Define Irony; Over-Qualification For a Job?

[Jerseyprophet]

All music stuff aside, I have a day job, career, whatever you want to call it.

After submitting my resume for a position that I was highly qualified for (in fact, I'd find it difficult to believe anyone being MORE suited), and weeks have gone by, I contacted human resources only to be informed that I was disqualified - due to being OVER qualified for the pay scale they were willing to offer. No negotiation, no asking me if I were willing to work for a pay less than I guess I was worth (I was, for this particular job). I mentioned that pay was not a consideration for me, and that it was the job itself I was interested in, they still said "well, we still don't feel comfortable with the amount of experience you have." and hung up. I sat there starring at my phone in disbelief.

How the hell do you justify hiring someone LESS qualified for a position simply by saying "well, we dont need an excellent candidate".

I've never heard of the term "over qualified" in my life until now and I think it's absolutly ridiculous.

Anyone here in HR or a hiring agent for their company? Can you shed some light on this? Is this a true thing with other companies or just the people I was dealing with?

[alt]

This actually happens quite often. Many jobs turn down applicants that are over-qualified because they believe they will quit as soon as they find something better. Which happens enough I guess that many jobs just dont hire too over-qualified applicants. Can also create tensions in the work place. How would you feel if you were a supervisor and the company hired some guy that was smarter and could do your job better than you. Makes it difficult to be a supervisor and leader. So some companies just avoid the issue.

[guartz]

Don't be so dense jersey. Lady lied to you.

[Silviya]

Sounds like she told you the truth, and they settled on a different candidate that fit the pay scale. When you called back they already had the position filled and "well, we still don't feel comfortable with the amount of experience you have." was her attempt at trying to nicely brush you off.

[Jerseyprophet]

Again, what I cant understand is hiring someone less qualified for the SAME pay check.

[Ruiner]

They probably fear that if you have too much experience, you'll be less likely to stick around longer.

[SephYuyX]

Can manipulate the person the way they see fit since they dont have a lot of knowledge. There are a lot of reasons to hire someone less qualified.

[Jerseyprophet]

I can see Ruiner's point, and more so SephYuyX's. 7 years of experience is alot of bad habbits if someone else has none.

But then again, in certain careers experience > education so it can go either way.

[synistar]

Management may think you're a threat if you are using that position as a stepping stone for your career. Instead they shut the door in your face so they don't have to deal with a HR nightmare when you're making the older workers look bad when you're doing a really good job.

[Khamsin]

I think the true concern there is that they are worried you'll settle for this pay/job, and when something better comes along, you'll leave.

They want someone for whom that job is an advancement, and is unlikely to find anything better and ditch them in a few months.

[Jerseyprophet]

There are absolutely logical ideas, and I'm 100% with you on it but - my question is do HR people think this way?

You guys are intelligent, and thats cool - are these theories or ACTUAL common practices by HR?


Without livejournaling it up, I'll provide details. I didnt intend this thread to be solely about my own experience, though I do want to vent. I wanted to see if anyone had a similiar experience, way around it or insight on it.

My day job background, education and all that is in law enforcement/public safety. I wont go through my entire resume, but I have a massive amount of training and experience from Criminal Investigation to normal police duty (all Army). BA in Criminal Law, etc. - and the position was for a college campus safety department patrol officer. They asked for a candiate that was 18 with a fucking GED and drivers license. I went into business after the Army, since 2007 when I retired til now. I make alot more in the job I have in business areas (with Comcast, and before that Coors Brewing Co.) but I want to go back into law enforcement. I'm willing to take a pay cut for job satisfaction.

[Khamsin]

There are absolutely logical ideas, and I'm 100% with you on it but - my question is do HR people think this way?

You guys are intelligent, and thats cool - are these theories or ACTUAL common practices by HR?

I'm pretty sure that's the real reason.

Look at it this way, if it helps:

They want someone who NEEDS that job and can't do any better than it, so they have more of a hold over that person.

If you're the CEO of your own company but want to work weekends at Target for the hell of it, they're not gonna hire you because to you its nothing. You won't take it seriously, you'll leave at the drop of a hat, and there are people out there that need that job more and will be more pliable to the company's will. If the boss tells you to do something you don't like, you can just laugh at him. If the boss tells some kid right out of college to do something, he damn well does it.

