You are overqualified. SORRY!
I would like to start a conversation with the Linkedin community and get your thoughts and opinions about the concept of being “OVERQUALIFIED FOR A POSITION.” We hear this phrase being tossed around in the HR and Recruitment corridors around the world. The idea is that you should place the person in a position where their skills and experience are utilized in the most optimal way possible. This is an industrial era concept that has withstood the test of time and is still used today as a way to disqualify candidates who may have significantly more experience than what the position needs.
Now, when someone posits this, it sounds like it is grounded in reason and passes the litmus test of thoughtful decision making. But does it? Of course, why would you hire someone as a Financial Analyst if that person held a position as a Tax Director in the past? Or consider someone for a software developer position if that individual has served as a Technology Architect for a large corporation?
The reasoning that is used in the overwhelming majority of these situations goes something like this- “This person is applying as a stop gap to remain gainfully employed” or “She will leave us as soon as she finds something that is commensurate with her experience” or “She will not feel challenged in this position and we will do a disservice by hiring her”
Now, I am not saying that there is no merit to these arguments. However, there are a couple of very important things to consider here. One….seismic shifts have happened in the global economy over the last decade and people have generally learned to temper their expectations when it comes to a new job. Applicants today have a wide array of skills that are suited for various levels and many are open to considering positions that are lower than what they have held in the past. It is exponentially harder today for applicants to find positions that match the highest level of hierarchy or salary they ever held (many of the reasons are well publicized and beyond the scope of my note).
Interestingly, Recruiting Leaders who generally rely on mathematical frameworks like trends, predictive analytics, workflow analysis, ROI, etc. for decision making, easily give in to this organizational philosophy of staying away from “overqualified” candidates with NO mathematical analysis to support this argument.
When the argument is raised that the person “will leave because they are overqualified”, it should be immediately be challenged with “what is it that you are basing this thesis on? Do you have an analysis of the hires made in the past years that indicate a trend that supports this claim? Are there peer reviewed research in the recruiting community that points towards this fact? Almost always the answer is an unequivocal NO. If that is the case, this is merely an assumption.
Of course, the Recruiting unit of an organization has the obligation to conduct their due diligence to make sure that a particular candidate is opting to apply for a position lower than what they have held for the right reasons. They need to pass this screening first. If they do, I argue that “being overqualified” should not be used as a reason to reject candidates.
The employment landscape has changed and we need to change our perspectives too. So I urge you to exert your influence in your sphere of operation to change the mindset of the people around you. Because your organization might be passing up on several great candidates solely based on a concocted assumption of being “overqualified.”
Your thoughts?
Responsible for coordinating, administering and controlling the financial operations of North America and Canada
7 年Well said Simone.
Strategic Advisor, Executive Coach, Impact- and purpose-driven leader, Absolutely passionate about conscious leaders, business, and cultures.
7 年Let me add one thought to this somewhat old conversation that I cannot seem to find in these responses. These days people have to work longer than the previous generation and we also know that(early) retirement without adequate mental challenge is a sure way to cognitive decline. At the same time, we may not all want to perform at our top speeds of our careers all the time. The overqualified comment stops a lot of experienced and motivated people from contributing their wealth of experience to our workforce. Economically this is going to add to our healthcare costs and limit our economic growth.... workers contribute more to our growth than retirees, like it or not. It is time for us to let go of our aged thought processes about work in so many ways and I welcome it that someone like you opens a debate on the topic. It is time!
Program Manager at NVIDIA
7 年I totally agree with you. There could be many reasons why a candidate is turned down. Not just for FTE position but also for contracting positions. Just saying NO to a candidate based on age or over qualification is so backward thinking. In today's world when people can leave or let go on ZERO day notice, thinking a person might leave for better opportunity just because he /she is more experienced is like fooling yourself and not giving opportunity to the deserving candidate. Not just recruiter but hiring manager can also turn down a candidate because of the same reason or other reasons such as he/she is less experienced than the candidate itself. These days lot of inexperienced candidates with fake experience also get hired. How these candidates are screened by recruiters and hiring managers? How experienced candidates are going to compete with them? Now a days, it's difficult to say if people get hired based on something called transferrable skills, since most of the positions now demand exact skills and experience required for the position. With all this chaos where the experienced and overqualified person will go? Something to think about.....
Global Talent Acquisition expert (technical, corporate, executive, sales)
7 年There is some valid thought process in the sense that if someone is overqualified for a position, there is significant risk that their tenure will be short-lived as other firms approach them with correctly leveled positions and compensation. There is additional reason to be concerned about the new hire "being bored". But the problem with both of those notions is that if all prospective employers are prone to think this about someone with many years of experience, then are they really in danger of losing that applicant to those reasons? More to the point, could the concern be a euphemism for age discrimination? HR personnel, recruiters, and hiring managers should consider this issue when labeling someone as "overqualified". Have they first properly determined the motivations and current career path of the applicant ? Moreover, what is really behind their concerns? Is it the years of experience, or is it the concern for how old the applicant is? Prospective hiring managers and recruiters should look at other important factors, such as what I call "density of experience" (how much they have accomplished in a given period of time), relevance of experience, and perhaps most importantly, look at when the experience and skill sets were last used, not when they began to be used. And they should try to find out why the candidate is really interested in the first place. It's easy to reduce an applicant to years of experience and software titles. It's more rewarding, more responsible, and more adherent to labor laws and compliance to completely review a candidate's career path and aspirations with your company before determining if they are overqualified for your position.