Overqualified (from our vault)

May 5, 2000

We get a lot of emails here every week from Jobhunters. Occasionally there are success stories; with new Employees thanking us for whatever bit of advice or help that may have assisted them in landing their new Job.

More often, though, the notes are describing something that is going wrong in their Jobsearch. It is hard to miss the frustration expressed by unsuccessful Jobhunters - it really is hard to keep your spirits up when you think you've finally hooked a good looking Job, only to find out it too has slipped away. And quite a few of these letters have one common denominator - the candidate feels (or has been told that) they are overqualified for the target position.

How could anyone possibly be 'overqualified' for a position? Is there a problem with someone doing the Job better than anyone expected them to? Of course not. Overqualified, at least to the Hiring Manager, means something altogether different. It is used as a red herring to cover up their real fears, the unspoken ones you must uncover and respond to if you want to be offered the Job.

Employers generally have one (or more) of the following concerns about workers that they classify as 'overqualified':

You'll be harder to get rid of if things don't work out because of discrimination issues. If push comes to shove and the boss wants to fire you rather than your inexperienced coworker, they could be on shaky ground with the NLRB by retaining the lesser skilled (but more easily bossed?) employee.

You're more likely to jump to another better paying Job when the offer comes. Employers don't want to have to go through the laborious process of hiring for this position anytime soon, and skilled and experienced Employees sure look like headhunter bait from the Employer's perspective.

You're going to cost them more, either in initial pay, raises, or sick leave. Employers hate to spend money, especially on Employee pay - it seems to be a universal trait.

You'll quickly get bored with the Job, and act like the work is beneath your talents. Not only does this make it hard to motivate you, it might impact other workers as well.

Answering these fears takes a steady hand and a calm rational mind. You are more valuable because of the money you'll save them by using your cost-cutting experience (give examples). You won't jump to another firm because you take pride in commitment to your Employers (see work history). You are dependable, work hard and well, and are willing to get the task done as a team member no matter what the assignment is (resume, references, work history).

Overqualified workers are probably the best bet the Hiring Manager could make - it just takes some convincing to get them to put their money where your mouth is.

-Mark Poppen

Quick Tips (from our vault)

May 04, 2000

Information overload is over us, under us, and all around us. Just finding your desk some days is half the battle, and scraps of paper and VIP notes are constantly in danger of fluttering away if someone opens a window at the wrong time of day. "Organized!" you scream, "I've got to get myself Organized!"

Easier said than done, obviously.

Here are a few words from the wise (not mine, thank you very much):

• Divide large projects into smaller ones.  (A variation on 'Divide and Conquer').
• Use your time in line (or traveling) to get work done, rather than getting angry about the delay.
• Your Computer crashes when you ask it do multitask - so do people.  Take one thing at a time.
• Consider: Does this project have to be done perfectly, or is it 'good enough for government work?'
• Prioritize projects - what really really needs to get done so you boss doesn't chew you out?
• Touch paper only once. Throw it out, file it into an easily findable drawer, or answer it.
• Start the day by calmly making a list of short-term & long-term tasks; check them off when done.
• End the day by figuring out what didn't get done & move it to tomorrow's 'first things to do' list.
• Set a time for return calls, emails, and 'interrupter' activities.  Your productive time is valuable.
• Practice saying 'No'.  Just because someone asks nicely doesn't mean you have to commit to do it.

Remember, you are only human, not some kind of automated work machine. You were not made to plug in, drink five cups of coffee, and work like some kind of whirling dervish for ten hours. The average workweek may have expanded to almost fifty hours, but Employers are crazy if they think they are going to double worker productivity every year.

Also, know your limitations. You should pay attention when your stress level is shooting through the roof, and take steps to ease back a little. No one else can see inside your head and figure out that you're about to blow up, taking no prisoners. Knowing your limitations and acting accordingly is different from arguing for your limitations.

Richard Bach aptly noted in his classic book Illusions, "If you argue for your limitations long enough, they are yours for life." Knowing your limitations doesn't imply that you should shy away from testing your abilities and making a concerted effort to grow and learn new things.

-Mark Poppen

Enablers (from the vault)

May 03, 2000

Eventually, the Internet will be an integral part of our daily lives, allowing us to access information at light speed (like available Jobs and salary surveys) that will change the ways we communicate, live, and work.

Right now, however, the Net is only a harbinger of things to come.

This is especially true for people with disabilities. The Net offers incredible promise - the freedom to communicate and work unfettered by heretofore hard to overcome handicaps. Despite a relatively robust Economy and low unemployment rate (4.4%), over 70% of blind Americans that want Jobs are unable to find Employment.>

The number of disabled people in this country is hard to pinpoint. The Census Bureau reports that 10% of the working age population is disabled to the point that their disability interferes with the performance of daily tasks. Other estimates of the number of disabled people in the US are as high as 50 million, or one out of every five Americans.

