Hiring Someone Overqualified

[Barkeep49]

I am currently hiring for a position and have received several resumes for people who'd be qualified to do my job, or some other administrative position. I want the best person and these people are clearly qualified.

Except, I'd also like a person who will stick around for more than 1 school year. The next school year will be about planning some large projects which will then be implemented the school year after.

The other fear is that we're very early in the hiring season for schools. So fear 2 is that we would offer to a great candidate, they'd accept, and then find a different position leaving us in the lurch.

Any thoughts about this? Does anyone have any great questions/methods to help determine if a person is really going to be happy with the job as it is (and a job for which there isn't likely advancement opportunities)?

[Logan]

Sounds like a problem for Future Barkeep49.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Logan

Sounds like a problem for Future Barkeep49.

Have we helped yet?

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I am currently hiring for a position and have received several resumes for people who'd be qualified to do my job, or some other administrative position. I want the best person and these people are clearly qualified.

Except, I'd also like a person who will stick around for more than 1 school year. The next school year will be about planning some large projects which will then be implemented the school year after.

The other fear is that we're very early in the hiring season for schools. So fear 2 is that we would offer to a great candidate, they'd accept, and then find a different position leaving us in the lurch.

Any thoughts about this? Does anyone have any great questions/methods to help determine if a person is really going to be happy with the job as it is (and a job for which there isn't likely advancement opportunities)?

I would ask them the question straight up - you seem overqualified for the position, why did you apply? Then you can probe on whether its something like family situation (reasonable) or need a job (less desirable). Otherwise, I would hire the best person you can since it'll make your life so much easier than someone incompetent. Even if they leave after a year.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

I would ask them the question straight up - you seem overqualified for the position, why did you apply? Then you can probe on whether its something like family situation (reasonable) or need a job (less desirable). Otherwise, I would hire the best person you can since it'll make your life so much easier than someone incompetent. Even if they leave after a year.

+1

Could be this position has a more to do with the parts of their current or past position they truly enjoyed, and are willing to forgo making a change for more $ for being able to do what they enjoy.

[BrianD]

How rigidly defined is this job? If the person is overqualified and the job is very rigidly defined, you may have trouble keeping the person. If you have enough flexibility in the job to expand the responsibilities and make use of all of the skills of this overqualified person, you can end up with someone better than you wanted who is performing better than you hoped...and adapting the position to fit the candidate should provide longer job satisfaction.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by BrianD

How rigidly defined is this job? If the person is overqualified and the job is very rigidly defined, you may have trouble keeping the person. If you have enough flexibility in the job to expand the responsibilities and make use of all of the skills of this overqualified person, you can end up with someone better than you wanted who is performing better than you hoped...and adapting the position to fit the candidate should provide longer job satisfaction.

This is exactly what I'd say. If its a job that can be interesting and varied and rewarding, but they are just overqualified it might be a success although you are always going to have to worry about the $$$ I would have thought (unless you pay really well)

Otherwise there is probably zero chance they stick around for more than 6 months. I've been in this situation a few years back where we hired qualified IT people for what were essentially log checking, process babysitting and data entry positions and it didn't end well. I would also agree with the advice to ask tem straight up why they want this kind of job. If the answer is just "I can't find anything better" that's not a good sign

[Matthean]

I would ask the person their time frame for how long they want to stay and look at what possibilities there are for promotions. No ability to move upward will make an overqualified person not want to stick around.

[Toddzilla]

Make part of their compensation a bonus contingent on them staying for a full year. Pay them the bonus up front and if they quit before then, they have to pay it back. Happens all the time.

[CU Tiger]

Not sure how relevent this is, but thought Id throw my experiences out there.

I had a similar dilemna a couple years back, ended up hiring a guy for a job that he was way overqualified for and was surpirsed when his results were sub par. To the point that I ended up having to let him go. Thing is, I knew his previous employer and he was greta at a higher level position. I chalked it up to motivation or such and moved on. Discussing this some time later with a friend who is a brain doc that studies behavioral scince for the Dept of Defense he said it was totally predictable to him. He shared some finding that I will probably butcher but essentially if you give a high schoo drop out 10 easy math problems and a Calculus PHD then same 10 easy problems over an extended sample size the "smarter" guy will outperform his counter part albeit mrginally due to the extremely easy nature of the questions. Now give these same two, 500 of the same level questions, and the "dumber" of the two significantly outperforms his more educated adversary.

