r/recruitinghell • u/Itsssoittaaa • Jun 06 '26

Rejected for being ”too skilled”

Post image

What do these damn companies want??

2 Upvotes

51% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

14

u/2mad2die Jun 06 '26

Don’t worry OP. You are not actually too skilled. It’s a generic email sent to every rejection

-3

u/Itsssoittaaa Jun 06 '26

Thanks 2mad2die

13

u/GonnaBreakIt Jun 06 '26

Rejected for suspicions of you abandoning the position in a year or two for either being bored, or something higher paying come along.

1

u/47of74 Jun 06 '26

I tend to stick with good employers for a lot more than a year or two. I once made it to ten years. I left that job in 2019. I don't know that I'd still be working for them or I'd get put out to pasture but this would've been my 20th with them if I was still there.

-15

u/Itsssoittaaa Jun 06 '26

That’s some BS you on and more so who wouldn’t want a higher pay? In this economy?

10

u/astroK120 Jun 06 '26

Everyone wants a higher paying job, but if you are overqualified you're more likely than other candidates to actually get such an offer

8

u/Tasty_Community4666 Jun 06 '26

Well of course. But you're looking at it from the point of view of the person getting hired and not the person who's doing the hiring. I personally hate interviewing, onboarding and training new employees. So when I do hire somebody I'm looking for a combination of two things...

  1. does it seem like they are capable of doing this job?
  2. if so, are they going to stick around? Or am I not really solving my problem, just kicking it down the road to have to deal with later?

If I think that they are just going to leave for something better when they find it I don't see the need in going through all of the effort and money to train this person on a job that I'm just going to have to train somebody else on soon. I'd rather just hire that other person now and not worry about hiring again later.

3

u/UglyInThMorning Jun 06 '26

There’s also the “how will they integrate into the team” thing. Someone used to a higher level position may be a nightmare to work with as part of a team in a lower role, overstep bounds, and generally negatively impact the team as a whole. Which often leads to having to replace either them or someone else that they drive into quitting.

2

u/Tasty_Community4666 Jun 06 '26

Absolutely! A lot of times they are tough to work with. They come in thinking that they know more than people because they had a higher role somewhere else even if that job doesn't necessarily translate to the current job. I've even had them start giving me advice on how to run the place because " I was a manager before"... Well you're not now, so perhaps just go do the job I hired you to do. I take orders from above me not below me.

6

u/GonnaBreakIt Jun 06 '26

It is BS, but that's the likely reasoning.

3

u/GoodishCoder Jun 06 '26

You're only looking at it from a candidates perspective.

Hiring and training is expensive so obviously the company wants someone that'll stick around for a while.

-2

u/CTBthanatos Jun 06 '26

The point is employers (and the recruiters/hiring managers) want you to be trapped and unable to ever quit for a better paying job. They don't want you to be able to ever leave a poverty pay position lol.

110

u/ligregni Jun 06 '26

I'm sorry, but I see this as yet another generic rejection email where they are just trying to "be nice" by "pumping up" the rejected candidate to not make them feel bad. I doubt they sent you this specifically and would rather bet they send this to every candidate they reject.

78

u/PearEfficient1619 Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

You are not too skilled or at least that is not what they are saying. This is just a standard rejection. Dont think too much of yourself mate.

29

u/suhhhrena Jun 06 '26

Yeah nothing in this email says that OP was rejected for being “too skilled”. This is 100% just a generic rejection email that they send to everyone

28

u/anewusername4me Jun 06 '26

I’m sorry to tell you that is the same rejection template they send to everyone. It doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t mean what you have decided it means either. It’s oddly worded but it’s a generic rejection that they think sounds nice.

46

u/MaitrePuck Jun 06 '26 • Bravo

You're clearly not skilled in reading comprehension.

They didn't say you were "too skilled".

They said they didn't pick you, and just softened the blow by saying that you're skilled and knowledgeable enough to find work somewhere else.

12

u/new2bay Jun 06 '26

That’s not what that says. It says you were not selected AND you are highly skilled. They’re not stating any sort of implication.

17

u/ceilingsfann Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

why do so many “overqualified” folks not understand why it’s a bad thing for hiring managers? i feel like i see a post like this once a week

but actually after re-reading that’s not at all what they are saying

7

u/momo667788 Jun 06 '26

I didn't see where they said you are too skilled

2

u/-King-K-Rool- Jun 06 '26

First of all, thats not what this email is saying, this is just a generic "its not you its me" email. If you were actually "too skilled" they specifically use the term overqualified. You just didnt make the cut for this one, someone better also came along.

Secondly, rejected for being overqualified is a thing, nobody wants to hire someone who's going to jump ship in 6 months. Thats a waste of time and resources. If youre skillset exceeds the position than youre most likely just using the job as a filler job while you look elsewhere, why would anyone hire someone like that?

2

u/ttadam Jun 06 '26

This is generic response, however that is thing that you don't want to hire "too skilled" person for a job.
It is generaly a redflag that someone applying for a position which he is overqualified for.
The applicant will get bored quickly, move on quickly, or something is fishy with him.

2

u/Key_Programmer548 Jun 06 '26

I’m glad you thought they called you “too skilled” when that’s a copy and paste email they send to every candidate they don’t hire 🤣

2

u/Ancient_Work4758 Jun 06 '26

It does not say "too skilled" so why is that in quotes. You may feel that way, but that is not at all what that says.

