Irrelevant Criterion

In a winner-take-all competition in which all of the competitors are overqualified, the winner is selected based on an irrelevant criterion.  This criterion is used to decide which competitor is considered to be the most overqualified.  Since the competitors are overqualified on all of the other criteria, the selection criterion has no other purpose.

In my professional career, I have observed this in employment hiring in which multiple candidates are equally overqualified for the position.  Examples of irrelevant criteria used as tie-breakers in these cases include the prestige of the university attended by the candidate, even if the degree is in an unrelated academic field, and the ability of the candidate to respond to esoteric questions during an interview, even if the knowledge demonstrated is unnecessary to perform the job.  I assume that the intent behind these criteria is to use them as a proxy measure of overall intelligence which is then assumed to predict competency.