Derek Mobley, 50, an IT professional from North Carolina, has filed a lawsuit against recruiting software company Workday, alleging that its algorithm unfairly rejected him from over 100 job applications between 2017 and 2019 due to his age, race, and disabilities.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Mobley noticed a pattern: despite being qualified, he was either quickly turned down – sometimes within an hour – or never received a response. What stood out to him was that most of the companies he applied to used Workday’s hiring platform.
Mobley, an African-American who lives with anxiety and depression, said the repeated rejections didn’t add up. “There’s a standard bell curve in statistics. It didn’t make sense that my failure rate was 100%,” he told reporters. “It dawned on me that this must be some kind of server reviewing these applications and turning me down.”
In 2023, Mobley filed a lawsuit claiming that Workday’s algorithmic screening system discriminated against him, flagging his age, race, and mental health as undesirable traits. He also pointed to personality tests built into the application process that may have detected his conditions.
Last month, a California court ruled that Mobley’s case could move forward – a potentially landmark decision that could open the door to lawsuits from millions of job seekers over the age of 40.
Workday has pushed back, stating that its system simply matches CV keywords with job requirements and assigns scores based on those matches. While employers can include screening questions that trigger automatic rejections, the company emphasised that the final hiring decisions rest with the employers themselves.
“There’s no evidence that the technology results in harm to protected groups,” the company said in a statement.
However, hiring experts warn that automated scoring systems can inadvertently filter out qualified candidates, for reasons ranging from resume gaps to subtle mismatches with job criteria. Mobley’s case brings renewed attention to the hidden biases within AI-driven recruitment and the challenges faced by marginalised job seekers in the age of algorithmic hiring.