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Overqualified
job-seekers can ease any awkwardness over talking about a position’s
modest pay by deflecting compensation negotiations until after they
receive a job offer, advises Joann S Lublin
Is
there anything more frustrating than losing a job opportunity you
really want because you are “overqualified”? After all,
is there really any such thing?
Hiring
managers often prefer people whose pay and experience levels match
openings. They fear new employees who might quickly get bored with
their jobs. But being told you are overqualified doesn’t always
mean you are over and out, even in today’s tougher job market.
It
depends on how well you sell your strengths and your rationale for
taking a post that may not seem challenging or well-paying enough.
First, career counsellors say, make sure you’re the one who
broaches the overqualification issue with potential employers. Then,
defuse their objections with a carefully crafted pitch.
“You
have to make the case that you’re bringing something that’s
hand in glove for what they seek,” such as an eagerness to
share your know-how with colleagues, says Dory Hollander, a partner
at WiseWorkplaces, an Arlington, executive-coaching firm.
Betsy
Walker is following her advice. During 20 years with American Management
Systems, an information-technology consulting concern, she advanced
to a vice presidency and co-manager of a $120 million unit. She
left her job in 1999 to become an independent consultant. Now, the
40-something Atlanta resident wants a full-time role with a different
consultancy or a software firm.
Walker,
the mother of two preschool-age sons, desires greater work-life
balance. She prefers to be, say, a regional manager than a senior
executive who travels constantly. “I’m overqualified.
I’m not trying to run a major business anymore,” she explains.
She urges would-be employers to scrutinise her sheet of “career
objectives” before they read her resume.
Still,
hiring managers sometimes ask whether she will be bored dealing
with clients again instead of overseeing numerous consultants. “Nothing
is more challenging than making a client happy,” Walker replies.
“I will be getting back to the real fun of consulting.”
Also,
she researched prevailing pay rates for the jobs she seeks. “I
am not expecting people to pay me what I earned in the best year
of my life,” she says, declining to disclose details.
Walker’s
calculated approach is paying off. She says her job search of nearly
three months has already produced one firm offer and several strong
prospects that would help her achieve her professional and compensation
objectives.
Overqualified
job-seekers can ease any awkwardness over talking about a position’s
modest pay by deflecting compensation negotiations until after they
receive a job offer.
What
if a hiring manager demands to know your latest pay during the initial
interview? “You should say, ‘A lot’. Probably more
than you could pay me in this position. But money is not my top
priority,’ “ recommends Jack Chapman, a Wilmette, Illinois,
career coach.
Many
overqualified applicants are pushed into settling for less money
or status simply because they haven’t found anything better.
So they are not always ready to make the sacrifices that come with
a lesser post. Some start reinventing the job before they even get
it.
Last
fall, a recent law-school graduate applied for a paralegal’s
post at Surgency, a Cambridge, consulting firm specialising in e-business
strategies. The job paid about $45,000 $20,000 less than junior
attorneys for similar small companies in the Boston area could command.
“I’d
be thrilled to get somebody who was overqualified if I was comfortable
that they were willing to stay,” says Susan Portin, Surgency’s
vice president for business and legal affairs. But the law-school
grad gave the opposite impression.
The
young man spoke more about how the stint might help his career than
vice versa and tried to inflate the paralegal title to “assistant
counsel.”
“I
got the sense that if he didn’t feel he was moving in a direction
he wanted that in six months he would leave,” Portin says.
The wary executive picked someone else.
For
overqualified applicants, it is particularly important to get a
crystal-clear understanding of a new job’s demands. “You
better know exactly what you’re stepping into and you better
get it in writing,” observes Mike Genebach, the 47-year-old
former chief executive of Apptus, an application-service provider
in Reston.
He
did neither during a job search late last year. In early January,
he joined a Washington software consulting concern as a managing
partner at slightly less pay than he had been making.
The
company president later asked, “How do you go from being CEO
to something less?” Genebach recalls replying that he expected
the work to be “challenging and fulfilling.” When he got
to the company, however, he found himself assigned tasks he hadn’t
expected.
He
soon quit. Later this month, he plans to start a new job as senior
vice president of PlanetGov, a Chantilly provider of information-technology
products and services. This time, he obtained a written agreement.
It states he will run PlanetGov’s service business and the
company must negotiate before altering his role.
-www.careerjournal.com
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