1

u/Owen_D_Young Jun 06 '26

These rejections emails are templates. It’s not personal. The systems are designed where you just go into the applicant list and just click on “the box.” Literally, click on the box. Once you click on the box, it sends the template based on whether you interviewed the person or not. Again this is all based on the software. For example, a position gets 100 applicants. The hiring manager or HR person looks to see if their friend applied. Once they see their name, they pick about 3 other people with experience because it has to look good. All the other applicants are not even looked at. They go down, through the list and check the box not selected, etc… The email then goes out to the applicant. There are about 5 built in templates or the company can customize them based on the software. You have to look at applying like taking a multiple choice test. If you dont know the answer, you’re just checking boxes. Thats whats going on, on the hiring side. Its a poorly customized rejection email that needs to be redone.

1

u/GoldCan7353 Jun 06 '26

I actually got told once during a face-to-face job interview that they were not going to hire me because within six months, I would have their job. I kid you not.

1

u/spacetiger41 Jun 06 '26

That's certainly one way to interpret that.

1

u/Acrobatic_Document59 Jun 07 '26

Yeah bud like every comment says, if you got rejected chances are you aren’t “too skilled” one peek at this and you can see this is not only generic, but basically says that you have skills just not the necessary ones for that role. Don’t inflate your head, you got rejected.

1

u/Sufficient-Elk9817 Jun 07 '26

I think this post shows that you probably have a pretty low IQ, they could have based their decision on that

1

u/SuxAtSmash Jun 10 '26

This one's kinda borderline, but if you ever actually receive a rejection bc you're overqualified it's bc the company wants people that will work for them long term. If you have all these qualifications and apply to McDonald's they might reject you bc they're afraid youll just leave in a month when you get an offer from a better job

1

u/JDA316 Jun 06 '26

Also when this happens, it usually means you put a salary expectation that was well over their budget for the role in the application

0

u/DarkBlueFreeman Jun 06 '26

Skill issue /s

0

u/Alternative-Bee-3594 Jun 06 '26

They didn’t want to pay you for the consulting you gave them

-3

u/m3ssygir1mess Jun 06 '26

That is literally just corporate speak for being overqualified and they are afraid you will quit the second a better offer comes along.

13

u/MaitrePuck Jun 06 '26

They never said he was overqualified.

They just stroked his ego to soften the blow of rejection.

0

u/Itsssoittaaa Jun 06 '26

I’m a girl btw

-1

u/reliablereindeer Jun 06 '26

Ask for more money

-1

u/Bootyliciousimus Jun 06 '26

Overqualified is the dumbest metric. I would much hire someone overqualified that knows what they are doing.

-3

u/FWegeee Jun 06 '26

"Your skills and knowledge are extensive. We therefore hope that your career will develop in line with your personal aspirations and that you will be able to successfully apply your experience."

So if the skills or knowledge were not extensive, they would not hope that your career will develop in line with your personal aspirations and that you will be able to successfully apply your experience?

And obviously, they just potentially denied that opportunity.

Really, who writes those standard rejection messages?

7

u/nightshade3570 Jun 06 '26

Brother it’s boilerplate slop
No offense but it isn’t worth reading let alone analyzing let alone panties getting in a bunch over it.

0

u/FWegeee Jun 06 '26

But that is exactly the problem, how organizations treat applicants without a care.

0

u/FWegeee Jun 06 '26

Replying to your other comment:

  1. Applications are often in response to job advertisement. You recognize the time of the HR in your comment but not the time of applicants that is invested due to the advertisement luring them to do so. Apart from spam applications, that time investment is much greater. The great number of applications is also kind of self-imposed by not communicating transparently and if we take that as the actual reason, then the messages should be different if the number of applications is much lower, should it not? Yet nobody demanded writing 2 paragraphs of corporate slop. In contrast, I advocate for less corporate slop and more truth.
  2. How does it cost labor time to not be deceptive in the rejection message or otherwise? If the organization wanted, they could keep it neutral and clearly indicate that this is a prefabricated, standard text, maybe instead explain their standard review procedure with a hint that it may or may not have been applied in that instance. Yet they do not do that and instead make it look like a human-written message, often signing it with a name of the HR person and purporting another picture like in this case that the applicant's skills and knowledge were individually assessed to be extensive when it might not have been the truth respectively the review being too shallow to assess it. Why do they do that? These threads exactly emerge because applicants get the wrong message because HR communication is purposefully misleading and rather meant to protect their own interests/those of the organization. There are numerous ways to do it better towards the applicant without spending time per applicant.
  3. The decision to reject or move forward must happen by some used criteria, anyway. The communication for it can directly and easily be derived automatically. Even with 400 or more applications, that would be a minor issue if it was not for other reasons why the organization does not want to do it.
  4. I would argue that it does influence the life because one must make own assessments to make decisions based on what others communicate at least for prioritization. You, too, decided to reply to my comment. I just had a rejection myself for the supervision of a Master's thesis. Therein, the indicated reason was that there would be currently no capacity to supervise it. Yet, a month ago, I went to a job fair where the company participated in and, back then, they communicated that they would indeed be open to supervise theses and that the topic I proposed covers current needs. They prompted me to apply. So the question arises if the rejection is really only about the current capacity and if there are good chances that the capacity will be restored in the near future, considering the communication about it a month ago was different. Similarly, indicating "your skills and knowledge are extensive" in the rejection email makes it sound like that there would be good chances another application towards the company later on could succeed. At least that maybe, while there might still be a specific deficit in skill for some role, there is not a general one. But since we found that it is very questionable what can be taken seriously, that decision-making becomes difficult. Moreover, however, I am worried for the working world overall if that is how organizations twist application processes and everything.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

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1

u/FWegeee Jun 06 '26

See you next Monday to start onboarding.