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The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

I put that in quotes because yes, I've seen it also result in an age bias and as I went from one side of the equation to the other, I spent some time evaluating what was and was not important to me as an employee.

About 15 years ago I came to the conclusion that "over qualified" was never a legitimate disqualifying disposition of a candidate. Simply put, if you are applying for a job that needs less skills than you bring and are willing to take the salary that is offered, how far 'beyond' the requirements you go is irrelevant. I asked a hiring manager at Google once if they would tell a sales guy "No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around." Even if you never expect to challenge the top end of the sports car you probably won't turn it down. Similarly with employees, if you are up front with them about what the job entails and they are ok with it, who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" ?

Answer is, you aren't. Hire them and get get a discount on skilz they are offering you. Your company will be better for it.

> who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" ?

But that's not the real reason. The reason is they are afraid because the experienced person can see through bullshit better. They are harder to fool and brainwash to work for free. With stuff like "There won't be a paycheck next month, but don't worry we are turning corner, once we exit you'll all drive Ferraris!", "We are changing the world, just need to finalize this feature by next week, so let's all work a little harder (and by all I mean you all)". Someone with experience will say something "Thanks but no thanks, I've heard this before" a new college graduate will say "Yay! Let's do it, I'll impress everyone with how little sleep I can get each night".

And I am not being too hyperbolic here. I've heard from owners before confessing that hey love hiring college grads because they can drive them hard, they are full of enthusiasm and are not "tainted" by other corporations.

Another friend from another startup, confessed that they like those take-home interview problems. Stuff like "Implement a distributed database over the weekend and show us the code on Monday during the interview". The reason is because they can get the really desperate and dedicated people willing to invest that much time into projects. As when crunch time comes, they'll need those "skills".

> The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

With the current lack of bonds between employer and employee, you must consider that all your employees are in this condition.

I think the analogy is more illuminating than you meant it to be - what if you can't afford the upkeep of the Ferrari? I mean, there are a lot of originally high end cars available for low prices due to depreciation, and people do reject them for more practical cars that cost the same.
It seems like many employers are quite worried about hiring someone who is under qualified, even though they can legally fire them for any (for certain values of any) or no reason where I live.

Given that, it doesn't seem like the worse problem in the world to hire someone who is over qualified, and if they get real unhappy, they give a professional 2-weeks notice and then leave.

I think we're all probably ignoring the real reason this happens though, those hiring are intimidated by the over qualified candidate. "A's hire A's and B's hire C's" as they say.

My experience is a bit different. The real problem with me being overqualified is that I want to be paid for the qualifications I bring, and they don't want to pay that much. They aren't afraid that I'll move on soon. They just have sticker shock.

Now, if I take their low-ball offer, if they pay me as if I had 5 years of experience when I really have 30 and for whatever reason I have to take that job, then yes, I'm out of there as soon as I find someone who will pay me what I'm worth. I like the work, but I do this to make money, not just for entertainment.

And why am I worth more money than someone with 5 years of experience? I don't even work as hard as those people; why am I worth more? Because I get more done, and it's done better when I do it. I don't write the bugs those people write, so I (or somebody else) doesn't have to spend the time finding and fixing them. I don't design the bad architectures that they design. And so on.

Not if the person feels demotivated by the fact that the job is not taking advantage of their skills or experience. People want to feel respected and appreciated for what they bring to the table. Without that, they may lose motivation and thus be less productive than a fresh person with a strong desire to learn and grow.
Not if it takes 6 months to get a new developer up and running on the codebase, and then they leave just when they are getting productive.
>> The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

I'm getting to the age where I wonder about these kinds of things. And yet I've interviewed older highly qualified people and thought exactly that. I will use this discussion as a reference point and adjust my attitude. I could be in that guys position any day/year now, what will I want? I'm beyond the point of caring about certain things that seem to matter to younger people who think they're going to change the world. I just want to do solid work and get paid my rate. It makes sense that those I interview want the same.

Sounds like the interviewee's job is to convince the interviewer that it's not just a temp job. Explain your rationale for what appears to be an illogical career move.
When we talk about "disparate impact" in racism, this is the type of think we're referring to. Yeah, you clean-shaven policy seems fair, but but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population.

Similarly "you over-qualified for this positions" seems fair, it may even seem like you're doing the applicant a favor, but if it disproportionally affects a particular community, perhaps it's time to reflect on it.

edit: spelling, thx icelander, and damn you autocorrect

After my dad's manufacturing related engineering position moved overseas he got told by an automaker that he was over-qualified for line work. However no one was interested in his engineering skills even after he tried to pivot to quality-control engineering.

