Rejected applicant’s convinced he’s the most qualified
July 1, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Assessing the right candidate, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views, Law
Hiring decisions are rarely easy — they often come down to trying to pick the best out of two or more similarly qualified candidates. Having that choice is great, but it can make it tough to prove some decisions were made objectively without bias.
In one case, an applicant was turned down for a job he thought should have been his. He was African American, and the hired applicant was Caucasian.
He claimed he was more qualified and “mature” than the guy who got the job. The company said both were qualified, but the other applicant was a better fit.
The rejected applicant sued for bias. In court, he gave no specific reason why his qualifications were better — his experience and education weren’t any more impressive than the successful applicant.
So the judge threw out the case. He said it isn’t a court’s job to second guess employers’ hiring decisions. Companies are free to decide who’s the best candidate for a job, as long as the decision doesn’t include discriminatory factors.
The lesson: When two or more applicants appear equally qualified, a manager will often have to use some subjective reason for choosing one over the others. That’s OK, as long as there’s no appearance of bias.
Cite: Spell v. Connecticut, Office of Chief State’s Attorney
Tags: court, discrimination, lawsuit, rejected applicant
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Importantly, the plaintiff failed to meet his burden of establishing a prima facie case of disparate treatment. He was unable to show he was “qualified” for the position due to medical restrictions and inability to use a firearm. The employer didn’t even need to get to the point of defending its decision since the plaintiff was unable to meet his initial burden.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Throughout a long HR career, I have seen with increasingly frequency disgruntled rejected job candidates (even those who were not selected for interviews) calling high levels of the organization to complain and try to bully their way into the job. They are wasting their time because they are not going to be hired anyway (however, a pleasant and nice thank you card for consideration would go a long way in helping chances for other or future openings); who wants to hire a rude and insulting candidate; and someone who is already coming across as a troublemaker and litigation risk? How could they be happy in an organization that they are unhappy with to begin with?
There are never two equally qualified candidates. Some subjectivity is unavoidable. Only if the subjectivity is not discriminatory, the selecting official should be free to make the decision with the confidence the organization would back him or her up on the decision.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I would like to get a read on the opposite situation. We have potiential clients that tell us that we have no chance to get a project with them unless we have diversity on our team (which is currently all white males). They want to see a female and even better a female with diversity. To gain that quality within our staff, is the only reason we would hire some one right now.
How would the courts see that hiring effort?
July 14th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Wendell, I would say the courts would rule that your group has shown a history discriminating hiring practices based on the current lack of minority representation. True or not the assumption is easy to make. I face the same issue and was given the off the cuff direction to hire a minority female. After searching 100’s of applicants and completing 12 interviews, a candidate was chosen. Two days after their hire the perfect choice got a call from a past employee and chose to leave. Now we go to our 2nd choice and after 1 day they realized they were not cut out for this type of work, (even though they said it was a great fit in the interview). Now we move to our 3rd choice, a female but not a minority. This lady has blown the socks off of us and is doing a stellar job. In the beginning it caused a customer riff because we “could not keep” a minority employee but now they are happy with the results we can provide. Go figure, things have a way of working themselves out sometimes.