You Make The Call: Job description rewritten in favor of younger candidate

“I know Steve was really unhappy when he was passed over for that big promotion,” said Supervisor Margie Brunton. “However, the candidate we chose for the position had more management experience than Steve did.”

“Steve thinks he was denied the promotion because of his age,” said HR Manager Alan Frankel. “He’s suing us for age discrimination.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Margie. “Does Steve have one shred of evidence to show that he was treated unfavorably because he was more than 40 years old?”

“Steve doesn’t have any direct proof of age bias,” said Alan, “but he points to several quirks in the hiring process to demonstrate that his age played a pivotal role in the promotion denial.”

“What quirks?” asked Margie.

“Steve says the original posting for the position included a college degree requirement,” said Alan. “When a younger man without a degree was picked for the job, Steve complained that it violated our policy that forbids substituting experience for education. So we rewrote the description to drop the degree requirement. Then we reopened the hiring process, but still chose the same person for the job. Steve thinks we rewrote the description to ensure that the younger job candidate would be chosen.”

“I disagree,” said Margie. “Keep in mind that it had become standard practice here to substitute experience for education during hiring,” said Margie. “I can point to many examples of job seekers who had less education than experience but we still hired them. We should fight this lawsuit.”

Did the employer win?

Yes. The employer won. The court tossed out the case. The judge said the older man failed to prove he was denied the promotion because of his age.

According to the court, the employer acknowledged that it initially botched the hiring process by selecting a candidate who didn’t meet the criteria in the original job description because he lacked a college degree.

However, rewriting the job writeup wasn’t unlawful, said the judge. Yes, it might have seemed suspicious that the job description was redrawn to fit the preferred candidate, but there was insufficient evidence that the rewriting of the description could be linked to illegal age discrimination.

In addition, it had become standard practice among the organization’s hiring managers to substitute experience for education, even though there was a policy against doing so.

What it means: Carefully review job descriptions

You can avoid getting dragged into court to defend against a discrimination lawsuit by making sure all your job descriptions fit your employer’s criteria. In this case, the organization had to restart the hiring process because its original job writeup didn’t comply with its own requirements.

Action step: Before posting a job description, review the writeup to make sure that it doesn’t run afoul of any of your employer’s written policies.

Based on Jiang v. City of Tulsa.

(From the March 27, 2026, issue of HR Manager’s Legal Alert for Supervisors. To start your no-obligation trial subscription to the publication right now, please click here.)