Takeaway: A company has considerable freedom in deciding how to select candidates for promotion.
Even when an employer uses a young group of interviewers and primarily relies upon interview scores to determine promotions, a disappointed older worker may not be able to establish that discrimination occurred, a recent federal appeals court decision shows.
The plaintiff began working for McDonnell Douglas in 1985. He kept working there several decades after it merged with The Boeing Co. in 1997. In 2017 and 2018, the plaintiff unsuccessfully applied for promotions within Boeing. Both times, the promotion was given to younger candidates who scored better in the interview. The plaintiff retired from Boeing on Jan. 1, 2020.
In 2017, the plaintiff was 62 years old and applied for a promotion to a more senior management-level position. The preferred qualifications for the position included a master's degree and significant work experience. The plaintiff did not have a master's degree and did not submit a resume for the position. An interview panelist asked him about the missing resume, and the plaintiff wrote back saying he had worked at Boeing for over 30 years, and thus his resume would not say more than his work history already had.
Five applicants, including the plaintiff, were selected for interviews for the position. The plaintiff did not prepare answers to the expected interview questions. The ages of the members of the interview panel for the position were 53, 55, 56 and...
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