Can a Candidate Have Too Much Experience?
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Matt Lewers: Welcome to another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable. I’ll be your host, Matt Lewers, and today’s question, can a candidate be overqualified? Who wants to tackle it first?
Chuck Brotman: Cool. I’ll go first, Mr. Lewers.
Matt Lewers: Perfect.
Chuck Brotman: So I mean, it’s an interesting question. I, if the question is, can a hiring company feel someone’s overqualified without that being age bias? I suppose the answer is yes. Do I think the question is a productive one to ask? Not really. And what I typically suggest to my clients is to like take a step back and to ask themselves before they start a search if they run into someone that has more experience than the minimum, like what’s the concern that they have that might lead them to see somebody’s overqualified. And usually that falls into two or three buckets. It could be like a concern about flight risk. It could be a concern about fulfillment or maybe a concern about growth path. But I think once you break it down to what your concern is, then you find other ways to vet for that, right? So if you’re concerned that someone’s a flight risk, right?
Chuck Brotman: How do you assess for the authenticity of their commitment to your business? Like, where do they see other opportunities for growth? Yeah. why are they excited opportunity to be a part of your team? And if answers are credible there, that’s a way for you to assess for things that will help address that concern without this being about like, do they have too much experience for the role itself?
Chuck Brotman: The question itself just speaks to assumptions that I recommend you shift away from and find otherwise other ways to vet. but you have to start with understanding what is it you’re concerned about and then build assessing to avoid that in your process. Krissy, what are your thoughts? I don’t know if I’m maybe
Krissy Manzano: I agree, I mean, I think we just like to make blankets. We have to get away from also making blanket statements about things. Like, everyone who’s laid off as a low performer, or everyone who’s done X is going to be Y. Right? And, fortunately, or unfortunately, things are just not that black and white.
Krissy Manzano: There’s lots of, there’s just so much gray, something that, as I have grown, I’ve just seen that things are just much more complex. And I think in this case, I think probably the majority of people are wondering why someone would want to get a job below what they are qualified for.
Krissy Manzano: Right. And, and make very blanket thoughts of they must be desperate. They must not be performing well. So they’re starting here and, it’s not something that, again, you can just make an assumption like that. But my question is, how do if you’ve got a role that you have a lot of applicants, you’ve got a lot of interest in, right?
Krissy Manzano: How do you manage that appropriately? Because I think there’s also an element I understand where people don’t want to waste their time interviewing folks, that are just not going to be the right fit and like, truly not interested once you get all the way through or they wouldn’t stay. Right? So it’s like, how do you vet for that?
Krissy Manzano: And like, when is there a time where, like, you shouldn’t even talk to them. Right? Like, if a former CEO is applying for a BDR job, does that qualify for like, that’s not a good use of time. I’m not saying that happens. Right? But like, one could argue and I don’t need to talk to them.
Krissy Manzano: But I’m curious your thoughts on that. right.
Chuck Brotman: Or it could, but situation, that’s a great example where for your thoughts as well on this, but if you have like a former leader or executive interviewing for an IC sales role, to me, this is less about like, are they overqualified? But like, do they have the skills to manage and close business in the territory.
Chuck Brotman: If they haven’t done that work for 10 to 15 years, like that’s not an age bias issue, that’s an issue of like those skills may not be fresh. And so maybe there’s an assessment of like how they stayed current on that or what kind of comparable work they’ve done. But if they’ve been strictly in leadership or executive leadership, right, there’s a much easier way to make a decision if you can move on or not.
Chuck Brotman: Yeah. So again, I just think that the concept of overqualification is not, it’s not useful anymore. I don’t think it was ever useful, but particularly in this day and age, it’s best just to 86 that from your disposition statuses and really think more about, what are you assessing?
Chuck Brotman: What do you need to see in place? And then how are you validating that the candidates you’re interviewing have that? And your example is a good one. I just think that candidate it’s perfectly fine to say you haven’t been individual seller over 10 years. I’m not, your skills are not where they need to be for this role. If in fact you run that assessment of them, you may decide not even to move them forward at all based on that. Right. Which I also think is reasonable. Matt, what are your thoughts?
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I agree. I don’t, I mean, I’ve been on all sides of the seat. I’m getting to where age bias can be a thing in my own life, right? If I ever decided to change roles or jobs. I do think There’s definitely going to be flags based on certain scenarios, I think, in certain industries, in sales styles, where it may not be as much of a topic.
Matt Lewers: I think in today’s remote first slash hybrid world that we’re living in, it probably pops up more than something that may be like a truly field sales role, right? So a lot of it has to do with compensation, role, title, things of those nature. those data points can kind of play into whether or not somebody on paper looks overqualified.
Matt Lewers: I think it’s something that’s always going to be around. It’s never going to, it’s never going to go away. I think, for hiring managers out there or, TA partners, I do think something Chuck said really stands out is overqualified should never be a rejection reason or disposition reason. I think that just leaves you open to what was typically always going to be associated with age biasness.
Matt Lewers: and so that’s, kind of my part of the thought.
