Overqualified human resources, career development experiences, and work outcomes: Leveraging an underutilized resource with political skill

• We argue for providing the overqualified with career development opportunities.
• We propose political skill aids the overqualified in capitalizing on opportunities.
• We suggest development opportunities benefit both the overqualified and the firm.
• We recommend firms seek out rather than shy away from hiring the overqualified.

We argue in this paper that overqualified employees represent an underutilized human resource that has the potential to be leveraged in impactful ways to enhance both personal and organizational effectiveness. Our proposed framework suggests that if organizations provide opportunities for employees to engage in career development experiences (i.e., job crafting, informal leadership, mentoring relationships), politically skilled overqualified employees will capitalize on these opportunities and utilize their additional knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience to make unique contributions, providing valued human resources to the organizations. Furthermore, the politically skilled overqualified employees' capitalization on opportunities to undertake career development opportunities will results in positive outcomes for both the employees (i.e., increased job satisfaction and reputation) and the organization (i.e., increased organizational commitment). Implications and directions for future research are discussed.