Why Being Overqualified Makes it Impossible to Land a Job

You're not imagining things. The more experienced you are, the harder it is to land jobs. And when people fear that they may be considered overqualified, that's not a humble brag, that is a huge blocker facing many people who are looking for jobs. Being overqualified is one of the toughest things to overcome in the hiring process and it feels like a sick, twisted joke. It's almost as if any given part of our career we feel under accomplished going around asking people to give us a chance to suddenly being turned away for having too many of the skills they asked for. This video will explore why being overqualified is one of the toughest hurdles to get over in the job search. And it is so eye opening as to the real reasons why. And this may have you rethinking your entire career path or actually may make you more confident than ever and stay to the end. Because if you're facing ageism, we will tackle that head on of how to overcome it if you're new here, I'm Madeline Mann, a human resources leader and job search strategist. You may have seen me in these places and if you haven't already, make sure you're subscribed. Here are the top reasons why people apply to jobs that they are overqualified for. And 6 out of 10 of these would scare a company away from hiring you. Which is why they fear to even entertain someone who's overqualified. Such as if you're taking this job because the job market conditions are tough, you need the financial stability you need to fill an employment gap, or you're simply trying to get your foot in the door of this new industry. This screams to the employer, I'm taking this job right now because I need the cash. But as soon as I land the offer for a higher level job somewhere else, I'm out of here. And when that's the truth, that puts the company in a really bad spot. But there are people who genuinely are taking the job because they want to take a step down and in their career they want a better work life balance in a role where they know they have mastery, or they prefer being an individual contributor instead of a management job, or they simply aren't looking to climb the corporate ladder. They want a certain level of income and would prefer to have a lower stress job and continuing to get to the next level role has interfered with that goal for them. These people are the golden unicorns of the job market. If you can find someone who is incredibly experienced, doesn't want to move up is willing to take the level of salary you'd offer someone appropriately leveled for this role and all they ask is that you don't bloat their scope to be outside of their chill role that they know so well. Everyone wins. They will do great work. They will likely stay at the company for years and years because they aren't here to climb the ladder and get itchy every two years. They are here to do good work and then sign off at the end of the day and live their life. But those people often get confused with the I'm going to scram as soon as I get a better job offer people because you know, people tend to fib in interviews or the candidate convinces him or herself that they will like the lower level job. But then within a few months of taking the job they are already itching for a promotion and trolling job boards for a higher role. I ran a poll on my channel that asked would you consider taking a lower level job if you knew it would lead to less stress and fewer working hours? I was shocked to see an overwhelming 77% agree that they would consider it. This was so surprising because this is so rarely what people actually do. I have hired thousands of people and have gotten to see how long they stay at an organization and then hear the conversations they have about compensation and promotions. And I've seen that people who take jobs where they are overqualified often don't lack last past six months. They ask for more money quickly or they ask for a higher title within a few months and if they don't get it, they leave for a different job despite them claiming that that's what they had wanted. This poll does challenge the actual behaviors I've seen people display in real life. So do leave a comment below on why you have considered taking a lower level position than what you are qualified for. There are several reasons why companies avoid hiring people who are overqualified. First, salary expectations. They don't want to pay more. They have a salary range dedicated for this role and more experience often means a bigger paycheck. If you are going for a lower level job, you need to make it clear that you are comfortable with the stated salary range. Though I will say it has been tough over the years because even if they agreed to the salary, these overqualified candidates often take the job just to get their foot in the door and then ask for a raise within six months. The company is afraid you'll do this so they don't hire you in the first place. The second is job satisfaction. Whenever considering someone who is overqualified, hiring managers may worry you might not find the job challenging or fulfilling. Third is short term commitment. Hiring and training new employees is time consuming and expensive. Expensive and employers don't want to waste their time. If employers think you are going to leave as soon as something better comes along, they might think twice before hiring you. Hiring teams are usually thinking about long term growth. They want you to feel like you will be able to grow with their company and finally, conflict with colleagues. Being overqualified can sometimes lead to tension with colleagues or supervisors. Job search writer Allison Green warns job seekers, if you have significant significantly more experience than the hiring manager, she may worry that you won't be happy or comfortable taking direction from her. Will an overqualified hire create drama about working with people with fewer qualifications or under a supervisor with less experience? Well, you want to make it clear that you are there to be a part of the team now there are a few overqualified pitfalls that many people fall into. The first is is being over educated. Vicky Salemi, a careers expert for Monster, said, when I recruited, the term overqualified often came up regarding a candidate's education. If PhD candidates applied to a job that required a master's degree, they were typically eliminated because they were considered over qualified. Unfortunately, many professionals pursue a PhD as a way to help them stand out in the job market and solidify themselves as a expert in their field. But many are met with the rude awakening that there is not a job waiting for them when they graduate.

