"OVER" versus "UNDER-Qualified"

However, you refer to this current mass movement of people in the U S economy, one thing is for certain. If and when it’s all said and done, we are not going to see a perfect match between people and their knowledge, abilities, motivations, and skills (KAMS) and the job they eventually take. What is certain is that we are likely to see some mismatches which may be called “underqualified” where the market value of the KAMS is below what the job requirements are and some which may be called “overqualified” where the KAMS are above the job requirements. From a societal perspective the “overqualified” may be more of a significant matter since the “underqualified” may stay in the job for a longer period of time than the “overqualified” stays in his or her job. These job changes may be the way the labor market actually works, but it is still significant.

This short article will focus on the “overqualified” person. An arbitrator asked me how I would define the term. My response was that someone is overqualified when their KAMS does not match the job that they currently hold. It is conceivable however that the incumbent may very well move into a job where his/her KAMS do match. This is true in many manufacturing organizations where candidates are often “overqualified” for entry level jobs, but match well with jobs they could reach in a reasonable period of time. In manufacturing organizations the lower level jobs often have a high physicality loading and a low to moderate cognitive rating. As incumbents move up in jobs the requirements become less physical and more cognitive. A perfect scenario would be for an incumbent to match the more physical/less cognitive jobs and change as they move up lines of progression to less physical/more cognitive. What is the likelihood of this occurring?

I have coined a term called EPOHB which stands for the “enormous persistence of human behavior.” EPOHB is very close to behavioral consistency which holds that over time, patterns of behavior remain very stable. Another way to explain this phenomenon is that you are behaving today a lot like you behaved yesterday and you will behave tomorrow a lot like you behaved today. This makes human behavior very predictable in some situations. When Job A and Job B have different requirements, the behaviors in Job A and Job B might be characterized as very dissimilar although the person’s behavior might be very similar between the two jobs. The pattern of behavior is not likely to change drastically even though the job requirements may be vastly different.

Let’s look at another example in manufacturing organizations. Often persons are promoted from operator to supervisor based on job performance as an operator. They matched the operator job particularly well. The requirements of the supervisor’s job may be and probably are lot different from the operator’s job. When someone is promoted to supervisor, you are now in a situation where a mismatch takes place. We might call this situation a mismatch, since the person’s KAMS have more market value for the operator’s job than for the supervisor’s job.

The label of “underqualified” or “overqualified” are very dynamic terms. They refer to where the person is in their current position versus where they might go in the case of a resignation, migration, or reshuffling of the workforce.  

I enjoy connecting with business professionals for additional knowledge transfer, email me at [email protected]; author, Dr. Joe Nowlin. At 15dots, we find it so rewarding helping our manufacturing industry and others, Take the Guesswork out of the Employee Selection Process. Cheers to your success in 2022!