The pay and work at the automaker would have been great for him. Instead he ended up carrying mail until retirement.

I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

I think the use of the term "over qualified" is often used to mask the real reasons for rejection.

I was rejected for a job when I was aged 39 for supposedly being over qualified. When I applied for the job in question I was upfront about my experience, qualifications and desired salary which was market rate for my experience. I didn't sell myself short. The product I would be working on was unified message distribution system not too dissimilar to Twilio.

After a code test, a whiteboard exam and two rounds of interviews I was told "Yeah, we really like you and you undoubtedly have the skills. But we were really looking for someone a little less qualified". I pushed a bit to find out what that meant and the HR person claimed it was my salary expectations, but I had my doubts.

During both interviews I was asked if I had children. I said I had two. I was then asked their ages and where they went to school. This led on to questions about how they got to school and what happens if one or both of them are sick etc. The questioning style was casual, but they were definitely probing me. In Ireland this line of questioning is illegal, but it happens a lot. At the time I answered the questions with a feeling of reluctance. I do believe that having young children lost me the job. I was asked what would happen if my children were sick off school, I answered that either me or my wife would have to stay home. I was asked why my wife wouldn't take on that responsibility exclusively. I responded because we share our responsibilities to our family. I could see the interviewers brow furrow when I said that.

I have a strong suspicion that the reason why age affects IT recruitment so much is not because of "over qualification". It's because the older you are the more likely you are to have family that you want to spend time with. Or if you don't have children you might have other interests that take priority over work. I've had managers who have straight up admitted that the older you are the less likely you are to put up with overtime and more likely to challenge over bearing bosses.

Put simply younger people have fewer adult life distractions, will work longer hours and put up with more crap.

I've been interviewing quite a few people for roles and more recently there have been far more who have PhD's in Machine Learning. I point out that role won't use these skills/expert knowledge, and ask what they think. No one ever says that the role is not for them but you know that if there were a machine learning role open they'd jump at it, thereby costing the company money in rehiring. It is a tough decision.
This doesn't happen just because of age. While I was living in Canada, I met plenty of highly-qualified immigrants desperately looking for jobs, and would routinely get this response even though they weren't old or anything; its just that they would literally be applying for low-skill jobs because the appropriate jobs would not take them for lack of "Canadian Experience".
I'm seeing this now. I'm 48 and have applied to over 100 jobs. I have an MBA and have been well-qualified for every one of the jobs I've applied to, or else I wouldn't have wasted my time. I've had about 5 legitimate responses. I know it's not my resume, or much else. Age is just about the only answer, or not being able to afford me because I'm "over-qualified" which makes me wonder why they're advertising for the position, if they don't expect to hire a qualified candidate.
I don't think you can fight this with laws: We live in an age and society that prefers young over old, smart over wise, quick profits over steady growth - I could go on with the contrasts but you get the idea. This might change over time but don't hold your breath.

If some of the young developers reading this realize that the same might happen to them then my suggestion would be not to wait around hoping that new employment laws will save you in a few decades (which will pass faster than you think), but to start taking care of things now. This means, make sure that by the time you get to the age when someone won't hire you, you won't need or want to be hired. You can do this by either saving enough money by that age to do whatever you want (which could be a new venture doing what you love, whether it is developing software or not) or by slowly creating a business (maybe starting as a side project) which will end up with you on the hiring side (even if you only want to hire yourself).

When your date dumps you after the first date, the reason they give is never the truth. It's the same when they reject you for the job. There's not much of a percentage in stewing or arguing about it.
Employers constantly tell me "Your resume looks great, you have a lot of skills, so why is there a gap in those years? What were you doing? Don't you have any experience in technology X or Y? You might get bored here". I never get hired.
In the end if don't want to hire you, they won't. Now, rather than being brutally honest, they invent ways around it.
Majority of managers do not want people that see through their bs. After all they need to manage. Someone who sees through their bs is not as pliable as an inexperienced hire. They want the naivety because it is exploitable just like ignorance. Remember most managers are trying to move up and if you pose a risk, they won’t have that. This is also part of the reason why there exist so many collaboration tools. If we placed collaboration above competition just maybe the company would be a better place to work. Instead of this competitive minefield where everyone is just looking for the next opportunity to step up at the expense of others and at the expense of collaboration.
It's ironic seeing this hosted at Facebook, the land of "young people are just smarter".*

*The infamous quote from Zuckerberg

I received some advice to omit the first 5-ish years positions from my resume and “reword” the line referring to my 20 years of industry experience. I'm older than my boss and it's definitely a bit scary. YMMV
This person has wonderful skills and experience. They must have an extensive network of people they've worked with and for. Yet here they are in front of me not making any use of that network. Why?