Chuck Brotman: But Matt, is that, I mean, it could, it sounds like we’re in a line and if it shouldn’t be a disposition status, can we take it a step further? It just should not be a reason to not move someone forward. Full stop.
Matt Lewers: I would say yes, but a lot, I think we’re probably towards the minority in that thinking.
Chuck Brotman: I can agree with you on that.
Krissy Manzano: For me, I think there’s an element where, like, if the last, 8 years of your experience has been a senior leader of any type, and you’re going for the most entry level role, and you have tons of applicants and tons of people reaching out to I could see what people would like.
Krissy Manzano: I’m probably not going to take the time to understand why they would want this.
Krissy Manzano: Right?
Chuck Brotman: By the way, I’ll give y’all a great example of the, I know we haven’t published this yet, but I just interviewed a former peer of mine who was, a managing director of sales for On24 after being, a director and a VP who then bootstrapped and sold his own companies and spent the last four or five years working as an independent contractor in sales and now just got hired as an for an IC role with Caltura.
Chuck Brotman: He is going to crush it for that company. Right. we don’t see that overqualified objection for enterprise AE hiring, but the point being like, we don’t see it there. Like we really shouldn’t see it anywhere. We’ve all known folks who, are actually fulfilled and energized by the practice of sales development.
Chuck Brotman: Like the same concepts apply there. It applies to me in any role. It’s just, it’s not productive, but a good topic.
Krissy Manzano: I mean, I think the whole manager to IC thing. I know we’ve talked about that. It’s just silly. People are like, but they’ve been in management. They must have been like, that’s just like tons of people go in and out of management for multiple reasons. And if you’ve ever been a manager or a good one, you understand why someone would want to break because it’s a lot of work.
Krissy Manzano: Even if you really enjoy and are really good at it. Sometimes it’s nice just to only have to worry about yourself or at companies, like, sometimes that can also, you can be the 1st one before the or, whatever that is. So I think everyone is trying to find, more stability these days.
Krissy Manzano: Right? So the reasons that they apply are a lot more vast than they were 10 years ago because there’s, more options, but people are also trying to look for places, Companies are trying to prevent job hoppers, but candidates are trying to make sure that companies aren’t layoff happy, right?
Krissy Manzano: Or like, how are they how? So everyone’s assessing on that end, but well,
Matt Lewers: I think that takes us pretty much to time. Great work. Great participation across the board. Thank you all. See you on the next episode.
Chuck Brotman: Ciao everyone.
Episode Summary
Finding the perfect candidate for a role is hard, but can they be too perfect? Is there a red flag for too much experience or someone in a senior role applying for a junior to mid-level role?
This is one of the few roundtable episodes where we don’t all agree but have some great tips and takeaways for candidates who fall into this category and hiring managers.
Make sure to listen in and leave a comment with any tips you might have. Happy hiring!
*DO NOT USE OR REMOVE*
Transcript
Chuck Brotman: Cool. I’ll go first, Mr. Lewers.
Matt Lewers: Perfect.
Chuck Brotman: So I mean, it’s an interesting question. I, if the question is, can a hiring company feel someone’s overqualified without that being age bias? I suppose the answer is yes. Do I think the question is a productive one to ask? Not really. And what I typically suggest to my clients is to like take a step back and to ask themselves before they start a search if they run into someone that has more experience than the minimum, like what’s the concern that they have that might lead them to see somebody’s overqualified. And usually that falls into two or three buckets. It could be like a concern about flight risk. It could be a concern about fulfillment or maybe a concern about growth path. But I think once you break it down to what your concern is, then you find other ways to vet for that, right? So if you’re concerned that someone’s a flight risk, right?
Chuck Brotman: How do you assess for the authenticity of their commitment to your business? Like, where do they see other opportunities for growth? Yeah. why are they excited opportunity to be a part of your team? And if answers are credible there, that’s a way for you to assess for things that will help address that concern without this being about like, do they have too much experience for the role itself?
Chuck Brotman: The question itself just speaks to assumptions that I recommend you shift away from and find otherwise other ways to vet. but you have to start with understanding what is it you’re concerned about and then build assessing to avoid that in your process. Krissy, what are your thoughts? I don’t know if I’m maybe
Krissy Manzano: I agree, I mean, I think we just like to make blankets. We have to get away from also making blanket statements about things. Like, everyone who’s laid off as a low performer, or everyone who’s done X is going to be Y. Right? And, fortunately, or unfortunately, things are just not that black and white.
Krissy Manzano: There’s lots of, there’s just so much gray, something that, as I have grown, I’ve just seen that things are just much more complex. And I think in this case, I think probably the majority of people are wondering why someone would want to get a job below what they are qualified for.
Krissy Manzano: Right. And, and make very blanket thoughts of they must be desperate. They must not be performing well. So they’re starting here and, it’s not something that, again, you can just make an assumption like that. But my question is, how do if you’ve got a role that you have a lot of applicants, you’ve got a lot of interest in, right?
Krissy Manzano: How do you manage that appropriately? Because I think there’s also an element I understand where people don’t want to waste their time interviewing folks, that are just not going to be the right fit and like, truly not interested once you get all the way through or they wouldn’t stay. Right? So it’s like, how do you vet for that?
