Feel Overqualified for a Job? How to Adjust Your Resume

It’s one thing to receive a job application rejection letter because you don’t possess the skills and/or experience for the open position. It’s quite another thing for a prospective employer to reject your resume because you’re overqualified. The job market is full of highly qualified applicants and many of the applicants attempt to secure employment for positions that do not come close to matching their levels of expertise. If you feel overqualified for a job, you need to learn how to adjust your resume to match the level of expertise required for the open position.

Education Should Be Elementary

You certainly don’t want to promote the education section of your resume by writing “I graduated 6th grade,” but you do want to minimize educational accomplishments if you feel overqualified for a job and need to adjust your resume. Let’s assume you just graduated college and the tight job market has you changing your entry-level employment goal of working as an accountant for a large corporation to performing bookkeeping tasks for a small business. The small business owner doesn’t care that you scored near the top of the CPA exam class. For job candidates who feel overqualified for a job, how to adjust your resume involves omitting education information.

Don’t Oversell Experience

If you feel overqualified for a job, how to adjust your resume includes streamlining the experience section. Carefully read the job description and only publish resume information that matches the skills required for the open position. You can expect to receive a rejection letter for an entry-level chemist position when you list that you worked on the latest NASA Mars project. Overqualified job seekers should consider changing their resumes from ones that list job history to resumes that describe accomplishments. Just make sure the accomplishments don’t oversell your job experience.

Modify Career Objective to Match Open Position

The career objective section of a resume gives prospective employers a good idea about your career ambitions. Job candidates who are overqualified for a job can adjust their resumes accordingly by simplifying the career objective section. Write the career objective section to match the open position. For example, if your resume targets a regional management position for a retail chain, but you are applying for a store management positions, write the career objective to account for the store management position.

Don’t Show Them the Money

The worst thing you can do if you feel overqualified for a job is to present salary figures for previous jobs. Prospective employers are not wary of hiring overqualified employees because they have too many skills and possess too much knowledge. They’re wary of hiring overqualified candidates because of having to pay them more than they want to pay workers for the skill levels required for open positions. Don’t list salary history for open positions that fall below your level of expertise.

When you feel overqualified for a job, how to adjust your resume goes far beyond the piece of paper that contains your career objective, educational accomplishments, and job experience. Your cover letter represents the best tool for explaining why you are applying for an open position that falls below your professional level of expertise.