Meet that head on because one possibility that goes through the mind of those making the hiring decision is "Is it because this person is horrible?"

"I'm here and not using my own network to get hired because (they've all retired rich the lucky bastards|the network went a bit cold while I did 15 years in xyz co.|I'm not comfortable using a network because I've always been able to get hired on my talent, skills and work ethic and that's really important to me|whatever the reason is).

Also when mentioning previous stuff you've done. "Did that with Jill and Amesh, great people, would work with them again in a heartbeat." "This one I did with Kar-Wai, talented guy, I liked working with him."

Hiring is an investment decision you have to live with every day. Fear and greed the same as any other, allay the fears, stoke the greed.

Note this is not "The Answer" my best to all doing it a bit tough in the job market. It's just one thing to consider if you haven't already, get the box next to it ticked.

Over-qualified people are seen as a threat. The managers who hire, unless they are the owners, do not want to deal with the office politics of someone who truly knows more than they do.

If you are over-qualified for a position there is nothing wrong with playing down your resume. Writing code is a new career for me and I don't mention my previous management positions at all because I'm applying for subordinate positions framing my resume accordingly.

"you're overqualified" and "we only hire the best" is a bit of a contradiction, isn't it?
It's true that if you always do the same kind of programming work, you might get bored and this can negatively affect productivity (in terms of raw speed)... But on the plus side; your code will likely be of very high quality and will almost definitely save the company a ton of money in the medium and long term.

So yeah I think that calling someone 'overqualified' is a poor excuse.

Startups love code monkeys that can churn out features quickly; they're often willing to sacrifice huge medium-term benefits for small short-term benefits but that's idiotic. From my experience, it only takes about 3 to 6 months for technical debt to become a major problem so unless you expect your startup to have an exit in the next 3 months then you really should not accept any short term solutions at all.

Appearance matters so much in this discussion.

There are 40 year-olds who are obviously 40 year-olds, complete with greying beards, burgeoning bellies, and a wardrobe consisting of nothing but polo shirts acquired from years of conference attendance.

And then there are 40 year-olds who could pass for 30.

My intuition is that the likelihood of ageism being subconsciously or otherwise invoked in the former case is vastly larger.

In this sense, it is a lot like racism or sexism in the case of "culture" fitting. The desire to appear young and nimble, as a company, is a significant part of whatever demographic they are shooting for, outwardly.

Part of the issue is that programming is largely seen today as a process of problem solving using an "agile" hack it 'till it works approach. Quick thinking to put out a fire or implement a quick feature using some new technology easily learned is most valued, along with the ability to be "flexible" when it comes to quality of work and workplace demands.

Given this, one might as well look to recruit some smart, cheap and enthusiastic graduate. Sadly industry experience and lessons learned don't seem so important.

Now that I'm in a position of hiring technical people, this seems crazier than ever to me. It's hard to hire talented software engineers because they're so in demand. I would be glad to consider eager and talented prospective employees who I don't have to compete hard for.
i was unemployed for a while, and got a number of 'overqualified' rejections. eventually i ran out of money to pay the bills, and was a few weeks from being kicked out onto the streets... when i finally managed to land something. it was a fucking brutal roller coaster. sure is nice to have a roof over my head.
I've never liked being an employee. And I liked it less and less, as I got older. I also started getting rejected for being overqualified (plus having a bad attitude).

My solution was consulting. And eventually, consulting as a testimonial expert. Being older and overqualified helps in intimidating opposing counsel, and impressing judges and juries.

So there could be a few more possibilities why an overqualified person is willing to accept the job. Maybe a burnout if very high pace high pressure work, could nsulting including. Perhaps chilling at the slower paced company is perfect for him or her. If so why would he leave? I have known plenty of folks who a really really want to mentor and contribute their experience from decades of consulting, but not necessarily go back to doing it. Why not take advantage of the fact. Also, from the employer's perspective give him or her opportunity to do something else when the jobbia done and there's time to spare. Opensource contribution on the clock, presales tasks maybe,speaking at conferences, mentorship. Who cares as long as his job is done, he feels needed and can find other things to do to not be bored. Does not take a lot to manage a self starter.
This is fascinating to see.