Krissy Manzano: And like, when is there a time where, like, you shouldn’t even talk to them. Right? Like, if a former CEO is applying for a BDR job, does that qualify for like, that’s not a good use of time. I’m not saying that happens. Right? But like, one could argue and I don’t need to talk to them.
Krissy Manzano: But I’m curious your thoughts on that. right.
Chuck Brotman: Or it could, but situation, that’s a great example where for your thoughts as well on this, but if you have like a former leader or executive interviewing for an IC sales role, to me, this is less about like, are they overqualified? But like, do they have the skills to manage and close business in the territory.
Chuck Brotman: If they haven’t done that work for 10 to 15 years, like that’s not an age bias issue, that’s an issue of like those skills may not be fresh. And so maybe there’s an assessment of like how they stayed current on that or what kind of comparable work they’ve done. But if they’ve been strictly in leadership or executive leadership, right, there’s a much easier way to make a decision if you can move on or not.
Chuck Brotman: Yeah. So again, I just think that the concept of overqualification is not, it’s not useful anymore. I don’t think it was ever useful, but particularly in this day and age, it’s best just to 86 that from your disposition statuses and really think more about, what are you assessing?
Chuck Brotman: What do you need to see in place? And then how are you validating that the candidates you’re interviewing have that? And your example is a good one. I just think that candidate it’s perfectly fine to say you haven’t been individual seller over 10 years. I’m not, your skills are not where they need to be for this role. If in fact you run that assessment of them, you may decide not even to move them forward at all based on that. Right. Which I also think is reasonable. Matt, what are your thoughts?
Matt Lewers: Yeah, I agree. I don’t, I mean, I’ve been on all sides of the seat. I’m getting to where age bias can be a thing in my own life, right? If I ever decided to change roles or jobs. I do think There’s definitely going to be flags based on certain scenarios, I think, in certain industries, in sales styles, where it may not be as much of a topic.
Matt Lewers: I think in today’s remote first slash hybrid world that we’re living in, it probably pops up more than something that may be like a truly field sales role, right? So a lot of it has to do with compensation, role, title, things of those nature. those data points can kind of play into whether or not somebody on paper looks overqualified.
Matt Lewers: I think it’s something that’s always going to be around. It’s never going to, it’s never going to go away. I think, for hiring managers out there or, TA partners, I do think something Chuck said really stands out is overqualified should never be a rejection reason or disposition reason. I think that just leaves you open to what was typically always going to be associated with age biasness.
Matt Lewers: and so that’s, kind of my part of the thought.
Chuck Brotman: But Matt, is that, I mean, it could, it sounds like we’re in a line and if it shouldn’t be a disposition status, can we take it a step further? It just should not be a reason to not move someone forward. Full stop.
Matt Lewers: I would say yes, but a lot, I think we’re probably towards the minority in that thinking.
Chuck Brotman: I can agree with you on that.
Krissy Manzano: For me, I think there’s an element where, like, if the last, 8 years of your experience has been a senior leader of any type, and you’re going for the most entry level role, and you have tons of applicants and tons of people reaching out to I could see what people would like.
Krissy Manzano: I’m probably not going to take the time to understand why they would want this.
Krissy Manzano: Right?
Chuck Brotman: By the way, I’ll give y’all a great example of the, I know we haven’t published this yet, but I just interviewed a former peer of mine who was, a managing director of sales for On24 after being, a director and a VP who then bootstrapped and sold his own companies and spent the last four or five years working as an independent contractor in sales and now just got hired as an for an IC role with Caltura.
Chuck Brotman: He is going to crush it for that company. Right. we don’t see that overqualified objection for enterprise AE hiring, but the point being like, we don’t see it there. Like we really shouldn’t see it anywhere. We’ve all known folks who, are actually fulfilled and energized by the practice of sales development.
Chuck Brotman: Like the same concepts apply there. It applies to me in any role. It’s just, it’s not productive, but a good topic.
Krissy Manzano: I mean, I think the whole manager to IC thing. I know we’ve talked about that. It’s just silly. People are like, but they’ve been in management. They must have been like, that’s just like tons of people go in and out of management for multiple reasons. And if you’ve ever been a manager or a good one, you understand why someone would want to break because it’s a lot of work.
Krissy Manzano: Even if you really enjoy and are really good at it. Sometimes it’s nice just to only have to worry about yourself or at companies, like, sometimes that can also, you can be the 1st one before the or, whatever that is. So I think everyone is trying to find, more stability these days.
Krissy Manzano: Right? So the reasons that they apply are a lot more vast than they were 10 years ago because there’s, more options, but people are also trying to look for places, Companies are trying to prevent job hoppers, but candidates are trying to make sure that companies aren’t layoff happy, right?
Krissy Manzano: Or like, how are they how? So everyone’s assessing on that end, but well,
Matt Lewers: I think that takes us pretty much to time. Great work. Great participation across the board. Thank you all. See you on the next episode.
Chuck Brotman: Ciao everyone.
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How do you charge for your services?
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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!