Question & Answer: How might an employer ensure that the term “overqualified applicant” is not just…..

Indeed “Overqualified applicant” is not just a code word for “Too old”. As a matter of fact, an employer can also depict the examples of the potential employees who would come to their Company in search of work who were nowhere aged to the extent to be termed as “Old”, leave “Too old”. These perhaps could even be the persons who are indeed young but possess various degrees to their professional qualifications that make them highly undesirable for the undertaking a job that does not regard the value of these hard-earned qualifications. Also in such a case where in the process of bringing an equality in the system, when such highly qualified persons are recruited in the Firm and granted salary or wages that is offered to all other employees undertaking the same job profile, then ethically, as an employer, I shall be highly disregarding the qualifications of the employees and the opportunity cost that the employee lost in seeking this job which is also quite unfair. In addition, hiring such qualified employees would result in ‘under-employment’ for these applicants.

Hence in no manner, “Overqualified applicant” could be the term for “too old”. Rather, it could also mean for the youngsters who possess higher qualifications than actually required to undertake the job profile thereby resulting into lesser pay packages for the applicants which in turn would not be able to do justice with them.