I'm pushing 28, so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

When I was 22, finding a job was easy. But once you have the portfolio they say they were looking for in the first place, no one wants you anymore because they're too afraid you'll jump to the next job paying $1k a year more or whatever. Its dumb.

As an overqualified employee, I think you should simply delete parts of your resume to appear less skilled. A job is better than no job. I wonder why more people don't do that.
And people wonder why everyone goes for the startup lottery ticket
I had several interviews where the chief interviewer said I worry you won't want to keep doing just frontend, and I was like but if there are tickets on other parts of the stack I can do why wouldn't I - and anyway if I know parts of the backend and the data layer that means I know where a ticket should be fixed - most things can be fixed in the frontend but not everything should be.

I didn't get those jobs though.

What is results in is an organization without a focus on hiring the best people. Do this for long enough and your company will die.
I want to buy a bag, just to hold my stuff, my budget is $100 for it, now the store has a few luxury bags for sale, but they are all above $200 price tag, what should I do? do I have to buy them? or I can decide to keep looking for better performance/price ratio?

isn't over-qualify the same as too-inexperienced, that many companies are reluctant to hire? bias is part of the real world, while I'm not young anymore, I firmly support that the company has the right to hire who they want to hire, after all, it's its private money, its decision and we're not reaching communism just yet. It's the competition made USA USA.

I'm 52, I recently got a "pass" on a job that matched that I was told in person that I would get an offer in writing while at my 4th and final interview with the COO/HR person (not the hiring manager). I walked out of that place thinking I had the job only to get an email from the hiring manager (CTO) telling me that "if the job was a Venn Diagram, you fit 80% of the role, I just think the other 20%, you wouldn't be happy and probably not challenged enough." I was stunned. Venn Diagram?? come on man... Seriously? And email, call and talk to me. Be an adult.

At first I was like "ok, not a fit." Then I had to realize I was probably 25 years older than he was and what he was really saying was "you're too old to be working here." The tone of his email was exactly as this blog. "You're just too experienced" -- in so many words.

Sucks being old... But I replied in email that he was probably right, that the role itself was a little below my level (truth) and that it was probably something I would have had to work with him on. I also identified that this guy (great guy, I liked him), was immature on the management side and every co-worker that interviewed with me confirmed it by telling me how much "he needed someone under him to do be the leader, be the buffer -- keep him focused on vision", so they needed me -- or the younger me. So I felt confident this was going to work. But he clearly felt I was too old...

It's a bummer. Had they offered me the job, I would have taken it and worked through the issues and grown with them. The reality is, I was perfect for the job and they actually needed my experience and my level of software domain knowledge in this space -- they were young, struggling with execution and accountability. I came to the realization that my age was both a benefit (to the company), but a threat to the CTO (founder) as being too experienced under you which would give him a lot of insecurity, but also having a guy that was old enough to be your Dad work under you -- he couldn't handle that (probably). Personally, for me, I would have had a blast. I love working with younger people and I love the energy and I'm someone who can relate to people half my age in many ways. Not to mention, I have all the modern stack experience they needed and I'm a pretty fucking great guy for their culture.

So as a 52 year old developer, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm a dinosaur and I might have to end up being a consultant or building another company (again) -- which I did when I was in my 30's and young.

When thinking about reasons for ageism you should account for consulting, which do not have this problem (or at least it is less pronounced). The cause is hidden in the overhead of full-time employment.
My previous company was rejecting 95% of overqualified applications, sometimes because of their age, sometime because of number of their certifications in their CVs. There was once a time, the company was offering totally average daily wage for a contractor job, and we got a CV from a guy with almost every possible Java certification from last 15 years. We knew we can't hire him, he would be bored here and soon ask for more money, which the company didn't have.
I've been rejected from jobs because I was over-qualified. Then I got accepted to one, which turned out later that I was over-qualified for that one too. I did get bored, I felt like the job wasn't a good match for my skills, and I went looking for a new job.

So the concern is indeed very real and can cause unneeded churn for a company.

Reminds me somewhat of the Gervais principle. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
At my last interview, they reject me because "I'll not proper integrate with the team"
Maybe you should look in places that management is based in evidences: https://hbr.org/2010/12/the-myth-of-the-overqualified-worker
This is fascinating to see.

I'm only two years away from the cliff (30), so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

When I was 22, finding a job was easy. But once you have the portfolio they say they were looking for in the first place, no one wants you anymore because they're too afraid you'll jump to the next job paying $1k a year more or whatever. Its dumb.

Can someone share a non-Facebook link please?
ageism was the first ism I had to deal with personally, said the old white guy. It is bad in every industry and job sector.