Rejection for a job because you’re “overqualified” has a certain kind of sting.
But there is logic to it (even if you don’t agree): Hiring managers need to weigh several things, like a candidate’s suitability for the role against the likelihood the candidate will stick with it. It makes sense to reject people who have so many qualifications that they might soon get bored, or be poached by the competition.
The problem is that over-qualification is viewed very differently in female versus male candidates.
Elizabeth Lauren Campbell from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management and Oliver Hahl from Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business created a set of CVs with stereotypical male and female names, but otherwise identical qualifications. One set of male and female CVs were given qualifications which made them highly suitable for a specific job description, while the other set were designed to look “overqualified” for the role.
The researchers asked hiring managers to assess candidates’ suitability for the job. The results, published in Organization Science, showed that male CVs in the “overqualified” group were more often rejected than the female CVs in the same group.
The hiring managers in the research were less likely to hire qualified women than qualified men. But the inverse was true for overqualified candidates: Hiring managers were more likely to hire overqualified women than overqualified men.
Why is this a problem? First, it implies that in order to get the same job, men simply need to be qualified, whereas women need to have something extra. If she’s not too qualified for the role at hand, it suggests, a woman will likely lose out to a man in the hiring process.
But the other problem is the managers’ reasoning behind their decision-making: When a male candidate was overqualified, the managers assumed he was committed to his career, but that he wouldn’t be committed to the company he was seeking to join—he’d think he was “too good” for the job and soon leave, they assumed.
When it came to women, however, the managers saw over-qualification as a sign that women were keen on the job at hand, and more likely to stick with it.
In two open-ended questions appended to a survey given to the hiring managers about their choices, they rationalized overqualified women’s applications by guessing that they were trying to escape gender discrimination at a previous job. They also revealed beliefs that women value relationships more, suggesting they’d be less likely to leave the company as soon as something better came along.
When it came to qualified candidates, the managers assumed that men were more committed to their overall careers than women with identical CVs: Another piece of evidence that in order simply to prove themselves equal, women still have to invest more, and work harder, than their male counterparts. —Cassie Werber
Is it fair to reject someone for a job because they’re overqualified? Tell us what you think at work@qz.com.
Five things we learned this week
✌️ Ben & Jerry’s thinks Joe Biden should work for peace rather than prepare for war—and tweeted as much. Though it’s now part of Unilever, the ice cream company still tweets like an indie activist brand.
🎙 The CEO of Spotify offered employees a classic non-apology for the Joe Rogan controversy. Part of the subtext of Daniel Ek’s letter to concerned staff was “Buckle up, because Spotify is not changing.”
👩🏽💻 Some of us are Musks, others are Yellens. Quartz’s quiz will tell you which crypto and big tech critic—or enthusiast—you’re most likely to agree with.
🏡 A Kenyan woman who started an AirBnb side hustle was accused of running a brothel. That real-life case is emblematic of how female African gig workers struggle to be taken seriously.
😬 A new report from the World Health Organization warned that remote work could be bad for you. But also good.
Being productive doesn’t have to be painful
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30-second case study
Musician Neil Young’s recent decision to pull his music from Spotify over objections to covid misinformation on The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast on the streaming platform, ignited a wave of public scrutiny over the company’s loyalty to Rogan. The outcry grew louder this week when Spotify announced that Rogan had agreed to remove dozens of older episodes in which he used racial slurs.
Within Spotify, employees have also taken issue with the company’s decision to stick with Rogan, Sarah Todd reports. In a Feb. 7 memo to employees, CEO Daniel Ek acknowledged their long-held concerns. “Not only are some of Joe Rogan’s comments incredibly hurtful—I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company,” he wrote. “I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated, and unheard.”
Still, Ek also argued that “canceling voices is a slippery slope.” The best way to support social progress is to encourage open debate and critical thinking, he asserted. (Young has since called on employees to quit in protest, before the company “eats up your soul.”)
The takeaway: The Spotify debacle reveals the limits of employee activism.
Workers who stage walkouts and other forms of collective action might pressure powerful companies to confront issues like internal discrimination or the spread of misinformation. But when there’s a lot of money on the line, employees may not have the leverage to change company policies. Instead, Todd writes, “employee activism is most powerful when companies are convinced they stand to lose more than their employees’ respect.”
30-second comic interlude
The best bit in Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix comedy special Nightclub Comedian is about the Great Resignation and why there’s no such thing as unskilled labor. Watch it here.
Pass the remote
Is your company a great place for remote or hybrid workers? You may be interested in Quartz’s Best Companies for Remote Workers, a new, global ranking to be published later this year on Quartz at Work. Click here to submit your company for consideration.
You got The Memo!
Today’s Memo was written by Lila MacLellan, Cassie Werber, and Sarah Todd, and edited by Francesca Donner. The Quartz at Work team can be reached at work@qz.com.
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