Are You Overqualified? Why Not Edit Your Resume?

Posted by in Career Advice •




There are times, like when you are trying to make a career change, when applying for a job you're overqualified for makes sense. The problem is that it can be a challenge to be taken seriously for an entry-level job when you have a master's degree. As strange as it seems, in those cases, your past successes can be the very thing that's holding you back.



In general, it's not a good idea to apply for jobs that you're overqualified for. For one, it's not likely that you'll be happy with the job long term and many employers will be hesitant to take a chance on you. However, if you're changing careers, you have to start at the bottom. So what can you do to minimize the problem and get the entry level job you want?



It's simple - Edit your resume.



Your resume doesn't have to be a linear history of your job history. Instead, it can be a functional resume, which only lists your relevant work experience. If you choose this type of format, you can feel free to leave out the things that will hurt your chances at getting the job. Here are a few other things you can do:

 

  • Remove job titles - If your previous positions were significantly senior to the entry level position you're applying for, remove the job title from your resume. This way, instead of your resume stating that you were the VP of Sales, it will just say Sales.
  • Remove your highest degree - There are some experts who suggest that you should remove the highest level degree you have from your resume. By doing so, you'll lower your chances of being ruled out before you have had a chance to interview.
  • Don't lie - Never outright lie on your resume. Information is too easy to check and it will make you look bad. However, dumbing your resume down and leaving out information like your previous salary history might be a good option.

 

