Can A Candidate Be Overqualified For A Role?
Your Title Goes Here
Transcript
Krissy Manzano: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Blueprint Round Table. Today I will be your host and I’ve got Matt Lewers with me and Charles Brotman, who are our Blueprint Round Table guest. And what we’re gonna be discussing is the question of can someone be overqualified for a role that they apply for? So I’ll start with Matt.
Matt Lewers: Yeah, if you would’ve asked me three years ago, I would’ve said no. I don’t believe in it. But I have different thoughts now. I think the short answer for me would be yes, can be overqualified for a role, unfortunately enough. I think you’re overqualified for what they need for the role could be different, but I think the perception would be that you’re overqualified. And some of those examples are people that are coming from like C level or head of or VP roles and they’re applying for entry level IC roles. I see that all the time, especially in today’s world. So I think that’s an area where they would be considered over qualifying, especially if that was a meaningful, higher level senior role and now they’re trying to find something entry level.
Matt Lewers: And unfortunately, a lot of those people don’t get a chance to explain themselves on a phone call. Because they’re just gonna get DQ-ed by internal or external recruiters. And then I think there’s another cohort where people over qualify themselves. And these are people that have longer tenure in the workforce and they feel the need to explain all of their experience or they get long winded, and we’ve all said this, but they talk about everything instead of just focusing on what’s important for the role at hand. And if as a recruiter or hiring manager your eyes start to glaze over during an about me pitch, then you’re basically, whatever gets tagged in the ATS is a not candidate’s, not a fit.
Matt Lewers: Ultimately, that person’s probably thinking they’re overqualified and this is just not the right fit.
Chuck Brotman: Wait, Matt, I’ve got a question. Going into your the first example. Are you saying that this is what happens, like, and people are making these decisions not to look at senior candidates applying for IC roles because of that narrative? Or are you saying, I think we all know, or, I agree. It happens. Are you saying it’s warranted to happen?
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I do. After having conversations with a lot of these candidates in these situations? Yes, I do think that they are overqualified and they perhaps I just, it’s hard for me to buy in that somebody’s gonna be a strong role fit to, for example, somebody that has not carried an individual quota, has not done outbound prospecting for their own number, their individual number, and let’s call it, six years or more.
Matt Lewers: I have a hard time believing that they are going to a) want to, and two, be successful at doing that, especially for an entry level role nowadays. I just don’t see the skillset or their mindset transitioning well. And there may be some bias there in that, that, that would apply to me. I haven’t had an individual quota now in five years.
Matt Lewers: Right. But I would be hard pressed probably to get an entry level sales position because somebody would look at me and say, this person’s had a director or above title for five years, and they were sales lead for seven out of nine years in their sales experience. I don’t want this person. Right, and I think I’m overqualified for that type of role.
Chuck Brotman: Interesting. Well, yeah, so jumping in, I think the term has become so synonymous with problematic hiring, often rife with age bias and certainly Matt, I know that’s not something that characterizes any of your work, but I think it’s lost a lot of its value in utility. And actually kind of picking up where you left off there, cause I’ve known a lot of leaders who’ve successfully gone back into being individual contributors.
Chuck Brotman: And I would sort of distinguish between the valid point of assessing, you know, do these leaders have the skills and competencies required to execute in that IC role? I.e., are they capable of prospecting? Like, because if it, to your point, if it’s been, you know, five or 10 years, right? Maybe they need to be assessed for that.
Chuck Brotman: Maybe they need to be run through a role player exercise to see, you know, can they execute versus, you know, when you talk about entry level roles, which are not IC roles and most are not in sales entry level, I do think there is a legit question if someone is, you know, applying for like, you know, a, an inbound SDR role, like, you know, will they be fulfilled?
Chuck Brotman: And that is a legitimate question, but I think rather than assuming that they’re overqualified, you know, hiring managers need to have the conversation and encourage the recruiters to have the conversation. And so, you know, whenever we’re making assumptions about people’s motives it gets to be a slippery slope into things that we wanna avoid in hiring.
