Too Much Talent For The Job, Seriously?

0:00Well, hello, and welcome to our podcast, Success, Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, John Wondoloski, and I'm here with my co-host in front, Greg Powell. Greg? Hey everybody. And when we put together this podcast, we wanted to put out a helping hand and help that next generation and help answer the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Today we want to talk about a subject that I think supports that concept. Today we're going to be tackling a job search phenomenon that can feel like a psychological experiment gone wrong. You spend years, maybe decades, building your resume. You take on extra projects, you earn new certificates, you climb the corporate ladder.

1:04You do exactly what society tells you you need to do to create career security. And then the market shifts. Maybe your industry is downsizing or your company's restructuring or you simply want to step back from a high stress demands of management and focus on work that you actually love. And you find a role that fits your skillset perfectly. You apply to this new job, confident you'll hit the ground running on day one. And you get the email or worse you hear it during the interview. We love your background, but we're worried that you're overqualified. Unless you have actually said in a room and heard it happen again and again, you may not realize how frustrating it is to be told that you're overqualified for work that matches your skills, your education, and your experience. The years, the effort and the money that you invested to avoid this exact position is hard to reconcile, especially when you spent so much of your career as a leader.

2:10You know, John, I remember when you were unemployed, we're short-pretty time during your career. I remember how that word overqualified was just driving you crazy. It's probably worth saying that that conversations you and I had with me coming from my HR background gave you some balance, hopefully. Yep, it did. We talked through whether it was simply a matter of patience, whether the marketplace had changed, or whatever you needed to get just played more creative. And I remember clearly this happened right around 9-11. You had opportunities on a table that disappeared within minutes of the event. Even though you had a transition plan and organizations were interested in you, the environment changed almost overnight. And those opportunities they brought us. So true. And you were so much help during that time. And you bring up a great point. You were part of my support team. I had reached out to different people from my background to help me manage through that process. But the bottom line is it's something that you have to do as an individual and step back

3:15and take a breath and remind yourself that you're not going crazy and that you're not alone. Today, we're going to pull back the curtain on some terms overqualified, which can bring you to a human resources trap. Sorry, crank. And bring in the HR perspective. But we're looking at the hidden psychology of hiring managers and the real risks they're trying to avoid. And most importantly, how you can reframe your narrative so your deep experience becomes an irresistible asset instead of a perceived liability. So from an HR perspective, the first risk associated with hiring someone who's seen as overqualified is flight risk. And this is a big one. Because hiring is expensive, it is time consuming and flat out exhausted. The manager may be thinking the second a better higher paying job comes along that matches

4:19this applicant's actual management level, they're going to leave us in the lurch. I heard people say if we hire him, it is likely bringing on a standby passenger, not a long term team member. The next concern is border, or what I would like to call engagement deficit. And to be honest, it can be a real concern. Say you have worked for 20 years to become an executive vice president and now you're looking at stepping back into a lower level, non-C suite management role. Are you able to contribute fully or will it be difficult to move into a more detailed position that does not use your leadership skills to their full potential? The last one I would like to talk about is the management ego issue because it is the unspoken elephant in the room. H discrimination is difficult to address in most normal circumstances and hiring as even more complications. The hiring manager may be 30 years old with five years of experience while you're sitting

5:20in the room, 20 years of experience at age 45. Just trying to get a foothold in the organization. At some level, that hiring manager may feel intimidating. You can almost hear it in some of the questions. Hey, are you going to respect my authority? Are you going to try to backseat drive my department because you think you know more than I do? That is when you realize the overqualified term may be code for, we are afraid you will leave, get bored, cost too much or challenge management. I recall several times over my career during a candidate review, I see no leader said about a more seasoned candidate. How much runway does this person have left? Should we be hiring someone that looks like a short time? Man, yeah, clearly that's the biggest challenge that you have as someone who has a lot of experience and is overqualified. So what are you doing in that situation?

6:21Fixing starts long before you actually interview. It starts with your resume. And when you're highly experienced, your resume shouldn't be a historical record of everything you've ever achieved. It should be a precise marketing document tailored strictly to the job that you're applying for. And if you're applying for a mid-management role with a C-suite kind of resume, you are sabotaging your own search. Here are some strategic editing your resume to remove that overqualified target that's sitting on your back. This would be the 10 to 15 year rule. Unless you're applying for an executive position, no one needs to know what you did in 2004. Cut the earliest parts of your career and collapse them into a small, undated section at the bottom of your resume saying additional professional experience. This helps reduce that age bias and keeps your timeline from looking overwhelmingly heavy.

7:26Second is the Downed Title Safety Rule. If your actual title while you were working was Regional Vice President of Sales, but you're now applying for an account manager's role, that VP title may scare some people away. You should never lie on your resume, but you can clarify. For instance, you can write Regional Sales Leader Senior Account Manager that frames the title around the functional realities of the role that you are targeting. Number three, strip out the high level matrix that do not apply to the position that you're interviewing for. And I can't stress this one more than any of the others. If your job description asks for someone to manage client accounts, don't lead with the fact that you manage a $50 million corporate budget or spearheaded global reconstruction. It's not relevant.

