Reimagining overqualified human resources to promote organizational effectiveness and competitive advantage

Purpose – Many organizations hold the traditional view that due to the potential of higher job dissatisfaction and employee turnover rates, hiring overqualified job candidates is risky. The purpose of this paper is to take an alternative perspective, using Human Capital and Resource-based theories to propose that hiring overqualified job candidates adds to a firm’s human capital depth. This additional human capital depth, in turn, enables firms to improve near term organizational effectiveness, and ultimately, build long-term competitive advantage. However, the ability of the firm to sustain this competitive advantage is dependent upon the retention of the overqualified human capital. The authors propose that job and career development opportunities made available to the overqualified will increase commitment and reduce turnover intentions, resulting in a long-term competitive advantage. Thus, the conceptual framework makes reference to deployment of the overqualified as an under used source of human capital. Finally, the implications of the proposed conceptualization and directions for future research are discussed. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews theory and proposes a conceptual framework for reimaging overqualified human resources. Findings – There are powerful benefits to hiring overqualified job candidates, but by not hiring overqualified job candidates, organizations are missing out on a large, easily available, and potentially lower cost source of highly skilled human capital. Practical implications – The authors propose that job and career development opportunities made available to the overqualified will increase commitment and reduce turnover intentions, resulting in a long-term competitive advantage. Thus, the conceptual framework makes reference to deployment of the overqualified as an under used source of human capital. Originality/value – This paper uses Human Capital and Resource-Based theory to propose a conceptual framework which makes four key contributions. First, the authors propose that hiring overqualified job candidates increases an organization’s human capital depth. Next, this increased human capital leads to near term improvements in employee performance and organizational effectiveness. In turn, firms using career development exercises such as job crafting, mentoring, and/or informal leadership to retain overqualified human capital are more likely to covert near term organizational effectiveness into long-term competitive advantage. Finally, the authors offer a conceptual framework that bridges the overqualification and strategic human resources management literatures.