ASK HR: Your fruitless job search has nothing to do with your papers

Q. By the time I graduated from college, I had acquired my CPA certification. I thought this was a good thing until I started my job hunt. Most prospective employers for entry level jobs claim that I am too qualified for the job while I am rejected for intermediate level jobs because I lack experience. Should I cut out some academic achievements to qualify for entry level jobs?

There are indeed situations where employers consider certain qualifications to be well beyond job requirements. The decision to turn down such qualifications would however usually be informed by the concern that they could be used by candidates as the basis for building inflated expectations which the employer may be unable to meet.

That said, it is not advisable to diminish or underrepresent your qualifications to employers. Candidates who despite their qualifications demonstrate the attitude and awareness that they need to learn and earn their stripes at work are more likely to be preferred by employers.

Most employers understand that qualifications are not equivalent to competence and therefore do not attribute unwarranted importance to credentials. The process of curing qualifications into productivity takes time and conscious practice. In any event, academic and professional qualifications are only a fraction of what employers require from candidates. Besides them, organisations are keen on other qualities, among them sound values; a positive attitude; interpersonal effectiveness; confidence and a professional work ethic. Your application letters and responses during interviews, for instance, should reflect such career defining rudiments.

A number of successful entry level candidates possess accounting qualifications similar to yours. What is different about them? Why have employers taken a bet on some candidates and not others? Consider how you put your CV together, how you pen your application letters and present yourself during interviews. You might discover that your success in searching for a job opportunity has less to do with editing your qualifications than nurturing personal attributes for which no institution grants certificates.