Just over a year ago, two people who had been turned down after applying for jobs at Google filed a lawsuit against the company. They claimed they were rejected because of their age. Both were over 40.
A federal court in San Jose is now being asked to decide whether many others who sought jobs at Google and were also rejected can join this case.
On Wednesday, a motion for conditional certification of collective action status was filed. This motion, similar to a class action, seeks to include "all individuals who interviewed in-person for any software engineer, site reliability engineer, or systems engineer position with Google in the United States during the time period from August 13, 2010 through the present; were age 40 or older at the time of the interview; and were refused employment by Google."
A large number of people may be eligible. Google reportedly gets more than 2 million job applications a year, but it isn't known how many applicants receive in-person interviews.
The court is being asked to make this an "opt-in" case -- meaning potential parties must decide whether to join this action. The plaintiff's motion, if it succeeds, will require Google to provide the names and contact information of every applicant over age 40 who interviewed in-person for a job in one of the three engineering areas. The affected individuals will then be contacted.
A decision by the court on this motion is months away.
Cheryl Fillekes, a programmer and one of two parties in this case, is pressing forward with this collective-action claim. She is represented by Washington attorney Daniel Low.
Fillekes, who earned a Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of Chicago and who also undertook postdoctoral work at Harvard, said she was invited for in-person interviews on four different occasions and was rejected each time.
The lawsuit alleges Google "engaged in a systematic pattern" of discrimination against people over the age of 40. It cited data from Payscale that put the median age of Google's workforce at 29, with a margin of error of 4%. It says the median age for computer programmers in the U.S. is 43.
The other party to this case, Robert Heath, a software engineer, was rejected after a technical telephone interview. His attorney, Dow Patten in San Francisco, said they are pursuing the age discrimination claim and will seek to join Fillekes' conditional certification of collective action.
That may broaden the case to include people who were rejected after telephone interviews.
A trial is scheduled for May 2017. A Google spokesman said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.
The motion by Fillekes identifies several other Google job applicants, but only by their initials. A summary of their experiences with Google is described in the motion.
One woman seeking a job at Google said an "interviewer expressed concern about a cultural fit, noting that she might not be up for the 'lifestyle.'"
According to the court document, this unidentified woman assured the interviewer "that she was willing to work long hours," but "the interviewer replied that he was still worried that she was not Googley enough."