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Do Employers Prefer Overqualified Graduates? A Field Experiment
Author(s) -
Verhaest Dieter,
Bogaert Elene,
Dereymaeker Jeroen,
Mestdagh Laura,
Baert Stijn
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/irel.12212
Subject(s) - field (mathematics) , labour economics , economics , demographic economics , mathematics , pure mathematics
We test whether employers prefer overqualified to adequately qualified job candidates. To this end, duos of fictitious applications by bachelor's and master's graduates are sent to real job openings with a bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement. For the overall sample, we find that overqualified master's graduates are 19 percent more likely to be directly invited for a job interview and 11 percent more likely to get any positive reaction. This relative advantage for overqualified workers is found to be higher for bottleneck occupations. Relative preferences also differ across employers within labor‐market segments.