Verified answer

It depends on the company and the position.

Yes, it is common for companies to pass on qualified applicants because they're "overqualified."

Think about it from a practical standpoint. If you were in charge of hiring for a company, would you want to hire an attorney to stock shelves? No, because you know that attorney is going to be bored stiff very quickly and will think of nothing but how to get out of there all day long.

The ability to mold an employee is also legitimate, again, depending on the position. Employees with more experience are usually less flexible in their thinking. Less experienced employees need a lot more training, but they can be taught to perform tasks much more closely to exactly how the trainer wants it done. If management has the time, they might want someone with less experience.

You can change your resume to fit the place you're applying without being dishonest. Make it look as elegant as possible if you're going for a high-level position. You can leave out the bells and whistles if you're going for a lower level position. Sometimes you wear jeans, sometimes you wear a suit. There's nothing dishonest or misleading about that.

I am an employer. I can tell you that I would worry about employing someone over qualified purely because of concern that the person would only stay until they found something better.

As it still takes time and effort to train the person for the specific role, I would be reluctant to spend time, effort and therefore money training a person I did not expect to stay.

It would be worth adjusting you cv a touch to downplay your qualifications if you felt they were unnecessary or the job you were applying for.

Anytime I hired a person who was obviously over qualified they kept looking for other work and left quickly.

It is one red flag