Photo of Seth Masia

With the ink still damp on my master's degree, I posted my resume on Monster.com. Within a couple of days, I got a call from a recruiter who thought I might be the ideal candidate for a job opening at his company, a very large Fortune 500 firm with offices around the world. We talked about the salary, which seemed fair to me, and he set me up with a job interview with the department manager.

The moment I walked into her office the manager, a young woman about 20 years my junior, waved my resume in the air and said, "This makes me think you're overqualified. Why would you want this job?"

My internal reaction was, "What kind of stupid question is this? If I didn't want the job, I wouldn't have driven 20 miles to see you." Of course, I didn't say that. Nor did I say, "The resume shows that I've done exactly this kind of work, with great success, in my last two jobs. You should be delighted to have it drop in your lap."

Instead, I said I thought the salary was fair to the company and to me. We talked amiably for 40 minutes about the nature of the work, and about ways I could contribute to the productivity of the department, and to its growth. I thought we were on the same page - until she said, "Well, I still think you're overqualified. I'll keep your resume on file in case a more senior position opens up -- in another department. Nice meeting you."

The meaning of 'overqualified'

And I walked out into the rain, puzzled. Should I have pretended to be dumber than I am? Less experienced? Younger?

Back at home, I did an Internet search for the term "overqualified." What I learned, on a number of HR sites, is that the word is a euphemism for one or more of three things:

1. You're too old. They're worried that you may break their health insurance budget. Saying so is discriminatory and illegal. It doesn't even make economic sense, first because your kids are grown and won't be on your health care plan, and second because you'll be on the rolls only until you're eligible for Medicare - so the company's liability is limited. (The truth is that some companies don't like to hire married 25-year-olds, either, because they don't want to be stuck with obstetric and pediatric bills.)

2. You make the hiring manager uncomfortable. You look like her first boss. She's afraid you know her job better than she does, and that you'll make her look foolish in front of her supervisor or direct reports. These are irrational attitudes, and a well-run company won't tolerate managers who think this way. It's a recipe for mediocrity in staffing.

3. The manager is afraid you'll be bored by the job, or will chafe under supervision by youngsters. She's worried that you'll leave in a year or two and she'll have to start the hiring process all over again. You may be able to defuse this issue by pointing to your aversion to leaving the area, your pattern of past loyalty and productivity, your value as a team member, your proven ability to make your boss look good, and even to the scarcity of alternative job opportunities in the area, which ought to keep you loyal. She may not hear you.

Downsized and willing to work for less

"Overqualified is a widely accepted alibi for age discrimination," said Ken Gaffey, a veteran human resources expert who now consults to the Transportation Safety Administration.

"In today's market it makes no sense. Because the corporate pyramid has so little room at the top, there's always a population of high quality candidates for any position further down, folks who have relinquished their hope of moving to a corner office and are willing to take a pay cut in order to remain active and productive. And why wouldn't a well-run corporation want more for its money?"

New York Times reporter Louis Uchitelle has calculated that over the past decade, about 30 million Americans have been downsized from corporate jobs - roughly 20 percent of the labor force. Only 8 percent of the laid-off workers have found new jobs at their original salary level. This means that 92 percent of previously-employed job applicants are willing to work for less than they were making last year. To the insecure manager, these people look "overqualified."

Gaffey told me that in well-run corporations, senior staff monitors the hiring practices of middle managers, spot-checking resumes to make sure that solid talent isn't being overlooked for irrational reasons. "Management has to enforce good hiring practices downward," he notes. "It goes along with being a forward-thinking, diversity-friendly business."

He's got that right. In the years I worked at Microsoft Corp., I never heard anyone utter the word "overqualified." The corporate culture said, "Hire the smartest, best-qualified candidate for any open position." Those were growth years at Microsoft, when smart employees turned the stockholders into millionaires. The bottom line is that every manager has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the productivity of his department - and that's done by hiring the best-qualified people.

Apply to the best companies

"Smart companies have real training programs," Gaffey noted. "In a changing business environment, you hire good talent and train the talent on your tools. A really smart CEO once said it's harder to find an honest man than to teach Excel."

Military organizations certainly understand this. When lives are at stake, no 25-year-old lieutenant commanding a platoon would get rid of a 35-year-old combat veteran sergeant. He'd welcome the back-up.

How do you deal with the Overqualified Myth? Don't drop years of experience from your resume. Any smart recruiter will realize right away that you're hiding something, and may assume it's something more substantive than your age. Ask around for the best-managed companies in your area, and apply there. In particular, find out which are the best-run departments.

And don't accept the company's own PR story about the brilliance of its executive suite. Corporate PR is written to support the stock price. What you need to know is which hiring managers are smart enough to spot the gold in your skills.

Resources

The Overqualified Lie, by Ken Gaffey

Responding to concerns that "you're overqualified" by Bradley G. Richardson