Lawsuit Claims Eli Lilly Discriminates Against Older Sales Reps in Favor of Millennials

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Eli Lilly faces a proposed class and collective action that alleges the pharmaceutical giant has unlawfully discriminated against older job applicants seeking sales rep positions in favor of younger workers.

Per the 28-page lawsuit, the hiring policies and practices of defendants Eli Lilly and Company and Lilly USA, LLC have “distributed the benefits of [the company’s] enormous success unequally,” and systematically favored job applicants under the age of 40 “at the expense of their older counterparts.” The suit claims Eli Lilly’s emphasis on hiring through on-campus recruitment events and its internship program has unlawfully excluded over-40 applicants from the career opportunities offered to younger workers with less or equal experience.

The two plaintiffs, pharmaceutical sales representatives who are respectively 49 and 55 years old, claim to have been repeatedly rejected from employment with Eli Lilly after undergoing either no interviews or “a single interview” with each application.

According to the lawsuit, Eli Lilly’s allegedly discriminatory hiring practices are based in part on its “near-exclusive reliance” on recruitment from universities or the company’s internship program, which the suit says is “almost and/or exclusively filled with individuals under the age of 40.” The case alleges that the only way to apply for sales representative positions in the company’s diabetes and primary care business units is through Eli Lilly’s on-campus recruitment program, which requires workers to be affiliated with a college and initially hired as an intern.

“Eli Lilly typically fills sales representatives positions with interns until there are no more interns left,” the complaint alleges. “Only after exhausting all potential intern hires does Eli Lilly sometimes post these positions publicly.”

Even when sales rep positions in the diabetes and primary care business units are posted publicly, applicants over age 40 are typically screened out early in the application process by area managers and district sales managers incentivized to hire “millennials” and “early career professionals,” the lawsuit claims. Per the suit, applicants over 40 are subjected to “disparate treatment” based on their age and regardless of their qualifications or experience level.

The case contends that Eli Lilly’s preference for younger sales reps is based on its views that they are “more physically attractive” than older workers and therefore better suited to a sales representative role.

“Because sales representative roles are primarily client-facing roles whereby sales representatives regularly interact with physicians who prescribe Eli Lilly products to their patients, Eli Lilly prefers that sales representatives to [sic] have a youthful appearance,” the complaint attests.

According to the case, Eli Lilly’s hiring practices are “no accident” and essential to the company’s corporate culture. The complaint claims that when Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks was hired in January 2017, he began to “publicly stress” that he was looking to increase the percentage of millennial sales representatives to 40 percent of the company’s sales force by 2020. Shortly after Ricks’ public statements, Eli Lilly began favoring new college graduates for interviews and formed an “Early Career Professionals” group to “cater to and support younger sales representatives,” the suit relays. According to the case, “no such professional groups or support groups were ever offered to sales representatives who were more senior.”

The lawsuit alleges that aside from meeting Eli Lilly’s discriminatory hiring quotas, district sales managers have been required to submit any older applicants for “approval” by their area sales manager, and in some cases the company’s vice president of sales, before being permitted to hire the worker. Per the suit, these requests are “overwhelmingly denied” by superiors, who’ve allegedly told managers “not to bother submitting anyone over the age of 30 anymore,” or that director-level employees had a “strong preference” for younger sales reps.

The case alleges Eli Lilly’s conduct has violated federal and state civil rights laws, and seeks an injunction ending the defendants’ allegedly discriminatory policies and an award of back and front pay and damages for certain workers who were allegedly harmed by the company’s conduct.

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