Essentially the conclusion was that if you are not challenged, you tend to only partially engage and your precision actually decreases. Not sure if it is even relevent to your situation but I found that a tad fascinating.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

Not sure how relevent this is, but thought Id throw my experiences out there.

I had a similar dilemna a couple years back, ended up hiring a guy for a job that he was way overqualified for and was surpirsed when his results were sub par. To the point that I ended up having to let him go. Thing is, I knew his previous employer and he was greta at a higher level position. I chalked it up to motivation or such and moved on. Discussing this some time later with a friend who is a brain doc that studies behavioral scince for the Dept of Defense he said it was totally predictable to him. He shared some finding that I will probably butcher but essentially if you give a high schoo drop out 10 easy math problems and a Calculus PHD then same 10 easy problems over an extended sample size the "smarter" guy will outperform his counter part albeit mrginally due to the extremely easy nature of the questions. Now give these same two, 500 of the same level questions, and the "dumber" of the two significantly outperforms his more educated adversary.

Essentially the conclusion was that if you are not challenged, you tend to only partially engage and your precision actually decreases. Not sure if it is even relevent to your situation but I found that a tad fascinating.

CU, that makes sense. I've noticed it with people I've worked with and with myself at times. After awhile, if a job is too easy or not very busy, I tend to tune out and not do very well. However, those jobs where I'm challenged consistently, I do very well with because there's always another challenge to overcome.

[sterlingice]

That seems to be the cliche but it just doesn't have to be true for everyone. As someone said above, if the job is very rigid, then you're in that situation. But if it's a job that someone can grow their scope, then you'd be foolish not to hire the best candidate not just the one who "fits best".

It's not true in my anecdotal case. We have had one person who transferred into the team I supervise who is quite overqualified. However, I've put him in a place to be my backup and he's always willing to take on extra projects to help the team succeed. On top of that, he's 10 years older than most everyone else on the team and sets a great example of leadership and maturity. One of my larger failings of management this past year was not getting him engaged sooner to take on more projects and more responsibility. Frankly, if you have some flexibility in the environment and you aren't taking advantage of your better assets- that's a failing of management, not of the individual.

If something else came along that was a great fit, he'd leave. But isn't that true of any talented person you would want to hire. It's like the mid-major coach dilemma. Many of the programs who succeed go through hot young prospect after hot young prospect- every 4 or 5 years graduating a coach to better programs. What you lose in continuity, you make up for in talent and the challenge is to continually hire someone of the same caliber. But you know a program is going to fall when the alumni start clamoring for a "lifer" or a "program coach" and you end up with mediocrity or worse for a decade because you artificially lower your talent pool.

I'd definitely rather not have another lesser candidate- one less intelligent or mature- just because there's less of a challenge gap. As long as the better person has the right attitude, that's what really matters. In this economy, there isn't nearly that much movement to worry about- we expected about 25% annual turnover on this project and 1.5 years in, we've had less than 5%. You'll get work above and beyond the quality of, frankly, crappier candidates you'd want to put in there because, at the end of the day, they're better people and better workers. Better workers give you better work, period.

SI

[SportsDino]

Depends on the unpleasantness of the position you are trying to fill. If there is not enough pay/benefits/prospects you can hire overqualified or qualified candidates and they will ditch when something better comes along. The only ones who will stick with an unpleasant job are generally not going to be your superstar performers anyway (if you don't need superstar performance, than don't fret it).

If this position is so critical that someone leaving early will screw up your project, build up the incentives instead of trying to social engineer someone into a hole they do not fit. Otherwise, hire the qualifications that best match your needs and with the candidate who has the best feel as being interested and run with it (if your pool on average is overqualified weight your balance towards attitude slightly more to thin it out).

[chadritt]

To me the biggest thing is to be honest with them. My current job is lower level than some of my previous ones and we have an agreement in place about how I could go about leaving if a better situation comes about. Im freelance so things are obviously very different but if you are concerned then just tell them "we would need you to stick around at least X amount of months/years". It doesnt guarantee anything but at least they know what theyre getting in to.