Are you overqualified?

Think back to early in your career. Back then, your biggest problem during interviews was usually too little experience. Flash forward. You’ve got 15 years under your belt, along with two degrees and a weighty certification. The problem now? Too much experience.

Overcoming this label is tricky when you’re looking for a new job. It’s not as if you can conveniently “forget” those five years as a vice president of sales or that CFA you studied months to earn. In many cases, you might see the challenge in a jab that appears to be a sideways move–but the person screening your CV just sees red flags.

Is there anything you can do? It helps to understand what employers see when they perceive someone as overqualified.

Writes Elizabeth Garone in her Career Coach column, Dirty words: You’re Overqualifed: “There are three categories hiring managers use to group overqualified applicants, according to New York-based Jonathan Mazzocchi, a managing director and partner with Massachusetts-based executive recruiting firm WinterWyman. First: the candidate has too many years of experience so therefore the role is too junior. Second: the applicant has too many skills and they’ll be bored. Third: he or she has already accomplished too much so they’ll look to leave the new job too quickly.”

Of course, you can tailor your resume, as a start. (There’s loads of advice in thecolumn about how to handle excess education, lofty titles and more). But I’ve learned one other thing that can make a big difference: the story you tell. Weaving a narrative that makes your experience more appealing–and sends up fewer flags–can make a big difference.

Let’s say your specialty is building teams or expanding teams to do new things–that’s something I’ve done throughout my career. It’s easy to see why a hiring manager might think, “she’s been there, done that” when a job entails building (yet another) new reporting team to cover (yet another) expanded area or industry. On paper, I might look overqualified. But, for me, every team, every expansion, is different. Better yet, it’s challenging and will keep me in my seat. And that’s what many recruiters care about.

What’s not different? The skills I’ll use to do the job, of course. But the facets of the job–from the individuals I’ll hire or inherit, to the topics the team will cover, to the inner workings of the organization, to the resources at my disposal–those are almost always quite different. And that makes a similar type of position a great new challenge–and sometimes a stretch–for me. I’ll be learning a new topic area, adapting to new processes and people, and managing to new expectations and performance indicators. That’s exciting for me and keeps me motivated and on my toes. I’m up for the challenge, though, because I’ve got the proven core skills required. Weaving these elements into the narrative has put more than one prospective employer at ease during the early interview process. And it’s helped me secure new jobs.

This is the sort of narrative I bet many experienced job-seekers could build if they gave it a bit of thought. Of course, if that fails, you could do what one expert recommends for your resume: “Dumb it down.”

I think I’d rather outsmart my over-experience.

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Jennifer Merritt is an Editor for BBC Capital at BBC Worldwide.

Image: A businesswoman walks on the esplanade of La Defense, Paris. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes.