Employment at a public institution

I was recently not hired at the University of New Hampshire. I greatly exceeded the "minimum qualifications" for a certain position. When I found out I wasn't hired, the department manager was dumb enough to admit that the person hired did not meet the minimum qualification (1 year + in related field). Without going into details, is there any action I can take against the University for violating thier own hiring procedure?

An excerpt of this procedure is:
"The position description should be representative of the major duties and will be the cornerstone of the recruitment process, which will result in the legal hiring of the most qualified applicant.

Hiring supervisors select the most suitable applicant based on objective analysis of applicants' credentials compared to the position description. "

To summarize my understanding, the University policy is to compare the qualifications of the applicant to the list of qualifications and base the hiring on this.

Lets "assume" momentarily that the University did not follow its own procedures... The person who did get the job did not have any mail processing experience... Would I have recourse?

John

The law doesn't assume. And even if it did you have no case for anything. They could have hired a monkey and been perfectly fine.

Get a life and quite trying to find excuses.

An employer is not required by law to follow their own procedures. In order to have any kind of a legal case, you would need to show (and at least initially the burden of proof would be on you to show) that you were not hired BECAUSE OF your race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, pregnancy or because you are over 40.

BTW, given a choice between two applicants, one of whom does not meet the qualifications and one of whom greatly exceeds them, it's not unusual for the employer to choose the one who does not meet them. Why? An employee who does not meet the qualifications can be trained; experience has taught many employers that hiring someone who is overqualified, particularly one who "greatly exceeds" the qualifications, will often result in their having to fill the position again six months to a year later, as the overqualified employee gets bored and quits.

There are also other pieces to a recruiting puzzle that don't involve qualifications. Maybe they felt the personality of the other person was a better "fit" for the organization and/or the other people with whom he/she will be required to work.

In any case, no law says they have to hire the most qualified applicant, an overqualified applicant, or that they must even follow their own hiring policy.