Are You An Overqualified Job Seeker? How to Interview and Get the Offer

Feeling overqualified for the job you’re applying for but need money to keep the lights on? I’ve been there.

In the 2008 recession, my family was hit hard. I had three jobs to help keep the lights on. One was my day job as an executive assistant that I was well qualified for. It was a great job, challenging in the right ways, and I loved what I did. My other two jobs, waiting on tables.

I had grown up in the restaurant business and began waiting tables when I was 13 years old. I was a long way from thirteen when I applied for the server roles during the recession and the managers would ask me why I wanted to do this job. Hadn’t I outgrown it? I was clearly “overqualified”. My competition, local college students, seemed like a much better fit.

My response was that I was a career executive assistant who started as a server when I was thirteen. Clearly my life’s calling is to serve others. I wasn’t overqualified. I was well suited for the job and had a lot to offer my potential co-workers who were half my age and I looked forward to what they could teach me as well.

Just over a decade after the Great Recession and millions of people are out of work again. Now I’m on the opposite side of the table and consulting with and constantly interviewing potential hires. A question that commonly comes up is what to do when you are overqualified for many of the roles you are seeking.

First, start by reframing your thoughts on being an overqualified applicant.

Miranda Nicholson, VP of HR at Formstack, recommends selling yourself as a Subject Matter Experts (SME) to be more appealing to recruiters.

Miranda says, “They may be overqualified but it cuts down on ramp-up periods and training costs. Sometimes people want to be really, really good at what they do so they can teach others. Others have had a taste of management (which is often the growth path after mastery of skills) and they’d prefer to be individual contributors. It doesn’t make them desperate or lazy. It makes them self-aware and emotionally intelligent.”

This is excellent advice and as a professional interviewer, I want to know the candidate realizes this as well.

Reframing your thoughts and perspective is one highly important step to take. Below, I share practical tips and the next steps of what you should and should not during the interview process if you are feeling overqualified.

Don’t “dumb down” your skills or abilities.

You can’t sell yourself as an SME and an average knowledge worker. Not to mention, employers don’t hire dumb people. Dumbing down also insults the interviewer’s intelligence. Ultimately, if you do get hired it hurts your career path in the long run.

Never tell a recruiter you’re overqualified.

This includes saying you could do the job in your sleep. Hiring you, as an overqualified job seeker, would be detrimental to the company culture, as well as a disservice to your wellbeing. Employee engagement is directly linked to how positively challenged an employee is. If the employer can’t challenge you they can’t engage you. Recruiters, hiring managers, and employers are looking for people who think the work is exciting and challenging. Telling a recruiter you’re overqualified is like saying you are done learning and growing. Essentially, you’ve labeled yourself as a know it all.

Avoid telling a recruiter everything you know.

This isn’t because you shouldn’t be highlighting your skills. It’s for the purpose of learning everything you don’t know about the role. The interview process is about you and the role. Sharing your life’s work history and bio in the interview is one of the most common ways interviewees run out of time and the interviewer doesn’t get to share about the role which means you don’t get to discuss it either. The interviewer walks away knowing your life story, believing you are overqualified, and not necessarily interested in the role since all you did was talk about yourself.

How To Interview As An SME

Share your expertise and let the interviewer know what you are still excited to learn.

How is your role being reskilled for the future and how does your expertise help put the company ahead? According to the Mercer Global Talent Trends 2020 Report, one of the biggest challenges employers are facing is reskilling their current workforce. Placing yourself ahead of the curve is a great benefit to the company.

Let the recruiter know what you could learn that will pair well with your current strengths.

This is extremely important when you are applying to a different industry. Show you can bring together two seemingly opposite skills for an outcome that benefits the company and the team. For instance, a recruiter may never have been able to see how calligraphy and personal computers go together. However, once Steve Jobs said it it made perfect sense.

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class…And personal computers might not have the wonderful typography they do today.” — Steve Jobs

Highlight your ability to work on a lean team.

When recruiters mention working on a lean team it is often code for, you are going to do more than your title implies. You may have to do things you haven’t done for yourself in years. In a more pure sense, a lean team is a group of individuals empowered to make quick decisions and take actions that benefit their company. It’s much easier for an employer to empower an SME to make decisions and act on the company’s behalf.

Reimagining yourself as a subject matter expert opens up doors while being overqualified can feel like you are beating down doors that never open. Paint a picture of the future. Rather than concentrate on your life’s work, focus on the fact that your life is not over and your bio is still being written. Describe how this role could be the next chapter.

Melissa Smith has been working remotely since 2013. In 2017, she became location independent. During that time she traveled to 16 countries in 12 months while running her business.

Now Melissa teaches and consults others on how to work remotely, specializing in the remote hiring process. You can learn more about working with Melissa at melissasmith.io

Additionally, Melissa and is an author and mentor for the first global, online education remote individual certification program with Remote-how Academy, as well as the Founder & CEO of the Association of Virtual Assistants and The PVA. She is also the bestselling author of Hire the Right Virtual Assistant and Become A Successful Virtual Assistant.

Melissa has since gained international recognition and has been featured in Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and many others.