They will be bored and underpaid (relatively to the job they could have had) and will leave as soon as a better opportunity comes along.
They might leave.
There could be several reasons, I can come up with two off the top of my head: (1) High qualifications usually demand high pay, and the employer can't afford the candidate. (2) The candidate may be underutilized in the position so may not stay with the company or consider it temporary until something better comes along.
Typically employers are hesitant to hire someone who is overqualified for the open position they are hiring for because the consensus is that that person will not be satisfied in that job and will not stay.
Fear of person quitting because of underpayment.
They think the "new" employee won't stay long.
They figure since you won't stay around long since the pay isn't much & you are treated like crap. If you are overqualified you will easily find another much better job somewhere else quite quickly.
They think you'll leave as soon as you can find a better job. It's a bit ridiculous though because no new hire (overqualified, underqualified, etc.) is guaranteed to work out or stay. It feels like they're trying to hedge their bets against a good employee leaving, but the best way to do that is be a good employer!
Boredom, Redundant work.
Here’s a hint: EVERYONE is overqualified. Just hire the person you think will fit into your company culture the best.
Employers want to ensure that anyone taking a position is a good fit and seeing someone overqualified makes an employer wary that the person is going to think the job is too basic, demeaning or otherwise problematic. They also don't want someone coming in who will then demand 6 months down the line to be promoted or the person quits because it wasn't a good fit after all. In either scenario, the employer is out an employee and has to go thru the process all over again.
they either want too much money or will be dissatisfied
They are afraid the overqualified person will only be there to climb the ladder. Also that they would have to pay the overqualified person more money.
The employer may think that overqualified may not stay at the job long term because they can leave the job once they found some other positions more comparable to their skills.
Optimistic answer is that employers don't want someone who is going to get bored and leave. Pessimistic answer is that they don't like people who are smarter than them because it is challenging to work with subordinates who have ideas that cannot be implemented or who bring knowledge that a tenured staff has not been exposed to.
They might end up changing the process that's already existing
They know you will leave the second you get a better offer more suited to your qualifications and that wastes money on hiring and training
Ignorance
-unable to afford what they are worth and rather take on someone with a fresh start with a lower pay “hoping” they will accomplish the goal they set to achieve -concern of bringing the bad habit with them and unwilling to learn the company's ways and business practices
They are afraid their employment is only temporary. But don't take consideration that person might want a change.
They expect more than the employer can sometimes give
The fear they may not stay or will jump ship at the slightest pay bump. This person may upset the apple cart so to speak. Their qualifications may even dwarf their soon to be manager or supervisor.
A healthy team is often the most important indicator of success. Having all seniors on a team or all overqualified people leads to teams with no opportunity for growth and often leads to high attrition rates which severely hurts a team. If someone is overqualified, but still loves what they do and don't want to leave despite limited growth potential then I don't see any reason why an employee wouldn't want to hire them, unfortunately this can be hard to assess while hiring so using the default assumption that the employee will want growth seems reasonable.
Because they are likely to leave when a better opportunity comes along
Because they are afraid they will get bored and quit and they’ll have to start over on the hiring process
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