Have you ever applied for a job that you were overqualified for? What happened? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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  • Jack N
    Jack N •
    most of the time " Overqualified " means your to old !!! in my experience
  • Catarina S
    Catarina S •
    I have a law degree and I am barred in 3 states. That took a lot of hard work. However, the law field is such that no law firm or government entity is hiring people like me, with little direct experience. They want the distinguished attorneys with 10 years under their belt. On the other hand, any other (non-law job) I apply to sees me as over qualified, like I will leave the job as soon as I get an offer from a firm. Without fail one of the 1st questions I am asked in an interview is "why would an attorney want this job?" What they don't get is that my degree does not matter - in fact, it's practically useless - and that if I got a job I wouldn't leave immediately,because I wouldn't be looking for other jobs anymore (cuz I know how few are out there).
  • Asoka S
    Asoka S •
    Yes, this is a good idea. As I am overqualified, I was not considered for certain jobs.  Thank you for giving these ideas.Asoka  
  • Brent B
    Brent B •
    Melissa, this is a great article. As a recruiter, HR professional, and career coach, I can confirm that you are correct. A resume is just a document advertising yourself, so you don't have to include everything, but of course, false advertising is considered fraud. So, don't do that.For those of you that are frustrated with your job search due to being ruled out as Overqualified, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with your age in most cases. It has to do with the fact that if you don't brand yourself correctly, you could fall into the large category of people looking for just ANY job to pay your bills, while you job search for another job that more closely fits what your qualifications and pay.Employers don't care about your personal situation. They don't even know you. Employers are a business, in which the goal is to make money.Why should a company take a risk on you by wasting a lot of money hiring and training you when you are going to leave in 2-3 months because you finally got that job offer from another company that has a position more closely fitting your needs/qualifications/pay? Put yourself in their shoes. It's incredibly expensive to hire and lose an employee.
  • Eugene M
    Eugene M •
    In my opinion, what has happened, in a very lackluster job environment, is that the "technology labor" involved to submit job applications is almost not worth it. One can purchase resume submittal services, which blast your standardized resumes to the whole world, but when you submit your application to a likely employer, it stills takes 2-3 hours to plug in the required information along with editing or dumbing down you resume to fit the employer's requirements. At the other end is an H/R hiring person who is happy with his/her "fifedom" and most hiring requirements are so rigid and impersonal as to eliminate any humaness in the process. Again, only my thoughts and opinions...
  • Kurt M
    Kurt M •
    I have worked for a lot of companies - start ups, existing that require that special touch. The problem I have had was getting these companies up to the potential and either having the company sold (good job, but by the way we have been sold) or having new EVP Management driving the wooden stake into the companies heart - Oh, by the way, you are no longer needed as we have decided to go another way (both of these went bankrupt within two years). I am now over sixty and still want to be employed. Overqualified?, been there, done that. Phone interviews go great until I walk in the door and you can just see it in their eyes - "My God, he's 60 + years old. I have removed dates from the resume, I have toned down the experience "LEVEL" have even reduced a required or expected salary level to the point of being shall I say - ENTRY LEVEL though I have 30+ years of Sr. experience to offer.
  • WILLIAM H
    WILLIAM H •
    I am overqualified for a lot of the positions I apply for i like the suggestion of leaving out your highest degree in most positions my masters degree is not required.  Also leaving out the posiiton level is a very good idea. Any thoughts of how to dumb down your accomplishments? I suppose one could simply leave a lot out and only include the essential parts to get the job
  • Terry S
    Terry S •
    Like many of the unemployed here, I have 25+ years experience in my field and was let go for what I consider to be bogus reasoning in an attempt to cover the fact that I was being compensated for that experience.My employer was purchased by huge global company and they are now offering "internships" that didn't exist in my field ten years ago! Even if you dumb down your resume, it all comes back to your age because your education records don't lie. I am 57, look 47 and degreed, highly experienced, and present well, but on paper I am just an old hag making a lot of money. When I started my career my biggest obstacle was my youth and lack of experience, despite my education!  
  • Ann B
    Ann B •
    Good point. Too bad that the prospective employer/hiring authority can't get beyond the titles and degrees to perceive the skills and maturity behind the fact-based resume.
  • Maria M.
    Maria M. •
    It is frustrating for me to endure that having a few advanced degrees can be seen as a potential threat to the hiring manager or as a sign that a lower level job may not be of interest to the applicant in the long term. I recently replied to a question asking why I was applying to an entry level position by saying that I was looking for the right position irrespective of level, which is actually a true statement! Having to scale down a resume is a disappointing, albeit more practical, approach to becoming more marketable in certain positions.
  • Virginia P
    Virginia P •
    It seems that over 20 years doing the same job is just not what the healthcare field wants. They want to hire the people right out of school that are living at home & not really paying bills, except maybe insurance for the car that their parents bought them after they finished school plus gas for it too. A person over 50 that needs to work to eat  and pay real bills can't find work
  • Susan r
    Susan r •
