Human Resource Blog

Lawsuit from Job Candidate that was Not Hired

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Our firm is being sued because we did not hire an employee. She claims that she fit all of the qualifications listed in our job description. While she is right, we still chose another employee that had better credentials. Is such a lawsuit normal? How could be have avoided it? Is there anything we can do now?

This type of lawsuit does pop up every now and then. Usually when it happens, it is either because a job applicant has suffered from a bruised ego or because the job applicant is looking to make some money off of your company. Every business can be sued for whatever reason. The two best things that you can do in order to prevent repercussions are: make sure you have business insurance that covers such instances, and make sure that you have documentation that supports every step.

First, it is good that this woman is not claiming discrimination. It is much harder (and sometimes impossible) to defend a company when a person feels that she has not been hired because of her gender or any other qualifying characteristic. Therefore, you should consider yourself lucky; you are much closer to being on equal playing ground in the courts.

In order to defend your company, you will have to prove that the person you interviewed did not fit the requirements laid out in the job description. For this reason, it is always important that your job description includes basic information about the job, qualifications required, experience required, and any other information that the company deems appropriate (as long as that information is not in any way discriminatory, such as a necessary appearance, age or gender).

Next, the courts will probably ask you to share information about the candidate that you did hire. You will likely be asked why the successful candidate was hired over the unsuccessful candidate. If applicable, you should produce evidence of the quantifiable characteristics that resulted in the decision, such as a lack of the appropriate certificates for the candidate that was not hired. You may also be able to claim that the person had bad references or answered questions in a way that was not compatible with the company philosophy, if these claims are true. You will, of course, want to be able to supply specific examples, and this is why it is always important for your supervisors and hiring managers to document everything important about an interview, even if they know that they will not hire the candidate.