Chuck Brotman: So I think in general I understand why that the term has survived, but I think it’s lost a lot of its value and ultimately we’re better served in not making assumptions about people’s motives and not making assumptions about their sort of narrative inclinations. But I hear you as well.
Krissy Manzano: So let me ask you this question cuz I see like the perspectives on both sides. What, so let’s say you have, just throwing this out there, an SDR role that’s open, right? That’s a, it’s an entry level role and you have a lot of inbound applicants that match what you’re looking for. They don’t really have much experience, right.
Krissy Manzano: But they kind of fit the profile or job description on the head. And then you have someone who, let’s say it was Matt, right? Matt is, has applied for this role. Now we know Matt, right? But the people looking at this don’t. When you have all these applicants that kind of meet what you want and then you have someone that has gone so far beyond that role in the sense of where their skills and behaviors have developed, what would you tell a hiring manager to do in that case?
Krissy Manzano: When you have someone that clearly has those skills? But the question is probably, Are they gonna be fulfilled or say, do you actually spend time having that conversation when you’ve got all of these other ones that you need to go through?
Chuck Brotman: I mean, you have the conversa. First of all, how often do we actually see someone of Matt’s caliber apply for that kind of role? Not very often. I actually would argue that.
Chuck Brotman: You know, do how we do often see candidates that have maybe, you know, 20 years of sales experience in different industries and their questions. And that’s where I think overqualified just becomes a convenient way, like not to really assess for other skills because that get, that’s where I think age bias tends to lurk.
Chuck Brotman: This person’s like an. An old timer. Right? But if I say overqualified now, Matt, how often do we see that? Rarely. So if that happens, I’m kind of curious. Maybe he’s got a passion for what we’re doing in the market. I’ll tell my screen or recruiting partner. Yeah. Have the 30 minute conversation and ask what Pete, his interest in this opportunity, given his career.
Chuck Brotman: If he has a good answer for it, I’ll move him forward. If not, it’s not the best alignment.
Krissy Manzano: Totally. Matt,
Matt Lewers: No, I mean, I, yeah, I think I would want to have a conversation with the candidate to, to see what their motivations are. Perhaps there’s a better fit for them elsewhere that they maybe just are unaware of. That being said, I would still probably prioritize candidates that fit the neat little box on the requirements.
Matt Lewers: More like directly, if that’s a good answer. Cuz a lot of times if that’s what the hiring manager’s looking for as a third party recruiter, that’s what I’m gonna put forward because that’s gonna accelerate everybody’s timelines as opposed to you only get, I know we’ve all thought about this, you only get so many like strikes.
Matt Lewers: Right? And if maybe that candidate that Chuck’s talking about me in this scenario, maybe I bs really well and I get past Chuck and then the hiring manager absolutely rips me apart or doesn’t like any of my responses, then it’s a strike and it’s, Hey, Chuck or Matt went off target here and tried to put some candidate in front of me that doesn’t really kind of fit the niche of what I’m looking for.
Matt Lewers: So let’s not do that again. Right? Like that you start to have those conversations if you start to stray too far, especially in today’s economy, from what hiring managers are looking for. So,
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Look, I think anytime that we try to like make things black and white, it doesn’t serve us well as like a human race, right? Like my biggest takeaway at this point in my life as I’ve grown up is like things are so much more gray than I’ve, in all aspects than I’ve ever realized. Right.
Krissy Manzano: And there are, you know, we did a round table a while ago, which, you know, is it a red flag of people go from manager to IC? Right. And there’s a lot of folks that, like some of your best ICs are managers cuz they’re like, they know how to be organized and everything. But and they have a lot of skills.
Krissy Manzano: They’re gonna be a lot easier to manage cuz they understand the challenges of being a manager. Right. And I think. You know, but then in the case of like if you have a VP of sales applying to an SDR role, it is separate from their title, right? If I see like a bunch of short stents all over the place, that is more of, you know, a red flag of this person is constantly moving, will they stay here?
