What are you being told you are too old or too new for?
"Underqualified" and "overqualified" are the same move: a way of saying no without saying why. Telling a real objection from an empty one is much easier with other people reading the exact words.
Nikhil SharmaOctober 6, 20262 min read
Both ends of this community hear a version of the same sentence.
At one end: you do not have the experience, so we cannot give you the job that would give you the experience.
At the other: you have too much experience — which gets called overqualified, because the honest word is expensive.
They sound like opposites. They are the same move. Both are a way of saying no without saying why.
Why it matters which one you are getting
Sometimes there is a real objection underneath, and a real objection can be answered.
"Too junior" sometimes means we do not believe you can work unsupervised, which is answerable with evidence of unsupervised work. "Overqualified" sometimes means we think you will leave in eight months, which is answerable by addressing the eight months directly rather than pretending the thought has not occurred to both of you.
And sometimes there is nothing underneath at all. The budget went. The role was always earmarked. Somebody's cousin applied. In those cases you are polishing a rejection that was never about you, and every hour spent on it is an hour not spent somewhere the door is actually open.
Telling them apart
Alone, this is very hard. The rejection arrives with no information in it by design, and the mind fills the gap with whatever it already feared about itself.
With three other people looking at the exact words, it is much easier. Not because the group knows more about your field, but because they are not carrying your particular fear, and so they read the sentence as a sentence rather than as a verdict.
That is most of what this room is for.
How to bring one
Three things, and the third is the one people leave out.
What the door was — the role, the stage you reached, how long it took.
The exact words — not your summary of them. The summary has already done interpretive work and the interpretation is the thing in question.
What you suspect is really behind it — say the suspicion out loud. It is usually either confirmed quickly or dismantled quickly, and both are better than carrying it.
