Overqualified. Why Is that a thing?

Written by Dave Beasley, rocket50 member

June 22, 2024

On Friday, a colleague mentioned that she won't get a certain job because she’s “overqualified”.   We both casually acknowledged that this was a thing and moved on to other topics.  Later on, I started thinking about the concept of being “overqualified.”   Does it have legitimate baggage associated with it?

I typed the phrase into Google and saw the following definition and peculiar comment:

“Being overqualified means that your experience and skills far exceed what is needed.”
“You’re not the ideal match for the position because you might expect to have greater authority or challenging work than the role offers, or you won’t enjoy the position.”
 

My immediate thoughts included:
 Would you ever waive off your heart surgeon? “No thanks, You have too much experience.”
 Would you be dismissive of your pilot? “You don’t want to fly this segment – Albany to Charlotte will bore you.”
 Or … “Hey, let’s not bring in our best relief pitcher in the top of the 9th when we’re holding a 1-run lead. Let’s try a rookie pitcher instead”. (Cubs fans might answer this question differently)
 If you purchase your dream car for the right price and -just for kicks – your dealer throws in ALL the extras, is that a bad thing?
 
John Quincy Adams was our US President from 1825 – 1829. And yet served in Congress from 1830 – 1848.  18 years!   Wait. What?  Wasn’t he overqualified having been president?
 Tex Winter was an accomplished college and NBA basketball coach.  He won multiple awards for head coaching. But, he is most famous for being an assistant coach and winning 6 NBA rings in the later part of his career.  As an assistant coach!

 So best I can tell, within the realm of careers, being overqualified brings three broad stereotypes:
(1) Because you’re overqualified, you’ll be bored or not challenged with the work. Therefore, you won’t be happy and will be likely to leave. Or you will expect a quick promotion.
 (2) Because you’re overqualified, you’ll not be happy with the compensation and, therefore,  you’ll be likely to leave.
 (3) Because you’re overqualified, you’ll be more likely to challenge leadership, policy, or pre-existing guidelines. This can perpetuate a negative culture or environment.

There doesn’t seem to be a substantive body of research here to affirm any of this.   An HBS study from 13 years ago tended to downplay this topic:
“There is a lot of misunderstanding over what overqualified is” according to Berrin Erdogan of Portland State University.     “The assumption is that the person will be bored and not motivated, so they will underperform and leave”.    Yet research doesn’t validate this.    Sales Associates in her study who were thought to be overqualified performed better. “People don’t stay or leave a company because of their skills”, she concluded.    “They stay on leave because of working conditions”. 
 Is that it?
The essence of the argument against being overqualified? Built and perpetuated on an enduring hypothesis?
Risk – turnover, dissatisfaction, compensation.
 
I’d love to hear more reasons why being overqualified is bad.
How do ATS systems treat overqualified candidates?