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Re:Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in a... by AnimalMuppet on Thursday October 12, 2017 @10:38PM (#15462922)
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.

Re:Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in a... by shostack on Thursday October 12, 2017 @10:48PM (#15462963)
Your experience might be worth that much to a company who needs it, but if they are hiring for a junior role (and I mean they truly just need someone junior, not playing games), they may not value what that role will be working on enough to justify paying for your extra experience.

Nothing wrong with that... It just likely isn't a good fit.

Re:Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in a... by humanrebar on Friday October 13, 2017 @12:01AM (#15463188)
> ...just need someone junior...

What does this mean? It sounds like expectations around pay and responsibility. If someone says, "Yes, I'll take your marching orders for 30k per year," why not hire them and let them do that? You might have something with more responsibility open up in the next year or so and have an immediate (and usually harder to find) candidate for that job.

Re:Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in a... by shostack on Friday October 13, 2017 @02:41PM (#15468242)
My point is that some roles may not have much upward mobility, or they may want to bring in someone with less experience and train them up (a good thing).

Someone with a mountain of experience coming in has to work against the suspicion that they are taking the role for the wrong reasons, namely that they will bounce as soon as they find something more in line with their actual experience.

It goes beyond expectations of pay and responsibility.

If you take someone with a ton of experience who says they will do the job for $30k/year, their growth expectations are quite likely different than that of a junior person. As such, there's a greater likelihood they will leave sooner if they find something more senior.

And the hard part of this is, they might genuinely be interested in the role. But enough managers get burned by taking in someone with too much experience for a lower level role that leave in under a year, and they tend to avoid that type of candidate.