Existing research on employee overqualification has exclusively examined its implications from either the employees’ perspective or from the leader’s perspective. In this study, we extend these views by examining newcomers’ overqualification during their early entry from both the newcomer and their leaders’ perspective simultaneously. Integrating the self-verification theory and the learning goal orientation theory, we propose that (mis)alignment between newcomer and leader perceptions of newcomer overqualification has differential effects on newcomer anxiety and turnover, depending on the newcomers’ learning or performance goal orientation. Analyses of 430 newcomer-leader dyads using polynomial regression and response surface modeling revealed that the congruence between newcomer and leader perceptions, regardless of the level of newcomer overqualification, was related to less newcomer anxiety and turnover. Moreover, newcomers’ learning goal orientations moderated how they responded to the incongruent situations. That is, newcomers with high learning goal orientation were more likely to be anxious and leave the organization when they felt themselves as overqualified but their leader did not. These findings highlight the importance of considering the perspectives of all interacting parties when analyzing the implications of newcomer overqualification on important socialization outcomes.
