In the couple of months that I've been here and actively job searching, I've ran across various things - from employers not even acknowledging receipt of my resume to being asked 'and what brings you here' to being told flat out that I am overqualified for their position and that they worry I will be bored there and leave them soon - this just happened yesterday when I interviewed for an administrative position. Often times they assume I am USC (must be the name - since I got married I took my husband's last name which is really common here) and I have to backtrack a bit to explain my background.

I have a BA in English, studied for a year in the States (also held a student job during my studies), I worked for an American organisation in my home country and my last position was exec. assistant to a high level official for an international organization (international diplomacy). I speak several languages and my computer skills are very good, yet I am told I am overqualified. WTH? And I am not going for the manager positions - admin assistant or exec assistant so I am at the same level as before, but it seems as I am asking for too little???? Weird.

And I just want a job!

Anyone else came across this?

Well, the economy sucks. Keep this in mind, and no one wants to say the economy sucks so they come up with excuses. They don't want someone who is overqualified because the possibility you WILL get bored and leave is pretty great. After two years in an office environment, I'm afraid this will happen when I go back to school and need a job with a flexible schedule. Perhaps you should go for some higher positions and see how that pans out, if they tell you that you are underqualified?

I've been to at least 15 interviews so far, my computers skills were tested on a number of occasions, yet nothing happened - they fill the position with an internal candidate.

BUT

I have a third and final interview with a big company tomorrow so I hope to get a job (these people thought I was a good fit and not overqualified) soon.

Good luck with the interview!!!

Good luck on your INTERVIEW.

The employer cannot give you a denial from employment based on being overqualified. That is ridiculous. I never met a circumstance through the previous 5-6 employers.

Yes, they definitely can. It happens all the time.

Maybe your 5-6 previous employers didn't think you were overqualified. More a comment on you than whether or not they can do it.

Hmm....Nah. There's no such thing as overqualified. It's ridiculous. Every job has their challenges, even for being janitors or Mcdonalds workers.

Heck, a PH.D student working as a sales cashier is overqualified. ROFL. Been there done that. Nothing wrong.

But an employer is free to not give you a job BECAUSE THEY FEEL you are overqualified. El fin.

I see. If they said that to me, they'll be some problems that they need to address with me.

Are you saying that you're so under-qualified to do anything that you'd know they were lying?

Hmm....Underqualified? I don't think so. Very funny you are. Trying to cause problems in this forum? Trying to make a smart #### remark. Yeah, whatever.

The problem with an employee who may be overqualified is that he or she might get bored of the job and not do a good job, or get offered a better position elsewhere.

It does cost alot to hire and train a new employee. So they want to make sure thier invesment in you is worth it.

If you have companies telling you that you are overqualified, apply for a higher level position and see where it takes you. You never know, you could get lucky.

I received this message quite often when I was job-hunting in the UK. Others are right - they're just afraid you're not going to stay long in the job. This is also far more usual with administration positions which are often seen as stepping stones into higher-level office work - retail jobs have such a high turnover anyway that they're a lot less likely to care. It's very frustrating, especially as while you're over-qualified for some jobs you usually lack the right experience for others - a common problem for a lot of new graduates, too.

Good luck for this next interview!

I can understand - it does cost money to train and they probably want someone who will stay. I know that if I was looking for a job just for a job's sake then I would take anything then carry on looking for something that was better - I mean you'd be a fool not to!

But there are some industries that have such a high staff turnover that they must spend fortunes on staff training - no wonder the training is so poor in certain places!

I guess I haven't come across it here either but then I am working as a temp so there are no-strings as such You must also consider that if it is anything like the UK (at least in teaching) then even if they intend to employ an internal applicant, they have to advertise publicly for equal opportunities... you find that there are many teaching jobs that go to internal applicants yet they interview externals just for the show of it

Don't be such a fragile flower, it was a joke. That's why the happy faces.

well - i heard the overqualified thing several times, too.
then a company stopped the interview yesterday because they would want me to work EVERY weekend and holiday, and i don't want to do that.
the economy is a nightmare at the moment, plus it's election year. i talked to my mentor the other day, and she told me to be prepared for 6 months plus jobhunt due to economy. they are laying people off all over the place.
i hold a masters degree in management, did my graduate exchange year at a top30 university business college in the MBA program and can't find a job. *sigh*

*hugs* You'll get there Agnes... it might take a while but at least you're together now, right?

Makes me glad to be a tenured public servant!!! But I'm probably still overqualified for most jobs in my tourist town....

Sometimes I fear that employers are not calling me for an interview because I'm overqualified. I'm purposely applying for a way lower position than my highest position in Brazil, for several reasons.

At this time, I could never handle being a manager or supervisor and deal with all the stress in a different language. Yes, my written english is very good, and I can always cheat, I have the internet if I can't remember a word, how something is spelled, google is my friend. But if I'm talking to someone and I can't remember something, I get extremely nervous and then nothing comes right, I can't make sense at all. That didn't happen in Brazil, because since I had great knowledge on how things work and it's my language, I know how everything is called, I was very confident I could do my job right. And I'm still getting used to how things work here. The laws are different. Even banking is different. I don't have near the same business knowledge I had in Brazil. When I studied business administration and marketing I studied the way it works in Brazil, not USA.