Less than a generation ago, blind workers could work in offices performing a wide range of Job functions, from phone receptionist to taking dictation, among other tasks. The computer revolution and the evolution of point and click technology made tasks easier for most of us, but forced blind people out of this Job market. Once email skills became an office skill prerequisite, the writing was on the wall for blind office workers.

But now software programs that offer speech recognition are approaching 100% accuracy, and typing (computer commands, emails, letters, or anything!) may become a task not unlike the tedious copying of documents that Monks spent their lives toiling at - it will be completely obsolete. For all the terrible typists out there, MossRehab ResourceNet serves both the recently disabled (and likely disoriented), and those that have accepted their new circumstances and are ready to make the best of their situation.

Nationally linked organizational sites provide a good starting point for those looking to access some of the available resources. The National Organization on Disability, the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and the National Alliance of the Disabled all fall into this category of comprehensive, fully linked sites.

Other useful sites include Justice for All E-Mail Network and Project Hired. If you know of someone who is disabled, pass along these leads so they can expand their access to a network of like-minded individuals with information, support, and Jobs.

-Mark Poppen

Wage Futures (from our vault)

May 2, 2000

In case you haven't heard, that great sucking sound you hear is the Economy absorbing the good Jobs and spewing out sucky ones. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that inflation adjusted earnings for families has declined by 3% over the last ten years, which works out to $1000 less per family every year in real dollars. They are an incredible source of interpretive data, taking the Department of Labor Stats and putting a human face on them in ways that the average person can understand.

The short-term data is reasonably positive for Jobhunters. Unemployment has stabilized around 4.3%, which matches generational lows. Wages are moving up, albeit incrementally for the majority of us. New entrants to the Job market are able, with some effort, to find employment. Unfortunately, most of the Job growth is in the service Economy, which historically pays less with fewer benefits.

The long-term outlook is less rosy.

The move into a Global Economy means that worldwide hourly wage levels will flatten out, with the vast majority of workers earning closer to the median wage. Educated workers in the most populous countries (China, India, Pakistan) will represent half the world's labor force, and they will gladly perform tasks for a fraction of the amount that their First World industrialized counterparts will. As work becomes more and more mobile, work will gravitate toward the lowest common denominator, low wage laborers.

If the median daily wage in the world is now under $1, it is reasonable to forecast that in the next decade most emailable tasks will be completed by workers earning less than ten times their current income, or $10/day. This will represent a huge earnings boost for much of the world, but could easily have negative impacts on white-collar workers in the US and Europe.

There is enormous opportunity today in the speculative bubble called the Internet Economy. And there is a frightening likelihood (at least to Western Hemisphere workers) that the Information Economy may level the playing field for world wages. And for us, that level is headed in only one direction - down.

-Mark Poppen

Reassess Your Skills (from our vault)

May 1, 2000

It's easy for Jobhunters to get depressed during their Jobsearch.

The steady stream of rejection letters (or out and out deafening silence) from prospective Employers leaves Jobhunters with the feeling that we are worthless.In economic terms, your net worth is your assets minus your liabilities.This tidy sum never reflects your intrinsic worth as a friend or human being.

The same thing happens during the process of selling yourself to Hiring Managers - it feels like you have no value because no one's buying at the moment. But you are more than a commodity in the Labor market, and it is necessary to focus on the many skills you have to offer Employers in addition to the hundreds of good qualities you have that make you a valuable person.

Richard Bolles, of What Color Is Your Parachute? fame, recommends the following exercise: categorize your skills into verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

Skills that can be turned into verbs are your functional skills. Closely akin to innate skills, they are probably things like planning, mediating, researching, analyzing, calculating, manipulating, etc. You can train to get better at these skills. Employers look for these kinds of skills because they have crossover properties, i.e. they can be transferred from one field to another. For example, a Copywriter for a print newspaper might be able to transfer their writing abilities over to a Job in Marketing.

Nouns best describe knowledge skills. Computers, Languages, Geography, Mathematics, Graphic Arts, and Music all describe fields that you might know a great deal about. These subjects are familiar to you because you have previously shown some expertise in them. Generally our school days have prepared us in many of these subject fields, and we know where our strengths and weaknesses are. Internships focus on increasing our pre-existing knowledge base of skills.

Personality trait skills are best described as adjectives. We use these when describing ourselves to friends; e.g. 'I am manic, creative, methodical, creative, lazy'. You might describe your skills this way - 'I am a methodical planner,' or 'I am an extensive and creative planner.' These adjectives represent your evolving style, and your personality traits modify your functional skills.

By the time you get done with this exercise in reassessing your skills, you'll have a much better feeling about yourself and the number and quality of skills that you have to offer Employers. You have value. The trick is in getting the Hiring Manager to see how your value will fit into their company in a way that is mutually beneficial.

-Mark Poppen

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