AUG 23, 2016 @ 09:36 PM 23,749 VIEWS The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Make Up Your Mind -- Am I Overqualified Or Underqualified?

Liz Ryan ,   CONTRIBUTOR
I write about bringing life to work and bringing work to life.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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Dear Liz,

The good news in my job search is that I hear back from a lot of employers. I’ve got two recruiters shopping my resume around, and I’ve applied for about 15 jobs via online job sites. (I know that isn’t your recommended method, but I haven’t worked up enough courage to try a Pain Letter yet!)

The bad news is that I keep getting told I’m overqualified for the job, or under-qualified for the job. I have seven years of Marketing and Customer Support experience, including some supervisory experience. Nobody would call me entry-level but I’m not a super-seasoned, highly-experienced person either. I think my salary requirement is reasonable ($50K). A lot of people say, “We like your resume” but that’s as far as I get. How can I be overqualified and under-qualified at the same time? What should I do?

Thanks,

Virginia


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Dear Virginia,

You are smack in the middle between entry-level folks who are expected to come in and learn how to do everything from make copies to handle business phone calls, and mid-level professionals who can be entrusted with big projects or important clients. There is nothing wrong with the place where you stand in your career path. It’s a perfectly wonderful place! However, you’re going to need to work on your branding.

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Fifty thousand bucks is not a monumental sum for lots of organizations but it is big enough that a salary of $50K is almost always tied to a job in which you’re responsible for something important. If someone is looking for a $50K marketer, for instance, they’re going to want you to jump in and create newsletters or write press releases capably without supervision or build a customer database or something similar. They’ll be happy to show you the ropes, but they don’t want to train you. You’re going to want to figure out what kinds of jobs you want to focus on.

Think about Business Pain! What kind of Business Pain have you solved already, and what kinds of Business Pain are you eager to solve in your next job?

In Customer Support, almost nobody gets paid $50K unless they’re a supervisor or unless they’re working on big accounts. However, a natural step up from Customer Support is Account Management. Almost any kind of sales job will pay you $50K or more. Can you use your Customer Support and Marketing talents to get into Sales, Account Management or Business Development?

You’ll find more and more suitable job opportunities as you get more focused in your branding and your career direction. Start by thinking about industries you’re interested in or curious about. Keep reading job ads, but ask yourself, “If I’m spending precious hours, brain cells and heart cells to apply for jobs and if I keep getting told I’m under-qualified or over-qualified, isn’t this a good time to try something new?”

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When you zero in on a hiring manager at a particular company on your Target Employer List and send him or her a Pain Letter, you’ve stepped completely out of the traditional job-search frame. That’s what you’ll need to do if your resume isn’t a perfect match with the published job ad and you want to get your hiring manager’s attention.

The more you ask the questions, “What am I good at?” “What do I love to do?” and “What kinds of Business Pain can I solve?” the more your next, best career direction will emerge. You are perfectly qualified for any number of jobs, and the more you figure out what you want to do next (versus answering the question “Who will stoop to hire me?”) the more evident your tremendous qualifications will be!

All the best,

Liz

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Liz Ryan is the CEO and founder of Human Workplace. Follow her on Twitter and read the rest of her Forbes.com columns here.