Overqualified and Underrated?

Our board member, David Creelman, provided today's guest blog post:

This article in Management Issues cites research showing overqualified workers stay as long or longer and perform better than candidates who are supposedly a better fit.

Organizations hiring hourly workers should check if their branding discourages "overqualified" workers from applying or if the selection processes screen them out. If a highly capable individual wants to work in a relatively low-paying job, for whatever reason, you are hurting your own organization if you rule them out.

I once knew a successful corporate manager who, fed up with the stress, threw it all in and went to work as a clerk in a grocery store. He was overqualified but psychologically very happy with the move (his wife had other opinions, but that's a different part of the story).

There may be a pool of really excellent hourly workers in the marketplace that organizations have been ignoring for the ironic reason that they thought these people were too good.