Krissy Manzano: Which is totally separate from their role, right? Of just like, are they gonna stay? And so I think we have to be like less dismissive probably and more thoughtful. But it kind of falls on both sides of what you all have said, but in different scenarios to that extent. Right? Like, I think age bias is a really real thing.
Krissy Manzano: And this thought of like, they won’t stay here or, but most importantly is if you think that they can’t do the job because they’ve been out of it for too long you know, it’s kind of making sure you’re not making assumptions. You know, too far and without, you know, clarifying, but not a overly easy thing to tackle, depending on how many applicants you get.
Krissy Manzano: But all great points. So, well, that is all the time we have for today, but until next time, we’ll see you later. Thanks.
Show Summary
In this episode, Krissy Manzano takes the lead as our host, joined by Matt Lewers and Chuck Brotman. Together, they tackle the intriguing question: Can someone be overqualified for a job they apply for?
The conversation revolves around the perception of over-qualification and its impact on hiring. Matt shares his changed perspective, while Chuck brings up the issue of age bias.
Join us for an insightful discussion as we delve into the complexities of job qualifications.
Your Title Goes Here
Transcript
Matt Lewers: Yeah, if you would’ve asked me three years ago, I would’ve said no. I don’t believe in it. But I have different thoughts now. I think the short answer for me would be yes, can be overqualified for a role, unfortunately enough. I think you’re overqualified for what they need for the role could be different, but I think the perception would be that you’re overqualified. And some of those examples are people that are coming from like C level or head of or VP roles and they’re applying for entry level IC roles. I see that all the time, especially in today’s world. So I think that’s an area where they would be considered over qualifying, especially if that was a meaningful, higher level senior role and now they’re trying to find something entry level.
Matt Lewers: And unfortunately, a lot of those people don’t get a chance to explain themselves on a phone call. Because they’re just gonna get DQ-ed by internal or external recruiters. And then I think there’s another cohort where people over qualify themselves. And these are people that have longer tenure in the workforce and they feel the need to explain all of their experience or they get long winded, and we’ve all said this, but they talk about everything instead of just focusing on what’s important for the role at hand. And if as a recruiter or hiring manager your eyes start to glaze over during an about me pitch, then you’re basically, whatever gets tagged in the ATS is a not candidate’s, not a fit.
Matt Lewers: Ultimately, that person’s probably thinking they’re overqualified and this is just not the right fit.
Chuck Brotman: Wait, Matt, I’ve got a question. Going into your the first example. Are you saying that this is what happens, like, and people are making these decisions not to look at senior candidates applying for IC roles because of that narrative? Or are you saying, I think we all know, or, I agree. It happens. Are you saying it’s warranted to happen?
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I do. After having conversations with a lot of these candidates in these situations? Yes, I do think that they are overqualified and they perhaps I just, it’s hard for me to buy in that somebody’s gonna be a strong role fit to, for example, somebody that has not carried an individual quota, has not done outbound prospecting for their own number, their individual number, and let’s call it, six years or more.
Matt Lewers: I have a hard time believing that they are going to a) want to, and two, be successful at doing that, especially for an entry level role nowadays. I just don’t see the skillset or their mindset transitioning well. And there may be some bias there in that, that, that would apply to me. I haven’t had an individual quota now in five years.
Matt Lewers: Right. But I would be hard pressed probably to get an entry level sales position because somebody would look at me and say, this person’s had a director or above title for five years, and they were sales lead for seven out of nine years in their sales experience. I don’t want this person. Right, and I think I’m overqualified for that type of role.
Chuck Brotman: Interesting. Well, yeah, so jumping in, I think the term has become so synonymous with problematic hiring, often rife with age bias and certainly Matt, I know that’s not something that characterizes any of your work, but I think it’s lost a lot of its value in utility. And actually kind of picking up where you left off there, cause I’ve known a lot of leaders who’ve successfully gone back into being individual contributors.
