Too skilled: why the best is so hard to find a job

Even very qualified specialists are not immune to the risk of losing their jobs without their will. For example, as a result of massive crisis cuts or due to a corporate conflict in the company.

Voluntarily this also happens quite often - due to moving to another region or as a result of unsuccessful employment, when you didn’t like it in a new place, but there is no turning back. It happens that due to professional burnout a person leaves “nowhere”, so that just a few months rest. Sometimes people leave because they have outgrown their functionality in the same place, feel underestimated, and it seems to them that they will easily find a more suitable job. But in reality it turns out that not only more worthy, but even work, at least equal to the level of the previous one, is not so easy to find.

In crisis economic conditions, this happens due to the fact that many good professionals are left without work, and almost no vacancies of the corresponding level appear - too much competition is formed between equally strong specialists. In a stable economic period, difficulties with finding a job can be caused, for example, by the fact that the field of activity of a professional is very narrow, all "star" positions are occupied, and almost no new ones appear, and companies prefer to close them out of their personnel reserve rather than from .

Desperate, a person lowers the bar of expectations, but this does not help. If a strong professional responds to a vacancy that he has clearly outgrown in his experience, this will certainly alert the potential employer. There are several reasons for this.

What to do

The situation with hiring highly qualified specialists is difficult for both parties. The employer does not want to take risks, and the applicant loses all motivation, receiving refusal after refusal. If you find yourself in a similar position, there are several ways out.

1) Apply for the position of leader. If you had not an managerial but an expert position and you cannot find an expert vacancy of the same level, try to apply for the position of leader in the same professional field. Perhaps for this you still lack some competencies and will have to be developed. But over-qualification at the previous level will give you weight in the eyes of a potential employer.

2) Expand qualifications. If you can’t find work in the familiar highly professional environment, try to master adjacent areas to expand the field of activity. You may have to learn something extra first. In the case of a transition to an adjacent sphere, your willingness to lower the bar in terms of position and salary will not look suspicious in the eyes of potential employers: you are actually starting a new career path, albeit not from scratch, but with a good base. Extension of qualifications is possible due to the development of an adjacent profession (they were a journalist - became a PR manager), new tools in the same profession (were an offline marketer - became an Internet marketer) or by changing the field of activity while maintaining a profession (they always worked as a marketer in FMCG- companies, but switched to B2B marketing).

3) Change the career vector. Many office professions suggest two different work options: as an “house” (when you serve the business of your employer only) or as an external consultant (when you conduct long-term or one-time projects of several clients at once, not being their employee). Each option has its pros and cons. Often, someone who is used to working as an “house” is uncomfortable in consulting. And someone who is used to consulting can be bored in the role of "house". But there are exceptions - in any case, it is worth trying to change the vector if, within the framework of the usual format of work, there are still no suitable offers.

4) Teach or become a coach. In-depth expertise can be used to teach or advise novice colleagues. Teaching can be considered as an independent type of activity or as an additional one, even turned into your own business. If you have a wealth of managerial experience, you can consider the option of a career coach, but for this it’s worth it to unlearn it. In any case, you will need to expand the circle of people who know you as a brilliant professional.

5) Re-qualify. Maybe you have long been disappointed in your profession and its related areas? If the profession and your experience in it were unclaimed, perhaps you should seriously think about the idea of ​​changing it. If you already know where you are aiming, it's time to take concrete steps. And if the question “What can I do successfully?” Is still unanswered, you can search for an answer using serious career guidance.