Should You Hire An Overqualified Candidate?

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

So the job opening has been put up on LinkedIn, on the careers page of the company, and on various other job boards. Several individuals have applied for the same and the interviews are in progress. The talent acquisition team has ended up with a few shortlists. And an overqualified individual is one among them. 

The recruiting process doesn’t come cheap to organizations. Travel expenses for applicants and staff, recruiter salary and perks, advertising charges, and so much more – companies deal with administrative, monetary, and operational struggles to scoop up the best hires. An overqualified candidate – being educated beyond what is requested by an employer for a position with the business – is another significant bottleneck in the hiring process; a gamble which some employers play and others overlook.

Ask employers why they would pass over overqualified people and you get a number of reasons. A survey by Spark Hire involving 750 respondents expounded on the issues associated with hiring overqualified talent. Frequent requests for promotions and raises, growing ‘bored’ quickly, a sense of entitlement, and under-performance are some often stated cons. Above all, the perennial fear of such employees leaving for another job stresses the employer. And this concern makes sense. Employee turnover is a crippling expense, an assertion substantiated by the Work Institute’s 2017 Retention Report. According to the report, it costs employers 33% of a worker's annual salary to hire a replacement if that worker leaves. Onboarding, training, administrative processing, and knowledge replacement leave a dent in the company’s pockets.

However, one shouldn’t decry overqualified talents by focusing only on the negatives. The respondents to Spark Hire’s survey also added that such workers can up-skill quickly and teach new skills to their teammates. Moreover, these individuals bring unique experiences to the table, something their green colleagues may not find in books, reference materials, or certifications. Building a formidable talent pipeline is a necessity for organizations to grow, be it a Forbes 500 behemoth, a unicorn, or an anonymous, crew-of-ten establishment in a third-world nation. These experienced workers add a certain dimension to the pipeline. Another advantage of taking in overqualified applicants is the opportunity to invest in tomorrow’s leaders at below-market prices. With the right whetting in a conducive work environment, underemployed men and women can go on to do wonders. A hiring bonanza indeed!

How does a recruiter play it safe with an overly skilled candidate? There is no definite framework to determine whether such an applicant would prove to be a good fit. However, one could evaluate the applicant holistically through an exacting assessment. Why did the candidate leave the previous role? Why settle for a lower-level position? How can the individual’s skills cross over to the current opening? Is the person hiding something – fake credentials, irrelevant referrals, incompetency, or legal wrangling? There are a number of articles on the internet centered on the themes of “applying for a job as an overqualified candidate” and “overcoming the obstacles of overqualification”. Hiring managers should spend a good deal of time skimming through such blog posts and publications. It’d help them curate a ‘nearly infallible’ evaluation checklist that could then be used to filter deserving candidates from the less-capable ones.

Finally, there is no room for personal opinions and prejudice for they can cloud the judgment of the wisest. Overqualification is a trap; it may hit anyone on a whim. Recruiters should not add insult to injury by flatly rejecting these distressed, overqualified job seekers.