If you were the HR, who would you hire? The guy who doesn't need your job and has little to lose if you fire him, or the one that does and has everything to lose?

[Jerseyprophet]

If you were the HR, who would you hire? The guy who doesn't need your job and has little to lose if you fire him, or the one that does and has everything to lose?

Again, fully agree - but if the candidate told me that they wanted the position because they want to change careers and know its a pay cut and would be willing to stay....I'd be hard pressed to hire someone less qualified in that situation.

[SephYuyX]

Could be just plain ol discrimination then.
You could just call and ask why, just say youd like to know so you can better yourself for future interviews.

[Tyche]

I just went through this at my job while trying to figure out who I was going to hire for a full time truck driving job. I had two applicants. One had a GED, supported his wife on disability, and really needed the job. My other applicant was married to a wife who worked, had some college finished, worked several high profile jobs for the police, trained in first aid (which is important where we work), and just overall more professional (both had worked as temps for the past month). The problem I had with the former applicant was that he was over-qualified. I argued tooth and nail with my production manager and CEO that this was the case. The problem I have with an overqualified employee at this position is the high turn-over rate and revolving door of truck drivers we get. It's very costly for our company to have a high turnover rate since we generally work work in the red (about a $50,000/month loss on average the past few months). Any way we can save money makes the board meetings much more pleasant. Anywho, I wanted the guy that I knew would likely keep the job over the better qualified individual. The argument presented to me by the plant manager was that the training and learning curve for that particular job was very short. Even if the better qualified was to quit, it's easy to get a replacement. If it were a management position, or another position that has a higher learning curve and may take months to train, you'd take in factors such as anticipated stay. Their argument was to always take the better qualified employee in jobs in which employees are easily replaceable. We ended up getting rid of the lesser qualified and keeping the more qualified individual. I really hope he stays, and he's shown a real joy for the job and working with our persons of disability.

[Darus Grey]

If you know the company is looking for something specific, and you think you're perfect for it/over-qualified...you should start subtracting things from your resume.

If I apply for a non-academic job, I'm not going to list my PHD unless that's specifically in what they're looking for...otherwise every interview is going to be like:

Suitdude: Evening Mr.Grey

Me: That's Dr.Grey

Suitdude: I see...I am sorry to inform you the position has been filled.

Me: ~singing: Doctor, doctor, give me the news
I got a bad case of lovin' you

Suitdude: THE POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED!

In my particular example, having the PHD doesn't make my masters or bachelors go away, and what they don't know won't hurt them or you. Don't list or mention things that will over-qualify you.

[Moridam]

Like many others have said, overqualified applicants get turned down because they tend to not stick around as soon as something at a better pay-grade opens up elsewhere. For decent sized companies, costs of training a new hire can easily go into the tens of thousands. Because of that, HR departments generally have an obligation to do whatever they can to avoid spending all the time/money/resources on applicants who have a good chance of moving on before that initial investment can be recouped.

[Korietsu]

They don't want to have to deal with "training" you. Alot of companies dislike having to train employees to their model.

[Khamsin]

Again, fully agree - but if the candidate told me that they wanted the position because they want to change careers and know its a pay cut and would be willing to stay....I'd be hard pressed to hire someone less qualified in that situation.

Regardless of what you tell them, they'll still believe you're a liability.

It's easy to say "I'll take a pay cut and stick around, I promise!" when all they'll hear is "I'm desperate for a job right now, I'll even take this one! It'll tide me over until I find something better."

They don't want to be a stepping stone, and even if you tell them you really do want that job, they have no reason to believe or trust in your long term intentions.

Besides, why take the chance when they've got some college kid that they *know* ain't going nowhere.

[Max™]

Girlfriend applied to little clothes shop after having worked at three others, she had experience with customers, fitting, sizes, sales, folding, blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc.

They turned her down, she asked a friend who had worked as a manager at a similar type of place, if the job isn't difficult to do and the cost of training someone with no expectation of a higher salary is negligible, they'd rather hire someone with no experience.

Just better for overhead is all.