So I believe it's better to start from the bottom doing the same job I used to do when I was 17 than getting a stressful job I'm not sure I can handle due to all the barriers. Yes, it's frustrating, but that's the conclusion I ended up coming to.

So on my resume I put my working experience, being corporate sales supervisor, etc, what am I supposed to say? Lie? Tell them I had less experience? Job search just sucks.

Thank you all for your responses

I am very happy to report that after my final interview yesterday I just received an offer for the big company job which I gladly took. My written offer is in the mail and I will be starting work on April 7.

Congratulations, that's great news!

Overqualified usually means they don't want to pay you the salary you are worth.

Entry level is another good phrase for that.

Great news on the job!

Eh...they have a position to fill, and that position is budgeted at a certain salary range. It has nothing to do with personal worth. Someone who is over-qualified is very likely to be unhappy with a lower salary, and bored with the work. It sucks if you need work, but if you look at it from the employer perspective, they really want someone in the position that will be challenged and interested. Businesses are in business to put the right people in the right jobs, not to provide jobs.

I took a job once that I was over-qualified for. They were very happy with me, but dear god I was *SO* friggin' bored. I wound up leaving for a more suitable job in just over a year. This is what employers want to avoid, and rightly so.

I do agree to an extent but at the same time people who have qualifications might not want to spend three years looking for a job that they are qualified for - especially when there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. I know that I am well qualified but I will take any job to start with just so I can bring in some money. Of course I will look for something better while I am there but I don't want to sit around looking for the perfect job right away or we wikll get even more poor very quickly

Obviously from an employer's POV this isn't great because they waste time and money on training so you can understand why they don't want to employ better qualified people. But on the flip side it certainly isn't going to stop me from applying for anything I can get - obviously I know myself what I can and can't stand in terms of boredom And who knows - I might surprise myself!!

Yep. With my company, they pay you starting at X. They literally cannot start me at more than the limit set by the company, so it's not so much personal worth.

congrats on the job

I was going to throw in my 2 cents on being overqualified, and I see the OP got the job, so now I just want to say Congratulations!!!

I can relate to the being "overqualified" frustration. I only had it officially happen once, and it was for a job that I really wanted. What sucks is that usually the companies will put you through 2, 3 and 4 interviews before telling you this. I once went through 5 formal interviews and tests. Then I got a letter saying I was not the right person for the position. The worst part was that the letter was dated 2 days before my last interview.

Now I just down play myself and it seems to work for me.

OMG - I can't believe that!!

Eh, it could have been a form letter where the person who typed it forgot to change the date. I know most places that rejected me clearly used a form letter.

Some companies use the overqualification. The company I used to work for here in the Bay Area hired me and others for a job which required that you speak German fluently. We never needed to speak German. One day I was wondering why and someone in HR told me: because they know European college grads are overqualified, most of them have a MA and speak at least 3 languages. They need a first job and put up with the little PTO and salary (ok it wasn't that bad, but an American MA graduate would ask for 5-10k more, basically we got paid like people who just finished college and have no experience). They keep advertising the position with the German requirement and only hire Europeans... I found that pretty disappointing, knowingly using people, and even ruder to admit it... Oh well; now I have the foot in the door and don't need to put up with that stuff anymore! Just my 2 Cents.

It took me nearly an entire year to find a job worth its salt. I arrived back in the US on March 22, 2007 and did not find a truly good job until March 12, 2008. I don't have an MA, but I do have a BA and several years of on the job experience. I had to take a lot of crap jobs, spent probably weeks in hours sending out my application materials to a billion different companies. I wasted lots of time going to interviews that didn't go anywhere, told everything under the sun, including overqualified. I wanted to jump off a cliff a million times and cursed the day a thousand times I ever came back to my own frigging country. It was a nightmare, but that looks like it is finally over for now. My employer offers full benefits, 30 paid days off a year, decent salary, and the work is interesting to boot so far. They are actually looking to expand their workforce, maybe the exception to the rule right now. I am holding on to this job for dear life for awhile.

My uncle lost his job in January 2007...the job hunt continues. He is also "overqualified" (maybe code for 'too old' at this point approaching 50). It is ghastly out there.

I found my job through my university's private job board. If your university has one available to alumni, you might want to check it out, if you haven't already. Good luck everyone!

I am happy for you. It sounds like you ended up getting something you like. I am going into this with the idea that it will be a while for my wife to find a good job. I make enough to support us, so hopefully this will take away some of her frustrations when she is looking for her first job here. I would like her to be able to take her time, so she can find a good fit the first time.


Yeah that was true, and I think that it was dated correctly. The reason I think this is because the very last interview was kind of spontaneous, and the envelope was postmarked on the day of the interview. I think they had the letters all ready to go and thought they should talk to me one last time before sending it off.