Applying for a job I am massively over qualified for

[Lasvegas]

I am trying to change from having a professional career to working in a term time only/25 hrs a week role in local Govt as an admin assistant. On the application form under why do you want this job I have explained that I want term time only coz my daughter now at school and I want to swap corporate life for improved work/life balance. I will be taking a drop of 30K pa so I have explained that the savings in a nanny off set reduction in salary. What do you think does this sound like a good reason to interview me? What more can I put to convince them?

It can do, depends on the line manager in question. As the HR person involved in recruitment I had to work pretty hard to persuade managers to interview over qualified candidates and then there's a whole other set of pre-conceptions about mothers! You're right, some managers rub their hands in glee at the 'trapped mother' thing, others get sulky about time off with kids blah blah, you know the stereotype.

But as this job is in Local Government, the chances are there's a HR person somewhere challenging any unreconstructed views. I think that putting reasons for wanting to step down the career ladder will make that HR person's job easier.

I have also considered cleaning peoples houses and working in a supermarket. I am not slagging off people who do these jobs just trying to explain how important the work/life balance is to me. I have not done my own cleaning since I had DD. But I will do anything where by I can earn a min of £6k pa so working in local govt in SEN dept with 'nice' people sounds bloody ideal to me.

Thanks everyone. Will put in the application and let U know if I get an interview.

I'm not saying that it's absolutely guaranteed that the manager interviewing for this post will feel unhappy about having an over qualified candidates. I'm just pointing out that it's a possibility and it's sensible to try and take account of this when filling in the app form.