Too good for the job, right for a worse one
The company skipped its usual automated scheduling and rang him personally. That is normally a good sign.
They opened by telling him he was overqualified. Their reasoning: people with strong CVs leave once something better comes along, so it is safer not to hire them at all.
Then, in the same conversation, they offered him a different role — a float pool position, ten-plus miles of driving a day around Puget Sound, with a one-time stipend to cover it.
He applied for that one too.
Overqualified is a judgement about the role, not the person, and it can only
be reached by the employer who wrote the role. Reaching it during the
interview means it was never tested beforehand — and offering a lesser job in
the same call concedes the candidate was employable all along.