High unemployment has put many people with high levels of education, trainings, skills and experience into the job market. It is important that HR and Senior Management understand the situation and possibly rethink attitudes towards candidates that they would possibly view as ‘over-qualified.’
These individuals are competing for the same jobs that others with less education, training and experience are applying for. Skills and experience can often be associated with individuals further on in their professional career and older than those in the early stages of a career and can lead to age discrimination.
On the employers’ side they don’t want to hire such individuals because:
1. their immediate supervisors and managers are at a much lower level with these things.
2. their immediate supervisors and managers would be younger than them.
3. they may want to speak up about suggestions and improving things. Maybe we do not want to change anything or if we do, their immediate supervisors and managers would look poorly since they did not have the skills to know these things prior to this.
4. they would expect to be promoted to higher level positions eventually and we do not have such positions to promote them onto.
5. we will never pay them anywhere near what they once earned. Once the economy gets better and more jobs are available, they will only leave us.
On the candidates’ side, one often hears;
1. we have a right to work and support my family. Discrimination because of higher education and experience that correlates with age is wrong and against the law.
2. It is our culture to strive for higher education, skills, experience and competence, if achieved it is not right for employers to hold this against us.
3. We have spent a lot of money and time to get educated and trained. The educational system never told us that this would be held against us one day and prevent us from getting a job.
4. It is our right to have a job even if it is at a lower level and lower pay than we once had. Viewing us as ‘over-qualified’ only to hire those at lower levels of education, training, skills and experience does not make any sense. It seems to be counter productive to organisations who want to survive and hopefully grow.
5. You would think that organisations would want to hire the highest educated, trained, skilled and experienced individuals even at lower wages and lower position levels. This should be viewed as a bargain for them that would give them an opportunity to help improve their business.
Employment applications often ask for dates of education, trainings and previous positions and employment, these can easily infer age; not always but often. Obviously such information can be helpful to qualify a candidate but it can also be used to disqualify them due to age. As unemployment challenges continue, unemployed individuals with the higher level education, trainings, skills and experience are going to demand fair treatment said Michael Marshall, PhD, Senior Specialist and Advisor for Business Development, Marketing and Sales.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
