This article appeared on CNN.com/living on June 29 from CareerBuilder.com. Click on link to read entire article.

“Sherry Shealy Martschink, 57, is a former state legislator, state senator and worker’s compensation commissioner for South Carolina.

She’s a recent law school graduate and has experience in journalism, marketing and education.

For the past few years during her job search, she’s been told — in not so many words — that she’s overqualified.

“Sometimes the opposition is in the tone of voice rather than the actual wording of the questions and comments,” Martschink said. “An employer may say something like, ‘We are hoping to find someone who will make a career here’ or ‘Why would you want this job after doing such-and-such?’ Another type of question has to do with whether I could be a team player after being in such leadership positions.”

How does Martschink respond to such opposition? Plain and simple:

“If I weren’t willing to do the work, I wouldn’t be applying for the job,” she said. …”

I am a full-time Ph. D. student, in my very late thirties. I am presently very underemployed and underpaid as a part-time private music instructor. As a result I am having to rely on my mother for nearly half of my financial support, which is extremely hard for me to cope with — I feel at this point in our lives the situation should be reversed.

She has chosen not to retire in order to help support me. I cannot get health insurance through my current employer due to a “pre-existing condition.” I have student coverage through my university but it is woefully inadequate — I exhausted my limit for prescription drug coverage in the first six weeks of this year. I have been searching for a full-time job with benefits for over a year now but have so far been unsuccessful.

This despite my having had a 4.0 GPA in my master’s program and having a 3.9 GPA to date in my doctoral program, and being a member of national honor societies in both music and education. It’s hard to tell if my lack of success in finding a “real” job is due to being considered “not a good fit” for those positions I have applied for, or if I’m simply “overqualified.”