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Overqualified? Think twice before taking that job

A study showed only about 5 per cent of men and women working below their skill level received a “call back,†or positive employer response.

Accepting a job below your skill level could severely penalise you when applying for future employment, a new study warns. True or not, doing so leaves a perception that you might not be as committed or competent as an employer wants.

“We’ve learned a lot about how unemployment affects workers’ future employment opportunities,” says sociologist David Pedulla, a research associate at the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. “Even though millions of workers are employed in part-time positions, through temporary agencies, and at jobs below their skill level, less attention has been paid to how these types of employment situations influence workers’ future hiring outcomes.”

To examine the issue and measure how outcomes may vary by gender, researchers submitted 2,420 fictitious applications for 1,210 real job openings in five cities across the United States and tracked employers’ responses to each application.

All applicant information was held constant, including six years of prior work experience, except for gender and applicants’ employment situation during the previous year. Job histories involved full-time work, part-time work, a temporary help agency position, a job below the applicant’s skill level (“skills underutilisation”), or unemployment.

The findings show that about 5 per cent of men and women working below their skill level received a “callback,” or positive employer response — about half the callback rate for workers in full-time jobs at their skill level. Similarly, less than 5 per cent of men working part time received callbacks. Part-time employment had no negative effect for women, and temporary agency employment had little effect for either gender.

“The study offers compelling evidence that taking a job below one’s skill level is quite penalising, regardless of one’s gender. Additionally, part-time work severely hurts the job prospects of men,” Pedulla says. “These findings raise important additional questions about why employers are less likely to hire workers with these employment histories.”

Using similar worker profiles as before, Pedulla conducted a complementary survey of 903 hiring decision-makers in the United States on their perceptions of applicants with each type of employment history and the likelihood that they would recommend someone be interviewed, given his or her work history.

Men in part-time positions were penalised, in part, for appearing less committed, and men employed below their skill level were penalised for appearing less committed and less competent. Women employed below their skill level were penalised for appearing less competent, but not less committed.
Source: www.futurity.org

( Source : deccan chronicle )
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