    instead of saying overqualified, they should consider it more qualified than we need. But that shouldn't mean the person is not hire-able. I just encountered this. I was told, well this is more entry level than what you most recently were doing. And I tried to make it clear that I was ok with that. They hired someone with 1 yr. experience and I'm guessing a whole lot less money.
  • Justin F.
    Justin F. •
    When an employer says you're overqualified, what they're most worried about is that you won't be committed long term (not so much age, salary expectations, etc). The onus is then on you to persuade the employer that you are 100% committed to the career change and willing to start from the ground up and pay your dues just like a 22 year old fresh out of undergrad would. Look at it from an employer's POV...and let's use an extreme example: Let's say you have a MBA and you're applying for a job flipping burgers. The employer will have huge reservations hiring you, knowing that you will likely jump ship the moment a better opportunity presents itself. Why would they put themselves in that position and invest the time, resources, and training on someone they suspect would leave at the drop of a hat? They need reassurance from you that you are just as invested. This can obviously be done during the interview process, but it can also be addressed in the cover letter and even the resume summary.
  • Judy B
    Judy B •
    I have experienced this just recently.  I  am on terminal leave after serving 23 years in the Air Force as a paralegal.  I've been interviewed for 2 different court positions and both times I was told my resume "is very impressive" however neither office hired me!
  • Rebecca S
    Rebecca S •
    Hey....it's worth a try!  To date I can't even get call backs for positions I clearly am "more than qualified" for.  Very very frustrating to hear others with poor communication skills and the inability to write a complete sentence pick up a job when I can't even get call backs!
  • Donna M
    Donna M •
    am constantly applying for jobs that I am overqualified for, with no luck. I have Ph.D. in Spanish literature, and the market is saturated with Spanish instructors who have lost jobs due to budget cuts. I apply for customer service jobs that want bilinguals, and these jobs are between $10-13 an hour mostly.  I do get tired of people who say that being bilingual will add dollars to your hourly wage, because that is just not so, at least in the triad region in NC. I removed my Ph.D. from my resume a year ago, after a year of unemployment. I recently removed my MA, but I'm still not getting results. I would remove my BA, but then there would be no way to explain my twenty years of university teaching. I did retail, waitressing and customer service, during high school and college, so I highlight those on my resume and minimize the teaching experience into just a small paragraph, and highlight skills I developed while teaching like recruiting, fundraising, conflict resolution, team building, editing, Microsoft Office Suite, etc. I still don't get many nibbles. When I do get an interview, if it slips out that I taught or have a graduate degree, the interview is over.
  • pamela J
    pamela J •
    Yes, I did not get the job.  The job would go to someone less qualified.
  • Rowann G
    Rowann G •
    Just exactly how do you remove your job titles? What would you put in their places? I have 30 years of experience in consumer magazine publishing. What would I say? That I've been in an entry level position for 30 years?  How well does that speak of me and my skills?
  • Thomas M
    Thomas M •
    This advise is utterly moronic.  "Overqualified" means too old and nothing else.  If necessary, dye your hair and lie about your age.
  • Temi S
    Temi S •
    I indeed attended quite a few of such 'overqualified' positions in Florida and two other States. At times, one or two of the interviewers would point my attention to this, and each time, I would ask 'what do you expect me to do?' In most cases, they just shrugged and said, 'we shall get back to you' this I know was the end of the interview. It was so frustrating to say the least. I currently hold like 3 or 4 Masters in different fields.
  • Brian N
    Brian N •
    Very good answers from all. To me you are qualified or you are not qualified. Skills too great for the job? Don't think so. Over qualified is HR speak for we don't want to hire you for some other reason. Age, race, looks, salary expectations, you name it. Very frustrating for me being "over qualified".  Thanks for letting me vent.
  • Janet T
    Janet T •
    I have applied for jobs that I'm over qualified for.   I'm still job hunting.  Employers are not responding to my applications.
  • ANN S
    ANN S •
    I am so glad i got to read this.Must confirm how true everything i read above is true...Many times i have applied for jobs which i am over qualified for, either because of my degrees or because of my past job..Usually i get a chance for an interview or more with each of the companies but in the end i get really hurt.Now i have been rotting away when i have got much to offer. I have been jobless for months and this you can imagine how bad huh? Now i know better.Thank you,thank you that's all i can say.
  • Janet E
    Janet E •
    I used to have a functional resume, until I read that recruiters hate them. They are suspicious of them and assume the format has been employed to hide something. Soooo, where does that leave us? With a bad taste in our mouths toward modern HR practices. It's bad enough having to fill out electronic resume tools that force you to select from inaccurate pull-down menus, where the whole time you sense that you will be screened out by a computer rather than a person. I'm not sure what consultant is responsible for convincing HR that computer-based candidate screening would yield the best results. And to make matters worse, if a real person does happen to see your resume, it will get screened based on the recruiter's personal opinion of the resume's style or format. Why not just evaluate the qualifications against the job requirements, versus putting them in piles based on how well you happen to like the document structure?
  • Krista R
    Krista R •
    I am a career changer and have this issue.  I have no experience in the field I have my Master's in so I am not qualified for any jobs that I apply for and I have a Master's for jobs I am qualified for BUT if I leave off the Master's degree on my resume, it looks like I haven't done anything for the last two years.  What then?

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