"You're Over Qualified"

contributed by Cintra Whitehead

A type of discrimination in hiring is operating today against highly educated women, particularly those of mature years, who are seeking employment in business. It is all the more insidious because it is couched in the form of what can be construed as a compliment: "You're overqualified." All too often the phrase really means, "Oh, you could do the job, out we'd rather hire a young male Caucasian who would, we think, fit into our organization more easily; we can't say that, of course, but to date there is no legislation to prevent our rejecting you on the basis that you are overqualified."

Men, too, receive the "You're overqualified' excuse, but, I suspect, not nearly so often as women do. In recent years, women in their late twenties, thirties and forties have begun to return to college after their child rearing duties have been completed or after they have helped their husbands through college or after several years in an unrewarding secretarial or sales job. Following their own bent or the advice of their uninformed college counselors (who are more likely to direct men toward engineering, science or business), many of them earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities or in education, usually with the idea of teaching at the secondary or college level. They find themselves, after from four to ten years of academic work, with degrees, honors, teaching experience, perhaps even with publications, but without jobs. Our society is at present in one of its all too frequent anti-intellectual cycles; the humanities are seen as at best useless; at worst, as destructive to our society. The academic job market which looked so hopeful when these women began their studies in the early or middle 60's has, in the 70's, disappeared for a combination of economic and social reasons. The Modern Language Association in its official Job Information List, which it began to publish because of the job crisis in education, listed in February 1974, 296 definite or possible vacancies for college teachers of English and foreign languages in the entire country; in 1973 the same organization had reported that there were 8,069 doctoral candidates in training in the U.S. Since we can assume that most doctoral candidates began their doctoral studies with the idea of entering college teaching, we can see that well over 7,000 of them (not to mention those at the master's level) are doomed to being closed out of the teaching field and will have to seek jobs elsewhere. The situation is similar in other branches of the humanities.

These highly educated people, many of whom have exhaused their savings on their educations or have lived for years on the mere pittance of an academic stipend, need jobs. Many of them are women who find themselves recently divorced and, in the third, fourth and fifth decades of their lives, facing life without income, insurance, or retirement. But they are hopeful at first and feel competent to deal with many kinds of jobs; they often have had previous work experience; they are, at the very least, competent-and often quite talentedwriters, editors, mediators and counselors. They are responsible, adaptable, self-disciplined people with acute, subtle minds. They are eager to work. They search for jobs in publicity, advertising, public relations, and other fields. page 2/What She Wants/August 1974

Time and again they are told, "You're overqualified."

After several rebuffs of this kind, a woman who finds herself in this predicament begins to question her own value; she tends to slip back into the old please-forgive-me-for-living attitude that has been women's "Uncle Tom" position for so many years. Soon she is immobilizedunless she makes a determined decision to fight back.

What can she do? First of all, if she feels any trace of being flattered by the "overqualified" response, she must seriously examine her reaction. She must recognize that the "You're overqualified" answer to her application, far from being a compliment, is an insult-a variant of the condescending old "Don't-you-soil-yourpretty-little-hands-with-this-work," or "Why-

ers will argue that she would be dissatisfied, restless, bored and would leave the job within a short time. If the woman really wants the job and believes that it offers her growth potential,. she can emphasize this to the interviewer-if she is lucky enough to get as far as an interview. Often a statement of academic qualifications in a resume or over the phone will eliminate her from consideration. This suggests another strategy.

She can fail to mention all of her degrees, especially in a resume or during a preliminary phone call if she suspects that she is likely to be rejected for being "overqualified." If she has a B.A. and the ad calls for "some college," she can remain fuzzy about the degree while admitting to having attended college and havin taken relevant courses. If she has an advance should-you-worry-your-pretty-little-head-aboutdegree, she may admit to the B.A., but not vol

business?" routines. This response on the part of a potential employer is an attempt to disarm, control, and, intellectually speaking, seduce the highly educated woman applicant. The interviewer wishes to seem to protect her from herself; actually he is often trying to get himself off the hook without saying the forbidden words, “female," too old," "black." The job applicant must recognize that someone is trying to manipulate her and must resist.

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unteer information about her M.A. or Ph.D. She can stress her interest in the job and try to emphasize relevant work experience, publications, etc. This does not mean that she should offer only that information which she feels will operate to her advantage. Of course, when she fills out a formal application or when she is interviewed in depth, she should provide complete and accurate information about her education and experience. The

An Excuse, Not A Reason

TRADE

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„CREDIT, MÍGÉ

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She can ask for clarification: What are the qualifications for the job? What does overqualified mean? Why does the interviewer feel that she is overqualified? Why is that in his eyes a detriment? She may not get honest answers; the prospective employer or his representative may feel that his own job is threatened by the highly educated, extremely able applicant. Nevertheless, she can try to elicit information and perhaps even tactfully allay his fears (if that is the case). It is a difficult situation to handle, and the woman applicant must use all the diplomacy she can muster. Often prospective employ

point is, to de-emphasize her academic background long enough to get a personal interview.

If she can bring social pressures to bear on an interviewer, she should feel justified in doing so. If, for instance, she can get a personal introduction from a mutual friend or acquaintance, the interviewer may feel reluctant to dismiss her with an "overqualified" label. If she can claim membership in the same church or social organization and if she tactfully calls attention to this, he may feel called upon to be less prefunctory than he might otherwise be when he finds her challenging the validity of the "overqualified" excuse.

The "You're overqualified" sentence is so frustrating to the individual, and arouses such a sense of injustice, because it is impossible for her to remove it. If a person is not qualified, she can take relevant training or gain work experience in order to qualify herself for the job, but she cannot slough off the education and experience that she has acquired. The less well educated person is often offered a job at the bottom and an opportunity to work herself up to a better job; the highly educated person is closed out altogether.

Finally, if she strongly feels that the "overqualified" evaluation is being used to mask another kind of discrimination against which the law protects her (i.e., discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or age) she should marshall her evidence and present it to the proper government agency.

If the "overqualified" excuse is challenged often enough and strongly enough, pernaps potential employers will hesitate to hide behind it. If not, perhaps legislation-difficult to devise as that would be will have to be proposed to protect job-seekers from this subtle, dangerous brand of discrimination.