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Welcome to Issue #208 of Jobseeking is Hard!

Happy Wednesday!

Being more experienced than a job requires seems like it should work in your favor. You'd think employers would be thrilled to find someone who can handle the responsibilities and bring additional experience to the table. But having more experience than they're looking for usually hurts your chances…

That's what I want to talk about this week.

This week we’re talking about:

• Why recruiters can be biased against overqualified candidates

• The best (worst?) job posting of the week

• The meme of the week

And for Premium subscribers I’m:

• Debunking LinkedIn advice about what your email address supposedly reveals to recruiters

• Answering a Premium subscriber’s question about reporting to someone with less experience. I’ll explain how to address concerns and prove you can work comfortably under another leader.

Let’s get to it!

WHEN “QUALIFIED” LOOKS “RISKY”

When a recruiter looks at your resume, yes, they're trying to figure out whether you can do the job…BUT they're also thinking about whether you're likely to take the job, be happy doing it, AND stick around.

That last part can create problems for candidates whose career history doesn't seem to match the opportunity they're pursuing.

Let's say you've been a Vice President for the last several years, and now you're applying for Director-level positions. You've managed large teams and had significant responsibility. From your POV, you have more than enough experience to handle the job. Heck, you may even be excited about the idea of having a little less responsibility.

But the recruiter may see something different. They're wondering why someone at your level wants to move backward. Will you be comfortable reporting to someone who used to be your peer? Will you get bored? Are your salary expectations realistic? And if another VP opportunity comes along in 6 months, are you going to leave?

It's not necessarily fair to judge you like that…but they're reasonable questions for someone responsible for helping a company make a successful hire.

Recruiters aren't just trying to fill a position; they're trying to fill it with someone who will stay. If the new employee leaves after four months, the company has to start the process over. The hiring manager loses time, the team has to absorb the work again, and the recruiter may have to explain why the hire didn't work out.

Nobody wants to do the same search twice.

That's why there's a flight risk bias, especially when a candidate's background suggests they may be settling.

Someone who previously earned $180,000 applies for a job paying $120,000. A former executive wants an individual contributor role. Someone who spent years working remotely applies for a position that requires five days in the office. A candidate who's been running their own business wants to return to a traditional corporate environment.

None of those moves is a bad idea. People's priorities change. Sometimes they want less responsibility, a more predictable schedule, or work they actually enjoy doing. Sometimes they've been unemployed for a while and need to adjust their expectations. Sometimes they genuinely prefer the responsibilities of a lower-level role.

But when recruiters see a significant change like that, they want to understand why.

I've talked to jobseekers who are applying to positions well below their previous level because they've been unemployed for months and are getting desperate. I understand that. Bills don't stop coming because the job market is terrible. But when I ask why they're interested in a particular position, sometimes the answer is basically that they need a job.

Again, I get it. But the hiring manager is going to wonder what happens when the market improves or a more senior opportunity comes along. Candidates sometimes assume employers should be thrilled to get someone with more experience than the job requires. Why wouldn't a company want a former VP doing Director-level work? They're getting more experience for the same salary!

Maybe. But that experience can also create questions about whether the role will be challenging enough, whether the person will be comfortable with the authority they have, and whether they'll eventually become frustrated by the limitations of the position.

A hiring manager may prefer someone who's already operating at the level of the job and sees the opportunity as a logical next step. That person may feel like a safer long-term hire, even if another candidate has more impressive credentials.

The same concern can come up when someone's career history shows frequent job changes. Short tenures don't automatically make someone unreliable. Layoffs happen. Companies restructure. People take jobs that turn out to be completely different from what they were promised. I've seen plenty of legitimate explanations for why someone moved around. But, as a hiring manager once told me, "They might have bad luck, but I don't want their bad luck near me."

He was a jerk.

But if a candidate has held five jobs in six years, recruiters are probably going to ask about it. They're trying to understand whether there's a pattern that could repeat itself.

So what can you actually do about any of this?

One of the ways you can manage that negative perception is through the scope of experience you emphasize on your resume. You can't change the job titles you've held, but you do have control over which responsibilities and accomplishments you choose to highlight.

If you're a former VP applying for a Director role, your resume doesn't need to spend most of its time emphasizing executive-level responsibilities that go well beyond what the company is hiring someone to do. You may have overseen an entire division, managed a massive budget, and worked directly with the CEO, but if the Director position is primarily focused on leading a smaller team and improving operations, those are the parts of your experience I'd want to emphasize.

Look at the scope of the job posting and make sure your bullet points are telling a story that fits within it. If the company needs someone to manage a team of 15, your experience developing employees, improving team performance, and managing day-to-day operations is probably more relevant than your involvement in enterprise-wide executive strategy.

That doesn't mean pretending you never held a senior position or hiding accomplishments that demonstrate your capabilities. It means being selective about which parts of your experience you emphasize based on the jobs you're pursuing.

This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about when rewriting resumes for clients who are targeting positions at a different level than they've held previously. I'm trying to make sure the recruiter understands why that experience makes sense for the job they're pursuing.

Sometimes that means giving more attention to responsibilities that would have received less space on a resume targeting a more senior position. Other times, it means adjusting the summary or changing which accomplishments lead. The experience hasn't changed, but the way we're presenting it needs to support the direction the person wants to go.

Of course, there's only so much a resume can accomplish. If you've been a VP for 10 years and now want to be a Director, you're probably still going to have to explain why.

And you'd better have a good answer.

Maybe you genuinely miss being closer to the day-to-day work. Maybe you've realized you enjoy managing a team more than dealing with executive-level responsibilities. Maybe your priorities have changed and you're no longer interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

Those are all reasonable explanations. But you have to be able to communicate them in a way that makes the hiring manager comfortable that you actually WANT the job, rather than just being willing to accept it.

And please don't think that telling a recruiter you're willing to take a pay cut automatically solves the problem. The concern is whether you'll still be happy with that salary and the responsibilities of the position six months after you've started.

Sometimes the reason you're not getting interviews isn't that the recruiter thinks you're unqualified. They may know you're perfectly capable of doing the job. They're just not convinced you'll want to keep doing it.

Have a topic you want me to cover in an upcoming issue? Reply or email [email protected] and tell me what you want to know!

BEST (WORST?) JOB POST

OF THE WEEK

Here’s the job post that got the most people talking on my Instagram this week!

remember when you could apply for a job without having to audition for it?

If you come across an irritating job posting, email it to the newsletter or DM me on Instagram and I’ll add it to the list to post!

MEME OF THE WEEK

This meme got more reactions on my Threads than anything else I posted this week.

PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER QUESTION

“I've been applying for Director-level positions after spending several years as a VP. I recently had a recruiter ask whether I'd be comfortable reporting to someone with less experience than me. I said it wouldn't bother me, but I could tell they weren't convinced. How should I handle questions like that without sounding defensive?”

Scroll down to the Premium Section below for my answer!

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Jobseekers, have a great rest of your week, and good luck with those applications!

-Adam

PS!! If you're enjoying the newsletter, let people know! Forward it, post it on social, tag me, whatever...the bigger the discussion, the better! The idea is to help as many people as possible!

About Adam- Recognized as a leading voice on hiring and workplace trends, Adam has been recruiting and providing career advice since 2003, developing high-trust relationships based on honesty with companies and jobseekers. A highly sought-after speaker, he has appeared in numerous outlets, including Bloomberg News, Business Insider, LinkedIn, and CNNMoney. You can find out more about Adam's resume and coaching services here.

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