HedgeFundLIVE.com — Despite what any employment/unemployment data have been showing us lately, the job market is still terrible. If you are among the 13.7M unemployed in the U.S., or just looking for a new role, you dread that rejection e-mail implying someone else was a better fit than you. In other words, someone is better than you. Or are they?
While the traditional thought process is that a particular candidate was not hired because he/she was weak in certain areas, the reality is that the “sorry, you are too overqualified” response is arguably just as common. For those that truly want the jobs they apply and interview for, this latter response is one of the most frustrating reasons to hear. Employers frequently pass up the overqualified because “[t]he assumption is that the person will be bored and not motivated, so they will underperform or leave”, according to a study conducted by Portland State professor of management Berrin Erdogan. However, Erdogan’s paper resolves that these risks are merely perceptions rather than realities.
There was an interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review last week addressing this issue and why employers should not be so quick to sidestep overqualified candidates. Strong education credentials, one of the first criteria that may push one’s resume to the “no” pile, do not translate to overqualified. There are probably good reasons for why that applicant is pursuing that particular role (e.g., career industry move, location change, greater work/life balance). Also, it is important to recognize future potential for an overqualified candidate at a particular firm. The “extra” skills that such a candidate can bring on board can definitely be put to use, if not now, in the longer term. The key message in the article is that the focus should be put on the future of the overqualified candidate and his/her future prospects at the firm. Staying away from considering such individuals to me suggests that the leadership at the hiring firm lacks vision for the company. As a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder International and author of Great People Decisions, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, put it, “When making hiring decisions, visionary leaders don’t just focus on the current needs, but on the future.”
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