Hiring managers who sense a candidate is overqualified for an open position often struggle in deciding whether to interview that candidate. After all, they have legitimate concerns: 

• Why is this person applying for a role that’s beneath their current or past roles? 

• Will they stay long-term or leave when something better comes along? 

• Will they remain engaged and interested in the work or quickly become bored? 

• Will they expect to receive a rapid promotion? 

While these concerns are important to explore, there are more important reasons to interview that overqualified candidate. 

My message is this: Don’t let ‘overqualified’ be the reason for disqualifying a candidate outright. A lot of professionals in today’s workforce have valid reasons for seeking jobs below their experience levels or titles. For example, many are seeking a better work-life balance. Others want to focus on the work instead of managing other people, and for many, the goal is to prioritize job fit over job title. 

You might conduct job interviews with five overqualified candidates and hire just one – but that one golden hire will make your time investment worth it! 

A compelling story that shows how it works 

As a talent recruiting specialist of more than 25 years, I encourage you to interview seemingly overqualified candidates because the reasons are too important and the benefits too great to ignore. 

A great example is one of my personal recruitment stories. I hired a former talent acquisition manager for the role of talent recruiter – a clear step down on their career ladder. During the interview process, I raised the hard questions noted above and was more than satisfied with the candidate’s responses. I saw desire, alignment, and experience, and I believed in what this professional could do for our team. 

As I imagined, the new hire added depth to our young recruiting team. They immediately began handling more complex hiring needs. They effectively mentored other team members and provided training on best practices and how to use modern recruitment tools. This professional ended up being selected by my own leadership for special hiring needs. But that wasn’t all! 

My days as the team’s manager were transformed. I was freed up to do the things that mattered most, like removing barriers to performance instead of teaching people how to do their jobs. There was less drama because of the new recruiter’s experience in handing tough situations without my oversight or coaching. Everything was easier.  

All of this added credibility to my leadership skills as my managers saw a change in how our team operated and how we became more consultative in our work.  

Solid reasons to interview and hire overqualified candidates   

1. Proven Skills: The experience that a demonstrated candidate brings to a team is immediately evident, quickly closing the gap on skill sets the team lacks – and passing those skills along to others. Seasoned professionals ramp up quickly, mentor colleagues, improve processes, and elevate the performance of the entire team. Their cumulative value extends well beyond their individual contributions.  
2. Adaptability: Change is always in the air at today’s organizations, creating challenges for teams to embrace new ways of thinking and operating. More experienced professionals are pre-conditioned to change, able to pivot with business needs without spinning in the job to maintain or regain momentum.  
3. Bench Strength: Often, hiring managers don’t have time to spend ramping up new hires to do their jobs. New, experienced team members hit the ground running, produce more quickly, set strong examples, and train others to become more efficient, productive, and upwardly mobile.  
4. Different Perspectives: There’s always a better way to do things, but less tenured team members don’t have a lot of experience in solving new challenges. More experienced professionals are likely to have encountered similar issues in the past and can readily offer solutions to new problems. 
5. A Stronger, More Stable Team: Young teams take time to mature into cohesive teams that come together in achieving shared goals. Overqualified candidates are natural leaders who often serve as the glue in uniting teams around common goals. The result is that they more quickly bring a hiring manager’s initiatives to fruition. 
6. The Key Goal: If you can hire an overqualified candidate who can proficiently perform the job starting on day one, isn’t that the hiring goal for the team and organization?  
7. Succession Planning: Hiring managers should be adding strong, capable talent to replace themselves so they can be promoted. There’s a lot of truth to the adage that “great leaders create more leaders.” 

Look beyond the resume and ask the right interview questions 

A job candidate’s experience may very well exceed your job requirements on paper, but that doesn’t mean the role isn’t the right fit for where they are in their life and on their career path. ‘Overqualified’ is not a hiring risk, provided you and the candidate have a candid conversation and expectations are thoroughly explored. 

The real question is whether that overqualified candidate is genuinely interested, aligned with your company culture and role, and likely to contribute. The only way to determine this is to keep an open mind long enough to sit down with the candidate during the hiring process and ask the right questions.  

Find top talent for your company’s next key role 

Throughout my years in talent acquisition, I’ve seen dramatic results by investing time with hiring managers, clients, and job candidates, and creating talent matches with deep impact for companies and talented professionals. I can’t count the number of times when the overqualified candidate has ended up being the most qualified candidate! 

Connect with me today for access to a nationwide network of active and passive job candidates who may be ideal fits for your team. My name is Mike Klyop and I am a Recruiting Partner with Goodwin Recruiting, which is recognized year after year as a Forbes Best Recruitment company.