“Overqualified” Means What?
Citing the plight of the iconic, overqualified degreed taxi driver, Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist and founder of the center, noted that 15% of taxi drivers in 2010 had bachelor’s degrees vs. 1% in 1970.
But what, in fact, constitutes overqualification here?
The “Overqualified” Taxi Driver and Pile Driver Mike Tyson: an Opportunity-Cost Model
Among those graduates driving taxis there are likely to be some who majored in Eastern philosophy or music, without regard for or concern about employment implications, i.e., they studied it because (now brace yourself) they enjoyed and valued learning for its own sake, just for the intellectual or spiritual enrichment. Why call them “overqualified” just because they have a degree that the job doesn’t require?
On the flip side, how “qualified” is a degree holder—like all too many I meet—who, after their last exam and graduation, never, ever think, read, write or talk about what they majored in, who deflect, seem uneasy with and avoid conversations about it, and who don’t have even one book in their major-subject library that wasn’t a course text book?
They may be fine job candidates if all that is required is proof of graduation in anything, as a kind of surrogate IQ test or evidence of plodding persistence. But, if they are being hired with the expectation that they have interest, commitment, knowledge and expertise in their subject area, some employers will be in for a rude awakening and disappointment.
(Note: I know one education master’s program graduate who, during her studies, didn’t have even a single book in her personal “library” that wasn’t compulsory reading.)
Of course, we have at least an intuitive feel for what “overqualified ” means. But let’s try to be more precise and less narrow than our equating it with “having a job that doesn’t require a degree/the degree you have”.
On the one hand, that concept is far too narrow, for, surely, it is not only a problem for those with degrees.
For example, imagine Mike Tyson applies for a job as a night club bouncer. He may not be offered the job, because he is “overqualified”, which, in this instance involves the expectation that he won’t stay, because his opportunity costs would be way too high, i.e., something much better would come along, say, lucrative product endorsement.
By contrast, the Eastern philosophy graduate may have a negligible or zero opportunity cost by taking the taxi job—especially if being able to meditate on the job is important to him.
Why the lopsided focus on only or mostly overqualified college and university graduates? How about the master carpenter forced to take a job nailing fencing? Or the returning Marine MP working as a mall security guard?
In this instance, the concept of overqualification as “having a job that doesn’t require a degree/the degree you have” is too broad, since it includes some, like the philosophy graduate taxi driver, who arguably are not overqualified, despite having a degree that is not necessary or suitable for the job.
It is also too broad in regarding as overqualified those who have, but do not value, their degree, given that not much more than their graduation date and time in the student union pub lingers in their minds as evidence of their education.
So, why not revisit the issue and interpret “overqualified for job X” neither too narrowly nor too broadly, say, as “incurring too high an opportunity cost in taking job X”? This formulation would be broad enough to cover the case of Mike Tyson, the carpenter and the MP.
It also would challenge the already questionable overly broad idea that the Eastern philosophy graduate is overqualified to drive a taxi merely because he has a degree.
Your Degree vs. A Degree
To be as precise as possible, it is necessary to also distinguish being “overqualified for a job that requires adegree” from being “overqualified for a job that requires your degree”.
These are not the same. The former, as a requirement, is likely to primarily serve the purpose of separating those who can read, write, research and maybe even think effectively enough to do the job from those who can’t. Again, it’s a kind of IQ or GRE surrogate gauge.
But being “overqualified for a job that requires yourdegree” is something altogether different. Here, there is an expectation of specific expertise, in terms of knowledge base, mastered techniques, etc. Unlike the Eastern philosophy graduate driving a taxi or anybody with a B.A. flipping burgers, a graduate who is overqualified in surpassing the credential requirements in that specific field is not facing a categorical (category-based) skills-challenge mismatch.
Instead, the mismatch is a matter of level and degree (often in both senses of “degree”): The skill, knowledge, etc., levels achieved within the specific field surpass the job requirements to a degree that make hiring problematic, e.g., because of likely boredom through insufficient challenges, risk of being head-hunted, or even being a potential rival for an incumbent staff member.
Being “category-overqualified”, on the other hand, means having knowledge and expertise that is mismatched as a category, e.g., having an engineering degree when applying for a job as a hospital security guard. The categories “engineer” and “security guard” are mismatched as non-intersecting or limitedly intersecting categories.
Interestingly, often such a mismatch can be described as being a case of underqualification, rather than overqualification, since security jobs have their own unique prerequisites. (Nonetheless, this situation is more likely to be described as “overqualification”, because of the prestige of the engineering degree.) Such underqualification is never an issue when the overqualification is a matter of degree(s) rather than of category.
Hence, when compiling or reviewing statistics regarding “overqualification”, it is important to distinguish these two types—the category-overqualified vs. the level-overqualified. Beyond that, research into the plight of overqualified college and university graduates needs to be supplemented with jobs data about and concern for the non-degreed overqualified workers, such as the master carpenter or highly-trained returning veteran.