Chuck Brotman: And I would sort of distinguish between the valid point of assessing, you know, do these leaders have the skills and competencies required to execute in that IC role? I.e., are they capable of prospecting? Like, because if it, to your point, if it’s been, you know, five or 10 years, right? Maybe they need to be assessed for that.
Chuck Brotman: Maybe they need to be run through a role player exercise to see, you know, can they execute versus, you know, when you talk about entry level roles, which are not IC roles and most are not in sales entry level, I do think there is a legit question if someone is, you know, applying for like, you know, a, an inbound SDR role, like, you know, will they be fulfilled?
Chuck Brotman: And that is a legitimate question, but I think rather than assuming that they’re overqualified, you know, hiring managers need to have the conversation and encourage the recruiters to have the conversation. And so, you know, whenever we’re making assumptions about people’s motives it gets to be a slippery slope into things that we wanna avoid in hiring.
Chuck Brotman: So I think in general I understand why that the term has survived, but I think it’s lost a lot of its value and ultimately we’re better served in not making assumptions about people’s motives and not making assumptions about their sort of narrative inclinations. But I hear you as well.
Krissy Manzano: So let me ask you this question cuz I see like the perspectives on both sides. What, so let’s say you have, just throwing this out there, an SDR role that’s open, right? That’s a, it’s an entry level role and you have a lot of inbound applicants that match what you’re looking for. They don’t really have much experience, right.
Krissy Manzano: But they kind of fit the profile or job description on the head. And then you have someone who, let’s say it was Matt, right? Matt is, has applied for this role. Now we know Matt, right? But the people looking at this don’t. When you have all these applicants that kind of meet what you want and then you have someone that has gone so far beyond that role in the sense of where their skills and behaviors have developed, what would you tell a hiring manager to do in that case?
Krissy Manzano: When you have someone that clearly has those skills? But the question is probably, Are they gonna be fulfilled or say, do you actually spend time having that conversation when you’ve got all of these other ones that you need to go through?
Chuck Brotman: I mean, you have the conversa. First of all, how often do we actually see someone of Matt’s caliber apply for that kind of role? Not very often. I actually would argue that.
Chuck Brotman: You know, do how we do often see candidates that have maybe, you know, 20 years of sales experience in different industries and their questions. And that’s where I think overqualified just becomes a convenient way, like not to really assess for other skills because that get, that’s where I think age bias tends to lurk.
Chuck Brotman: This person’s like an. An old timer. Right? But if I say overqualified now, Matt, how often do we see that? Rarely. So if that happens, I’m kind of curious. Maybe he’s got a passion for what we’re doing in the market. I’ll tell my screen or recruiting partner. Yeah. Have the 30 minute conversation and ask what Pete, his interest in this opportunity, given his career.
Chuck Brotman: If he has a good answer for it, I’ll move him forward. If not, it’s not the best alignment.
Krissy Manzano: Totally. Matt,
Matt Lewers: No, I mean, I, yeah, I think I would want to have a conversation with the candidate to, to see what their motivations are. Perhaps there’s a better fit for them elsewhere that they maybe just are unaware of. That being said, I would still probably prioritize candidates that fit the neat little box on the requirements.
Matt Lewers: More like directly, if that’s a good answer. Cuz a lot of times if that’s what the hiring manager’s looking for as a third party recruiter, that’s what I’m gonna put forward because that’s gonna accelerate everybody’s timelines as opposed to you only get, I know we’ve all thought about this, you only get so many like strikes.
Matt Lewers: Right? And if maybe that candidate that Chuck’s talking about me in this scenario, maybe I bs really well and I get past Chuck and then the hiring manager absolutely rips me apart or doesn’t like any of my responses, then it’s a strike and it’s, Hey, Chuck or Matt went off target here and tried to put some candidate in front of me that doesn’t really kind of fit the niche of what I’m looking for.
