Job Mismatch and Early Career Success

Julie Berry Cullen (), Gordon B. Dahl () and Richard De Thorpe
Additional contact information
Gordon B. Dahl: University of California, San Diego
Richard De Thorpe: Princeton University

No 18098, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We estimate the effects of being over- or underqualified for a job using quasi-random assignment of new enlistees to over 130 different jobs in the US Air Force. Being overqualified causes higher attrition, both during technical training and afterward when individuals are working in their assigned jobs. It also results in more behavioral problems, worse performance evaluations, and lower scores on general knowledge tests about the military taken by all workers. On the other hand, overqualification results in better performance relative to others in the same job: job-specific test scores rise both during technical training and while on the job, and these individuals are more likely to be promoted. Combined, these patterns suggest that overqualified individuals are less motivated, but still outperform others in their same job. Underqualification results in a polar opposite set of findings, suggesting these individuals are motivated to put forth more effort, but still struggle to compete when judged relative to others. Consistent with differential incentives, individuals who are overqualified are in jobs which are less valuable in terms of outside earnings potential, while the reverse is true for those who are underqualified.

Keywords: retention; skill acquisition; job mismatch; promotion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-lma
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18098.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18098

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().