Have you met or used the excuse of "overqualification" in your career? What's your opinion with that in a recruiting process?

[FallMonkey]

• I wouldn't list a GPA unless it was very good.

I wouldn't list coursework unless it's graduate -level work. Engineering curricula are identical across the country.
Being overqualified for a job is a real thing--some managers just need a junior guy to come in cheap, do the menial tasks and take direction. They don't need a senior engineer to argue with every g.d.f'ing thing they tell him to do for six months while he looks for a better job.
The only way you could be overqualified as a new grad is if you are applying to non-degree jobs, which you should be doing only as a last resort

In my 7th months of job seeking and with only one offer from government agency (which was secured four months ago and it took long time to process paperwork, during which I still kept job seeking and networking), I have to say that when they called me overqualified, they were basically considering me to jump out in a few years (it's degree job, it is) and they don't wish to lose that bit of investment on me.

Meanwhile, and probably 98% of the time, I'm actually seriously underqualified for all those entry-level degree positions because of my lack of experience. I've literally talked to every company listed in the ENR ranking (engineering or construction) and interviewed with most of them for tons of hours and days, rejected for the same reason of lack of experience while some of those positions being internship. No matter how they appreciated my interviewing performance and other qualifications, or how many people I networked with in the company, THE final reason is very clear and concise, which even makes me wonder how they could not see that in the screening process from my resume.

I probably could only blame myself (not getting internship last year) and the tough market for this, or the whole industry in over-abundance of young engineers? The real world might be a bit different from the world of "construction is at 5-year high peak" and "we need more young talents in civil engineering" on news and social webs...