Matt Lewers: So let’s not do that again. Right? Like that you start to have those conversations if you start to stray too far, especially in today’s economy, from what hiring managers are looking for. So,
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Look, I think anytime that we try to like make things black and white, it doesn’t serve us well as like a human race, right? Like my biggest takeaway at this point in my life as I’ve grown up is like things are so much more gray than I’ve, in all aspects than I’ve ever realized. Right.
Krissy Manzano: And there are, you know, we did a round table a while ago, which, you know, is it a red flag of people go from manager to IC? Right. And there’s a lot of folks that, like some of your best ICs are managers cuz they’re like, they know how to be organized and everything. But and they have a lot of skills.
Krissy Manzano: They’re gonna be a lot easier to manage cuz they understand the challenges of being a manager. Right. And I think. You know, but then in the case of like if you have a VP of sales applying to an SDR role, it is separate from their title, right? If I see like a bunch of short stents all over the place, that is more of, you know, a red flag of this person is constantly moving, will they stay here?
Krissy Manzano: Which is totally separate from their role, right? Of just like, are they gonna stay? And so I think we have to be like less dismissive probably and more thoughtful. But it kind of falls on both sides of what you all have said, but in different scenarios to that extent. Right? Like, I think age bias is a really real thing.
Krissy Manzano: And this thought of like, they won’t stay here or, but most importantly is if you think that they can’t do the job because they’ve been out of it for too long you know, it’s kind of making sure you’re not making assumptions. You know, too far and without, you know, clarifying, but not a overly easy thing to tackle, depending on how many applicants you get.
Krissy Manzano: But all great points. So, well, that is all the time we have for today, but until next time, we’ll see you later. Thanks.
More Resources
Podcasts
Blogs
Frequently Asked Questions
Hiring Companies
How do you charge for your services?
We offer multiple services, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our GTM recruiting services page for more details.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!
Job Seekers
I don’t see any roles for me. What Should I do?
Blueprint runs a monthly Transferable Skills Workshop to help early talent and career switchers find opportunity in the market and prepare to interview. It’s currently offered at no cost. Interested? Please reach out to us.
How do I negotiate fair compensation ?
The Blueprint team always shares compensation range information with candidates before initial screening calls. Beyond this, we encourage you to consult with review sites and other data sources to educate on the market for the roles you’ve held. Want to discuss? Reach out to us.
Is it still important to send 'Thank You' notes?
Interviewing should always be treated as a two-way street, and a candidate should never feel obligated to show gratitude and follow up first.
That said, if you believe a given opportunity aligns to your role and company interests, we recommend sending interviewers a follow-up email after every step in the process. This gives you a chance to recap your learnings & enthusiasms briefly and authentically. It also helps you stay top of mind with interviewing companies.
Check out the roundtable discussion our leadership team recently held on the topic of post-interview thank-you notes.
What are some additional basic tips for candidates?
Make sure you prep before every interview, particularly by reviewing the company website, recent new articles, and the LinkedIn profiles of relevant interviewers and company leaders.
Consider business casual attire - ask your recruiter for any additional guidance. Try to make sure that you are able to sit front and center facing your camera - test it with friends prior to running an interview. If you need to take a call by phone, it’s best to let your recruiter or the hiring manager know in advance, and offer them an option to reschedule if they prefer.
Lastly, prepare some questions in advance based on your research, but do everything you can to stay in the conversation. The more you can listen and be in the moment, the better you’ll execute and be able to vet the opportunity for yourself.
Have more questions? Contact us!
Why did you launch Blueprint?
Despite so much innovation in HR tech and recruiting, hiring remains broken. As former operators with decades of experience hiring GTM talent, we wanted to start our own business dedicated to helping B2B tech companies across a range of industries do a better job at attracting and sourcing tremendous (and diverse) talent.
How do you charge for your services?
We have multiple services packages, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our sales recruitment services page for a breakdown of our packages.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!