It's badly paid if you get paid at all, or extremely expensive if you have to fund yourself. There's also the potential lost earnings if you choose to do a PhD instead of entering the workforce. Now, you might think that that's worth it because Perhaps having a PhD could open up the path to your dream job in academia. But there are far more students graduating with PhDs than the number of academic jobs available.

James Hayden goes on to say that these schools are financially incentivized to keep pumping out these PhDs even if there is little demand for them in the job market. And you could find yourself in the awkward position of being overeducated and under experienced for a lot of the jobs that you're interested in, not only in the United States States but in other countries as well. We are seeing a surge of over educated candidates hit the job market and have an incredibly challenging time landing jobs. The second overqualified pitfall people fall into is career changers. It's tricky because if you're changing Careers, you have work experience and transferable skills, but you often don't have the direct experience in that exact job. So what do you do? Do you go from a manager level in your previous career to entry on your next one? No. You'll seem overqualified, but then if you go for the higher level roles, you may appear under qualified. This leaves you a bit stuck. One of my clients, Paola, was transitioning from being a relationship coach to working in customer success, a field she had never worked in before. On one of our group coaching calls, I was reviewing her resume and I saw so much potential in who she was as a person and her transferable skills that I said to Paola, I want you to aim for manager level customer success roles. This just about knocked her over. She never imagined that she could switch into a career and land a role at a leadership level. Of course, this is not effortless to do. So I helped her to craft the way she positioned herself on LinkedIn and in the interview.

So not only like, was I passing the interviews, the stages, you know, my LinkedIn profile was optimized to have people offer me the roles and I never would have thought that that would have happened to me. It definitely gave me that confidence boost that I could totally do this.

Paola landed exactly her target job at a manager level. So as a career changer, it's all about figuring out what is the right leveling for you and positioning yourself the right way. If you want strategies on how to do this, I will link a free job shopping webinar below. The third overqualified pitfall fall is people who claim ageism. Ageism is the idea that you were missing out on employment opportunities simply due to your age. And nearly always people are referring to being considered too old rather than too young. Ageism is alive and well, but having worked with many clients in their 50s and 60s who initially claim ageism is their issue, none of them felt it was ageism holding them back after they graduated from my program. I'm not saying it isn't a factor for other people, but it rarely plays as big of a role as you'd expect. Such as. At the age of 59, Gail joined my coaching program.

I'd been doing accounting for nine years at the same place. I would get bullied by my boss almost every day. My confidence was low, I was pretty depressed and I was really anxious to get out of accounting, but I didn't know how and I was worried about ageism. I was worried that I didn't have any skills and I wasn't worth anything and I didn't know where to start.

Through the program, working with me and the other coaches, Gail was able to finally get clear on exactly what she wanted in her next job. Her LinkedIn profile became a magnet for recruiters inbound, asking her to interview for roles she hadn't applied to.

Like, at the height of it, I was getting like, you know, five contacts a week from recruiters, which, I mean for an accountant that's older, that doesn't have a cpa, that's in Pittsburgh, which is not a hot job market, that's amazing.

She ultimately landed a high profile research job at Carnegie Mellon and admitted that ageism wasn't what held her back, it was that she needed to transform to become a job shopper. So I'll leave a quiz in the description that helps you to target what are your gaps in your current job search strategy and help you to come up with a better job search plan. So which over qualified trap do you fall into? Let us know in the comments. An important thing I hope you'll take away from this video is that landing a lower level job is not easier than landing your current level or even a higher level job. Actually, it's the hardest thing you can do is aim for a job lower than your level. Only do it if you truly and authentically want a lower level job and hope to stay in it for an extended, extended amount of time. If you are applying to jobs lower than your level because you were applying to appropriately level jobs and weren't having much luck so you thought a lower level role would be easier to get, don't do it. That is not a good job search strategy and you're actually making it twice as hard to land a job. Focus instead on job shopping strategies, building a persuasive resume, which I'll link my winning resume formula in the description and absolutely mastering the job interview. You're missing a key aspect of persuasion right now and trust me, you can be like Paola or Gail and completely turn this thing around. If you found value from this video, well, I'm so impressed that you made it to the very end. You are my favorite. I feel a special bond with my dear friends who make it all the way through. I ask you to hit a like on this video and make sure you subscribe to this channel.

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