8:29You can single, I'm too big for this role just with those kind of facts. Focus instead on the execution matrix. Client retention rates. Project delivery times. Hand on problem solving. And then there is a summary saving. Oh my gosh. My least favorite part of a resume. Please ditch the version that says, season to executive for 20 plus years of experience, leading cross functional teams. Change it to something little less jarring, something like dedicated specialists, focus on executive high quality client deliverables and bringing deep execution experience to a corporate team environment. What you're trying to do is tell them right away that your focus is on doing the job, doing that work. You also want to use some other words or phrases from the job description in that summary statement because they are looking for evidence that you are genuinely interested in doing the job you say you want. And yes, I understand that sometimes you have to write a resume that is unique to the

9:31job that you're interviewing for. That's kind of the point. So let's talk about the other side of looking for a new job, mastering the interview or is I have heard it called the art of the preemptive strike. Let's say you edited your resume and you've landed the opportunity to interview for the job. Now you know what the elephant in the room is going to be. You know that they're looking at you wondering why are you here? The worst thing you can do is wait for them to bring up the overqualification issue at the end of the interview. You need to address their fears voluntarily. Name your experience as a conscious positive choice. Not as a emotion, not as desperation, but as something they can use and they can build on. So take the bull by the horn. Anticipate the question. Explain to them why this role makes sense to you. What I mean is that you can answer their question and show interest without their hesitation.

10:37You can talk about how the role connects to you and the work that you've enjoyed. Whether it is writing code or working with customers or solving operational problems, there is a specific kind of work that you want to keep doing. The point is to communicate that passion for the actual job, not just the interest in the salary or the title. For me, the work in construction and maintenance was something that I was involved in and I really enjoyed. I thought it was contributing to the organization. I could support the co-workers and I could remain as an effective team member to help the organization move forward. The other concern that needs to be diffused quickly is that flight risk fear that may come up during the interview process. Show them that you are looking for stability and that this role is not a stepping stone. To address that fear, say something like, at this stage of my career, I'm looking for a role I can contribute, avoid a long learning curve and stay long-term.

11:41Success for me is not about chasing another title. It's about doing great work with the great team. You should address the elephant in the room, whether the hiring manager is going to be at ease trying to hire someone that could possibly take their job. So suddenly let them know that you're there to support them, not to replace them. Select the initiative and answer the question before it's asked. Something like this, one of the benefits of my background is I've seen a lot of different scenarios play out. I'm at the point where I don't need the spotlight. My goal is to make your life easier, to support your vision for the team. I am comfortable taking direction and executing your strategies as you lay them out. What we should talk about is the hard truth of finding a new job because finding a new job is also about finding the right culture. And the truth is, you have to know when to walk away from a position if it's not right for

12:41you, not right for your career. If an organization rejects you purely because you have too much knowledge, that might be a reflection or a dysfunctional approach to hiring. It can point to management's culture rooted in insecurity where leaders are uncomfortable with anyone who might know more than they do. It can also suggest an environment where competition between teams is so intense that experience candidates can be viewed as a threat. When a company embraces experience candidates for middle-level roles, they get an incredible bargain. They're getting someone who requires less training and can mentor junior staff informally. And when they get a manager who brings emotional maturity to the office, they're hiring someone that they can see a value. And you're also passing on that knowledge to others.

13:42You do not want to work for a manager whose ego is so fragile that it requires you to play the smallest role possible. That's what you're trying to avoid. Look for an organization with missions and visible examples of mentorships, stability, and psychological safety. Look for a scale startup that is desperate in terms of steady hands and mature experiences to help structure paths for their long-term individual contributors of a startup organization. So let's pull this all together. I want to leave you with one final thought. Your experience is a gift, not a flaw. Not let a broken hiring system, a potential hiring manager age bias, convince you that you achieved too much or your career has made you unmarkable. Remember the suggestions to prune your resume down to the last 10 to 15 years of relevant experience. Echnolos is the alpha in the room and manages the interview from the beginning of the process.

14:43Answer their questions about your experience in background before they try to ask them indirectly. They may have legal limitations, but you can still address many of their concerns. Oh, and one special note. Never, ever, ever volunteer your age. If they ask for your age, they are crossing a legal line. That is age discrimination. The only other thing I want to add is you may be overqualified for the position and you've already done it. Maybe you're at the point now where you can change direction. You don't have to follow the path of leaves or resistance of what you've done in your professional career to date. You can explore a path that you haven't tried before. One that has been sitting in the back of your mind for much of your career on if I could or if I ever had the opportunity, I would like to do film into blank. To be honest, when I stopped working for corporate America, I had the opportunity to do something I really wanted to do rather than something that I have done and I've gotten paid for in

15:47terms of a monthly paycheck. That's really at that point where we thought about this podcast and Greg and I were talking about doing something now that we're not formally working for organizations. We've like semi-retired. At the same time, I've had an opportunity to write two different books about leadership and I really do believe it's like a second career. So if you're like me, I'm 65 years old, I've put in my time in corporate America and I wanted to do something more along the lines of what I wanted to do and I didn't want to retire retire. I wanted to find something that was fun. Something that was along the lines of my hobbies and my interest and skills that maybe I haven't developed before, but I didn't want to go behind an office in a desk again. And that's really, I think, my point. Be creative and think about something in terms of careers or hobbies that you can expand on and use is that change of career and do something that you like to do.

16:56I hope this episode of Success, Secrets, and Stories was helpful in reframing your job search and I also hope that you share it with your colleagues and your friends who might be stuck with the same overqualified job search trap. So if you like what you've heard. I've written a book called Building Your Leadership Toolbox when we talk about tools like this and it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other sites. The podcast is what you've been listening to. Thank you so much. It's also available on Apple, Google, and Spotify. A lot of what we talk about is Dr. Dursk and his MBR program. If you'd like to know more about Dr. Dursk, you can find out on successgrowthacademy.com. And if you'd like to contact us, please send me a line. It's 1-075, periodjw andgmail.com. And the music is brought to you by my grandson. So we want to hear from you. Drop me a line. Tell me what's going on.

17:57But you like? And what you would like to hear about. And it's always helped us to create content. Thanks Greg. This was fun. Thanks Jack. As always. Next time. Yeah.