I am over qualified.
At least that’s what potential employers seem to think. Let me give you a bit of background.
I have been working at the University of Lethbridge since 2001. It’s a pretty good job as far as remuneration goes.
I started at the U of L as a website developer for the Faculty of Management. It was a big job with a lot of work maintaining thousands of web pages. It would have stayed a big job, but for one problem.
I’m too efficient.
I know some people consider efficiency a good trait, but I’ve worked myself out of a job.
You see, when I started, I made all changes by hand. Needed to change the font colour on every page? Would take hours as I combed the thousands of pages changing font tags. Needed to change the header image on each page? Not as big a job, but would still take a few hours.
Then I discovered a few things. Server Side Includes allowed me to make changes to headers, footers, and menus in one place and it would populate the entire website. What took hours, now took seconds. CSS allowed me to store font specifications and the like in one location. What took hours — if not days — before now took me seconds. Coldfusion allowed me to create virtual pages out of one page and database of data, as well as allowed me to give editing access of select content to other people.
I had a choice to make. I could make the faculty’s website more efficient, thereby reducing loading time, server space, and my response time, as well as improving search engine placement, but I would also reduce the work I had to do every day. Or I could keep the website inefficient, but keep my workload. The latter may have involved into a team leader position since the content of the website is always growing.
My boss has been helpful. He’s tried assigning new duties to increase my workload. Now, I provide first-tier desktop support, videoconference support, and asset management. Despite all this, the future of my job is in jeopardy. Luckily I’m unionized; otherwise I would have been fired already.
I saw the writing on the wall long ago, so for the last several years, I’ve been job searching. The depressing thing about it all is everyone who’s interviewed me considers me to be overqualified.
- Web designer for Saskatchewan design firm? Overqualified
- Desktop support for national chartered accounting firm? Overqualified
- Communications officer for Saskatchewan college? Overqualified
- Logistics coordinator for national food processor? Overqualified
- Project manager for tech firm? Overqualified
- Office manager for international financial services firm? Overqualified
- Business support associate for international agricultural products firm? Overqualified
- Inventory administrator for Alberta farm equipment dealer? Overqualified
You get the picture.
So what’s a guy to do?
Maybe you should try applying for things that you’re under-qualified for, and then find a happy medium. Try for president of a University, or even CEO of a Big Oil company. If they still say you’re overqualified, then write a book about how overqualified you are and retire.
Hmmm. Good point. I should have applied for the city manager position.
Work for yourself is the other option.
Find something that you’re passionate about and go for it. You seemed to have lost interest in the web the last time I talked to you, but is there something that you can do that makes use of those skills?
I think I’d like to go into photography, if I were to become self-employed, but the Lethbridge market is pretty saturated. I’m not sure how lucrative it’d be.
Lethbridge is a pretty bad market for photography, unless you can find some specialized niche.
I read a while ago about some folks that were making pretty good money on stock photo sites selling their photos. Produce high quality images, sell them for a few bucks a piece, and make a killing on volume.
I know a few people who sell on stock photo sites. I should check to see how much they make from them.
Of course, there’s also that option of tying in your web skills there — is there some niche of photo sites that doesn’t exist out there?
There’s a lot of really expensive stock sites, and a lot of reasonably cheap/free stock sites. Sometimes you can’t find the picture you’re looking for there though. What about a reasonably cheap stock site where people “order” pictures? The photos that are taken then go into the pool and can be bought by others…
Just a thought.
I don’t want to tie myself to IT work (including web design). There’s no opportunity for growth. If I built such a site, it’d be fine for the first year or so until the challenge is gone.
Or until you sell it for a wad of cash…
I’m just sayin’ ;-)
Even if I did, I’d still be right back where I am now. Money’s not my problem. Having a job that offers challenges and growth is.
I don’t know…but if you figure it out please let me know – I am finding the same thing…employers seem to think that if you are over qualified that you will not stay at a job…sucks…job searching sucks
Luckily, I am still employed, so if I don’t find anything, it’s not that big of a deal. Yet.
That is a very good point…and I think you’ve done the right thing in terms of innovation and technological progress. This helps explain why so many website are so behind in terms of efficiency and technology.
However, don’t forget the number of new skills you learned and the old skills you sharpened by doing your job the best way that you knew how. By progressing the school’s website to where it is now, you’ve kept it up to date (and even ahead) of other school websites.
My point is that you may be overqualified for, but that’s because you should be moving up a level and looking for a new and more challenging job which you are “underqualified for.”
Heres to your further success!
P.S. Eluta.ca is a great place to look for jobs.
Hmmm…well, it would be lovely if you could maintain your pay and work at the University but only be required to work a couple hours a day…thus allowing time to pursue your other passion of photography (which is a very saturated market almost anywhere).
Simon, for the record, I’ve applied for very few web design jobs, and most of the jobs for which I applied were steps up.
That would be nice, Nikki. I’m not holding my breath though. :)
well – your resume is confusing – you want a web design job – but in your resume your objective is different
another advice if you want a web design job – update your portfolio section of this site – besides this site’s design looks like you are still designing like 1996!!
whats up with that!
rdesign a portfolio like stopdesign.com or simplebits.com – you will see the results!
-paul
I have no desire to get a job in web design. The one example I gave in my post was a job I applied for 5 years ago.
That being said, how do any of your suggestions address the fact that the majority of the companies I applied for consider me to be overqualified?