospective employer may also feel that you got fired from your last job, on the basis that otherwise why are you willing to start off again lower on the ladder.
Meh. EE stands for Electrical and Electronic. Some schools have them as separate courses, others have both in the same course.
EE to me means electrical engineering.
Also sometimes over-qualified is used as a nice way to say we don’t want YOU.
I’d imagine that, in some cases, power-play comes into it. Some employers only wish hire people who will follow their directions without question. If an employee is over-qualified, they may come up with a better way of doing things, and may eventually challenge their manager’s job.
Another possible situation is an over-qualified person losing touch with the “common man”, so to speak. They may produce something that, while truly exceptional, is not what the customer wants.
Related to this: In jobs that require the employee to teach or mentor other people, a large difference in knowledge between the teacher and student can make things hard. I’ll give an example. I’m just finishing my fourth year studying computer science at university, and I’ve been tutoring first-year programming students for the last two years. I’m finding this job to be quite a bit harder this year than it was last year. As I learn more myself, I find it increasingly difficult to bring myself down to the level of someone who has never programmed before. It’s no wonder that so many people can’t understand their lecturers, who have often been learning about their subject for decades! I’d imagine that this would apply to many non-academic jobs as well – new employees often get assistance from their coworkers who “know the ropes”.
Lots of good reasons to avoid the overqualified already given. Here are a couple more:
Many managers have a strong bias against PhD’s and the academic “ivory tower” mindset in general. The thinking goes that people who get PhD’s do so because they like to think abstractly about theoretical pursuits. While this is great for a research focused of position, business is about getting things done.
Another aspect with “overqualified” people is the hiring manager is think “OK, what’s wrong with this gal/guy?” They likelihood that they were fired from their previously much higher position and did poorly enough that they couldn’t get another position at that level doesn’t speak well for their future prospects at my company. I once had a former bank VP apply for an hourly position on a finance/accounting team. My first thought was – must be an alcoholic or something.
Someone who’s overqualified but intentionally shooting low is sending the message that they just want to kick back and take it easy. Again, not the best message to send an employer.
I’ve also had personal experience with a PhD in a position he clearly considered beneath him. He was such an arrogant SOB, he was damn near impossible to work with. He got let go pretty quickly.
All this really sucks for someone who, for whatever reason, is in a position where they want to / need to take a position below what their qualifications would normally get them.
“Overqualified” means that you are old…(over 40 that is)!
Two years ago, my wife applied for an accounting job. The ad didn’t say they wanted a CPA. To avoid seeming too qualified, she didn’t tell them she’s a CPA. The job went to somebody who was a CPA, and was a young male. :rolleyes:
I don’t know. Some companies have very strict policies about lying, including “lying by omission,” which could result in immediate dismissal. One friend of mine left off a month-long job he held off his resume, his company found out about it, and on the second day of his job he was canned.
I wouldn’t want to work for that kind of employer, anyway, but be forewarned that it does happen.
Besides the other explanations, “overqualified” also sometimes means that the applicant threatens the potential employer for his job.
Possibly. Most employers want employees that do what they are told. It’s not an issue of “challenging their managers job”. It’s an issue of being disruptive because they are in constant conflict with the manager over how to do everything.
This is also not completely correct. Someone with 20 years of work experience in a particular field is expected to be at a different level than someone with 1-10 years. I probably wouldn’t hire someone in their 40s for an entry level position unless it was a drastic career change. Also, IT (or entertainment) is probably the only industry I know of where 40 is considered “old”. This is primarily due to the fact that companies typically hire kids right out of school and work them 70 hours a week building aps (or they used to, now Indians do it). One you are in your 30s and 40s and looking to settle down, you won’t put up with those kinds of hours for what they typically pay.
OM basically has it correct. People who are overqualified for a position generally are not taking it by choice. They tend to get disgruntled and leave or do a half assed job or dome into conflict with managers who are less experienced.
A good manager has an eye to his employees’ professional development and level of challenge. You want to match a candidate’s abilities to the job so that they can do the work but still find it stimulating and rewarding. You want them to be able to grow with the job. That’s less likely to happen when a candidate is beyond all the tasks the job will require.
It’s not just the risk of the person quitting, or gunning for the manager’s job. Having a bored unhappy person on the job is bad for the employee, bad for the manager, bad for the entire organization.
Note with the recent changes in the job market with a large loss of advanced positions and most new jobs being lower level, that means that “over qualified” people are routinely applying for jobs.
In a sane organization, they realize this is a plus and scoop them up. In a psychotic organization, they reject them for the reasons given.
Guess which way most companies are run?
What about those people who have achieved qualifications purely for enjoyment. My wife has some that she did privately but has no intention of using in a job. She is happy doing the work she’s moved up to through experience, technically she’s overqualified for her job I suppose.
No offense but I’m not so sure you are qualified to judge the sanity of how companies are run. Having won the Nobel prize for business psychology I believe I am (hey, it’s the Internet, I can be whatever I want!).
Maybe intuitively it makes sense to hire the person with the most qualifications and experience possible, but it is not correct thinking. It is the most “sane” to hire the best possible fit for a job. In most careers, there are different levels. At each level, you are expected to bring a certain amount of experience, skills and salary expectations.
Let me give you an extreme example. If you were managing a Walmart or Target and you saw an application for a cashiers position from an MBA with ten years experience managing a sales division in a Fortune 500 company, would you hire him?
Does anyone remember that scene in American Beauty where Kevin Spacy is applying for the McDonalds job and is like "Well, I’m sure there have been amazing technological advances in the [fast food] industry, but surely you must have some sort of training program. It seems unfair to presume I won’t be able to learn. "?