Valentina Janek, who’s over 40, has heard the “you’re-over-qualified” excuse before.

Janek, who started a networking group for the jobless called the Long Island Breakfast Club, has been looking for a job for a while and believes age bias is alive and well in the job market today.

“Overqualified is another word for disqualified,” she explained. “If you interview with someone not as experienced as you, you won’t get the job.”

It’s something I hear often from people in the mid-stream of their careers, and even though employment discrimination based on age is clearly illegal under the nation’s labor laws, it happens often.

What are these hiring managers and HR folks really thinking when they say “overqualified”? (more…)