One man has shared his experience of applying to 50 jobs for which he was overqualified. The goal? To see if recruiters would engage with an overqualified candidate or automatically reject them.
In the video on TikTok, Jonathan Javier, founder of the career coaching site Wonsulting.com, explained: “I applied to 50 jobs where I was overqualified and I heard back from 48 percent of them. All of them were rejections, and I [put that I] worked at companies like Apple, Microsoft, KPMG, and Barclays in the resume.”
He then broke down how he designed the experiment, creating two versions of his resume. “I’m trying to see if recruiters would interview me if I was an overqualified candidate. I created two resumes—resume #1 where the resume was overqualified, and resume #2 where the resume was qualified.” He applied to 50 jobs with each version of his resume, submitting the overqualified resume first and the qualified one two days later.
The results revealed a striking trend: the overqualified resume was met with overwhelming rejection.
In the video, Javier summarized the key takeaways: “This actually tells us a couple of things. Number one, just because you work at a big-name company does not mean you’re going to get interviews. What matters more is if your experience truly matches the job that you’re going for. And number two, the job market is really difficult right now. I’m hearing from recruiters that some are getting 30 applications a day, sometimes even hundreds.”
Pictures from the viral TikTok video of the experiment to see what happens when you’re “overqualified” for a job.
@jonathanwordsofwisdom/TikTok
The inspiration for this experiment came from the experiences of his followers. “The idea came from questions I received from my millions of followers, many of whom struggle with being told they’re ‘overqualified’ for roles,” Javier told Newsweek. He set out to test whether being overqualified really does lead to more rejections, by creating two versions of his resume. “I adjusted the resumes by focusing on experience levels—specifically, one resume listed senior roles like director and manager, while the other included only associate-level positions,” he explained.
While the results were clear, Javier wasn’t surprised and expected that an overqualified resume would lead to more rejections. “This didn’t surprise me because I’ve heard from hiring managers that they often hesitate when someone applies far below their experience level,” Javier said.
“They might wonder why someone at a senior level would be interested in a junior role. In my view, being overqualified shouldn’t matter if the candidate communicates their motivations well—whether it’s a desire to stay in an individual contributor role or choosing a lower-stress job with less pay for personal reasons,” Javier explained.
In a competitive job market, Javier explained that it is important to share these experiences online with jobseekers. “I shared this on TikTok to provide a real-world case study on whether being overqualified leads to more rejections—and the answer was yes,” he said. “Rather than relying on assumptions about the job market, I believe in conducting experiments to validate claims.”
