The Mutability of Educational Credentials as Hiring Criteria

Abstract

Although there is no single “overeducation” thesis, most accounts hold that increasingly large numbers of employees have educational credentials beyond those needed for performance on their jobs. Rather than assuming a mismatch between skill levels and atypical credentials, this article asks how employers actually evaluate educational credentials that are higher than those usually associated with a given job. Employers do maintain educational ceilings for positions, but these are usually flexible and established largely by default. Further, some employers are willing to hire apparently overqualified workers because the candidate may eventually be promoted into a position where his or her skills are more fully used. What is usually interpreted as overeducation (the mismatch between proxied worker skills and job demands) may be either a barrier to the culmination of a job-worker match or the temporary underuse of skills.