Overqualification

by

Berrin Erdogan, Layla Mansfield

• LAST REVIEWED: 14 August 2024
• LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0088

Introduction

Overqualification is a situation in which a person’s education, experience, and skills exceed job requirements. As a result, an overqualified person has a level of skills and/or qualifications not needed to obtain or perform their job. Overqualification is regarded as a subcategory of underemployment, which refers to subpar (or deficient) employment. However, the two terms are not synonymous, because underemployment includes other forms of undesirable employment such as being employed part-time on an involuntary basis, or being underpaid compared to one’s prior job. This review will focus primarily on overqualification and not the other forms of underemployment. This article reviews the literature on overqualification, highlights work that has shaped the field over time, and summarizes the literature by way of suggesting and emphasizing work on its antecedents, mediators, consequences, and moderators.

General Overviews

This section features reviews and articles that may be regarded as highly influential summaries and reviews of the field. Feldman 1996 presents a review and organizational framework for studies of underemployment. This paper presents five different dimensions of underemployment, two of which (overeducation and overexperience) are regarded as dimensions of overqualification. A follow up to this landmark review is McKee-Ryan and Harvey 2011, which takes stock of the underemployment literature and focuses on antecedents, consequences, future research directions, and measurement issues. Erdogan, et al. 2011 is a focal article in the journal Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The article presents a comprehensive overview of the literature on overqualification, focusing on measurement issues, antecedents, consequences, and moderators; it also emphasizes some potential advantages of hiring overqualified applicants. In the same issue of the aforementioned journal, readers may find commentaries related to the focal article and the responses of the authors to these commentaries, which highlight some dilemmas and unresolved issues. Erdogan and Bauer 2021 takes stock of the literature and offers a timely update to many of the issues identified in the focal article Erdogan, et al. 2011, while also offering a roadmap for future research. Finally, two meta-analyses offer quantitative reviews of the literature. Harari, et al. 2017 examines the bivariate relationships with antecedents and outcomes of overqualification, whereas Liao, et al. in press develops a model examining the relation between perceived overqualification and its outcomes, via motivation and capability-based mechanisms.

• Erdogan, Berrin, and Talya N. Bauer. “Overqualification at Work: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 8 (2021): 259–283.

  DOI: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-055831

  The paper reviews the overqualification literature up to 2020, focusing on antecedents, outcomes, moderators, and mediators. The review also ends with a comprehensive outline of future research directions.

• Erdogan, Berrin, Talya N. Bauer, José M. Peiró, and Donald M. Truxillo. “Overqualified Employees: Making the Best of a Potentially Bad Situation for Individuals and Organizations.” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 4 (2011): 215–232.

  DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-9434.2011.01330.x

  This accessible introduction to the topic describes the phenomenon, reviews the research on its nomological network, discusses its potential advantages and disadvantages, and points to unresolved issues. In the same issue of the journal, there are nine commentaries on this article, as well as the authors’ responses to the commentaries.

• Feldman, Daniel C. “The Nature, Antecedents and Consequences of Underemployment.” Journal of Management 22 (1996): 385–407.

  DOI: 10.1177/014920639602200302

  Overeducation, as well as being overskilled and overexperienced, are defined as dimensions of underemployment. In this theory piece, propositions about antecedents (economic factors, job characteristics, career history, demographics, job search strategies) and consequences (attitudes, well-being, and behaviors) were included. This article has been the basis of much subsequent work on overqualification.

• Harari, Michael B., Archana Manapragada, and Chockalingam Viswesvaran. “Who Thinks They’re a Big Fish in a Small Pond and Why Does It Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Perceived Overqualification.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 102 (2017): 28–47.

  DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2017.06.002

  This is the first comprehensive meta-analysis of the literature and includes both antecedents and outcomes of overqualification. The analysis is based on sixty-one independent samples. Power distance was examined as a moderator. Correlations between objective and subjective measures were also reported. This is an important study for summarizing the literature up to 2016.

• Liao, Meishi, Melody Jun Zhang, Joel B. Carnevale, Chengquan Huang, and Lin Wang. “Capable Fish or Deficient Ponds? A Meta-Analysis of Consequences, Mechanisms, and Moderators of Perceived Overqualification.” Journal of Management (2024).

  DOI: 10.1177/01492063241239298

  This is the second meta-analysis of the literature, focused on testing the mechanisms associated with positive and negative outcomes of overqualification. The authors test a model proposing that perceived overqualification has three potential types of effects on outcomes, via the pathways of “reason-to,” “energized-to,” and “can-do” motivational states. This is an important contribution that offers a theory-based explanation for the mixed effects observed on outcomes.

• McKee-Ryan, Frances, and Jaron Harvey. “‘I Have a Job, But . . . ’: A Review of Underemployment.” Journal of Management 37 (2011): 962–996.

  DOI: 10.1177/0149206311398134

  Underemployment literature is reviewed in this follow up to Feldman 1996. Antecedents, consequences, and implications for careers and personal well-being are discussed. The authors also discuss measurement issues and future research directions. Not limited to overqualification, this is a comprehensive and informative review.