With applicants outnumbering job openings by a brutal five to one margin nationwide, many so-called "overqualified" workers, spurred on by economic necessity, are re-evaluating their aspirations and settling for jobs that are "beneath" them. Reports of highly educated and experienced individuals taking low-level jobs are on the rise. This is bad news for graduating Dartmouth students, who may soon find themselves competing for jobs with out-of-work 40-year-olds.
Conventional wisdom warns against overqualified hires. According to a 2006 study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, higher levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover exist among overqualified workers. Companies must spend extra money finding and training replacements when the too-good-to-be-true employees inevitably leave to fulfill their real potential. And even if overqualified workers do stick around, they tend to be resentful and drag down morale.
But many companies are starting to chuck this conventional wisdom. A recent New York Times feature describes a case in point: Missouri moving company Cartwright International is treating the jobs crisis as an opportunity to pick up top talent at bargain-basement prices, filling many low-level positions with overqualified hires. They've even taken on a former Wall Street financial analyst with an MBA at a position whose qualification standards were originally advertised as "Bachelor's preferred but not required."
Obviously, the current dire economic climate is a big factor driving this hiring culture shift. For one thing, companies are less worried about flighty talent if an overqualified employee needs the mind-numbing job to stave off bankruptcy, and prospects of getting hired elsewhere are grim, he will be much more likely to grin and bear it.
Historically bleak job markets aside, a 2009 study in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that the negative effects of job dissatisfaction and high turnover can often be reduced if managers make overqualified hires feel valued, respected and autonomous. Also, there is no solid evidence that overqualified workers are less productive than their unskilled counterparts; indeed, their excessive experience may allow them to take on de-facto leadership roles and educate their fellow entry-levelers, boosting productivity in entire departments.
So why shouldn't companies scale back recruitment of inexperienced young graduates and go with the tried-and-true hires? It seems like a win-win, and maybe it is in the short term.
But this policy may have enduring negative effects. One major consequence of overqualified job seekers saturating the entry-level market is particularly troubling: educated young people are being excluded from the work force for longer and longer periods of time. Indeed, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that unemployment for the under-25 age group will stay above 15 percent for the next two years, while overall joblessness will fall to about 8 percent. The Atlantic Wire's Max Fisher has gone so far as to say that the new hiring paradigm creates a "generation of unskilled workers" late launchers whose career development is stunted by an inability to land a job that is properly suited to their experience level at a crucial time.
It is nave, of course, to expect that the business community will dial down on overqualified hiring just for society's sake. But it's not just our generation or some vague notion of societal well-being that's at stake. By turning to overqualified workers at the expense of young recruits, companies may be hurting themselves. They are sacrificing a culture of employee loyalty, an idea referred to as "affective commitment" in applied psychology. Granted, job switching is fairly common for the typical young professional, but at least he approaches his entry-level position as a launching point for a long, upward trajectory, not as a frustrating setback. With this mindset, it is easier to connect emotionally with an employer and identify with company goals.
Overqualified workers, on the other hand, may endure their jobs in the current economic climate, but they will never embrace them. Rather, they will grit their teeth and go through the motions while constantly looking for a way out. Most overqualified workers see entry-level employment as a Band-Aid, and employers should return the sentiment or risk getting burned in the long run. Hiring older candidates might be fine as a stopgap measure, but recruiting and nurturing young talent is an essential investment.
