Around one in six workers in Britain are thought to be overeducated for the jobs they are doing and 58% of graduates are in roles that do not require university degrees. In the US, an estimated one in four employees with a bachelor’s degree are overqualified for their current position.

Many employers now use degrees as a standard entry requirement for roles that were traditionally done by non-graduates, leading to a kind of job inflation where workers are taking jobs that they don’t find challenging.

And while this trend may seem to be working in employers’ favour – they get to bring in a large number of smart, highly-skilled graduates – the reality is it may backfire. Research suggests companies may be harming themselves by hiring employees who are overqualified for the roles they are doing.

Resentment ripples

Having a highly-skilled overachiever on staff should, on the face of things at least, be a boon. But overqualified workers can develop negative attitudes, such as a sense of entitlement about their skills or resentment through boredom, that can ripple out to every cubicle in an office, warns Berrin Erdogan, a professor of management at Portland State University.