GILMAN, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court, in which BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Chief Circuit Judge, DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, and CLAY, Judges, joined. KRUPANSKY, Judge (pp. 578-597), delivered a separate dissenting opinion. BOGGS, Judge (p. 597), also delivered a separate dissenting opinion, in which BATCHELDER, Judge, joined.
OPINION
GILMAN, Circuit Judge.Donald G. Wexler was hired as a sales representative by White’s Fine Furniture, Inc. in September of 1993. He was 55 years old at the time. Less than two years later, Wexler was promoted to be the manager of the company’s Morse Road store. Wexler, however, was demoted in June of 1997, after sales at the store had significantly declined. At a private meeting during which Wexler was informed of his demotion, the two senior corporate officers made several adverse references to Wexler’s age. Wexler’s age was again mentioned when the company’s president announced the demotion to the store’s other employees. During this same speech, the youth of Wexler’s successor was emphasized.
Wexler filed suit against White’s, claiming that his demotion violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The district court granted summary judgment to White’s after concluding that Wexler was not qualified for his job as store manager and that, even if Wexler were qualified, White’s had proffered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for his demotion. A panel of this court affirmed the district court’s decision, but we *568subsequently granted Wexler’s petition for a rehearing en banc and vacated the panel’s decision. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual background
White’s owns and operates retail furniture stores in the greater Columbus, Ohio area. In September of 1993, Wexler was hired by Gordon Schiffman to work as a sales representative at the Morse Road store. Schiffman, the president, chief executive officer, and a controlling shareholder of White’s, was in his mid-sixties at the time. In February of 1995, Wexler became the manager of the Morse Road store. Wexler was 57 years old when Schiffman promoted him.
Sales at the Morse Road store began to decline in late 1996. Between November of 1996 and May of 1997, for example, average monthly sales at the store were 30% lower than they had been the previous year. Wexler himself sold 48% less furniture during that time period than he had during the same six-month interval the prior year.
Schiffman, as president, and David Lively, the executive vice-president, met with Wexler on June 9, 1997. During this meeting, Schiffman expressed dissatisfaction with the store’s declining sales and criticized Wexler for failing to fulfill certain aspects of his managerial duties. Wexler responded in writing to these criticisms the following day. His response included a discussion of the fact that furniture sales were declining nationwide. He also noted that, in early June, Lively had admitted that the declining sales were not Wexler’s fault and that White’s had scaled back advertising for the Morse Road store.
Schiffman and Lively advised Wexler six days later that the company planned to demote him to his former job as a sales representative. In order to encourage Wexler to accept the demotion, Schiffman and Lively offered him a higher commission on the furniture he sold than he had received when he was originally a sales representative. According to Wexler, he had the following exchange with Schiffman at the beginning of this meeting:
Gordon [Schiffman] had a smile on his face, said he had read the paper that I had given him [responding to Schiff-man’s criticisms], and that most of what I had written was correct. However, they have decided to make a change.
He then said, you’re 60 years old, aren’t you, Don? I said, no, Gordon. I’m 59. I’ll be 60 in January. He then said, well, we both have been in the business 117 years. You don’t need the aggravation, stress of management problems, customer problems, taking care of all these salespeople’s problems that keep calling you to the phone all day every day.
Mr. Lively then interjected that they were going to really be grinding their managers in the future, and if they had to sweep floors or stay there until 11:00 p.m., they would do so. And he said it was stuff that I don’t think you’d want to be doing.
Wexler accepted his new position as a sales representative on June 16, 1997. Later that evening, Schiffman telephoned Wexler to discuss how he would announce to the other employees that Wexler would no longer be the manager of the Morse Road store. During this conversation, Schiffman said that he would “just mention that you’re getting older, although not as old as I am.”
Wexler recorded the June 19, 1997 meeting during which Schiffman an*569nounced Wexler’s demotion to the other employees. During his speech, Schiffman said the following:
I’m going to share with you a conversation that Don Wexler, David Lively and I started in January. Don came back to my office one day and said Gordon, I’ve been in my [sic] management for a bunch of years, and I’m not sure what I want to do. Maybe I should just be worrying about my own customer[s] and not everyone else’s customers. This is getting to be tiring.
At that time we were interviewing for managers, because we needed somebody for this store.... But we did interview another guy that we thought was top drawer. We thought that he was just absolutely a terrific kid. He’s about David [Lively]’s age, been in the furniture business about as long as David. He’s about as intense as David is. He’s a fíne guy. His name is John Nielson [sic].
I think you will like him very much. He is a fine, proper young man.... Don’t be misled by his youth anymore than being misled by David Lively’s youth.
Wexler contends that the above-mentioned incidents were not the only times that his age was referred to in a pejorative manner by company officials. He claims that Lively had once offered to retrieve a pen from the floor that Wexler had dropped, “out of respect for [Wexler’s] age.” Lively had also once allegedly described Wexler to a manufacturer’s representative as “a bearded, grumpy old man.” Finally, Wexler claims that Lively had occasionally addressed him as “pops” or “old man.” Lively was then in his early thirties.
John Neilson, who was hired as the new manager of the Morse Road store, was also in his early thirties at the time. Sales at the Morse Road store continued to decline under Neilson’s supervision, and he was removed as manager approximately five months later. Neilson’s successor, Al-vie Crank, was in his mid-thirties when he was hired to manage the store. Under Crank, sales continued to decline. Store sales were $2,507,384 during 1998, as compared with over $4 million in sales during the last full year that Wexler was manager. Crank, however, was neither fired nor demoted as a result of the declining sales.
B. Procedural background
In April of 1998, Wexler filed a one-count complaint against White’s in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, alleging age discrimination in employment. After discovery, White’s moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the motion, ruling that Wexler’s evidence failed to support his prima facie case and, even if Wex-ler had established a prima facie case, he had failed to prove that the company’s nondiscriminatory reason for demoting him was a pretext designed to mask age discrimination. A panel of this court then affirmed the district court’s decision. Wexler v. White’s Fine Furniture, Inc., 246 F.3d 856 (6th Cir.2001). In July of 2001, however, this court granted Wexler’s petition for a rehearing en banc and vacated the panel’s decision. We now take this opportunity to clarify several important, recurring issues in employment discrimination law, including the same-actor inference, the same-group inference, what is required for a plaintiff to satisfy the qualification prong of the prima facie test, and the business-judgment defense.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standard of review
A district court’s grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Holloway v. Brush, 220 F.3d 767, 772 (6th *570Cir.2000) (en banc). Summary judgment is proper where no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In considering such a motion, the court must view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). The central issue is “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).
B. Evidence of age discrimination
Under the ADEA, an employer is prohibited from discharging older employees on the basis of their age. 29 U.S.C. § 623(a). An employee may establish a claim under the ADEA by offering either direct or circumstantial evidence of age discrimination. Kline v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 128 F.3d 337, 348 (6th Cir.1997) (setting forth the manner in which a plaintiff may prove unlawful discrimination under the ADEA). There are thus two alternative ways for Wexler to meet his evidentiary burden to prove that he was demoted in violation of the ADEA. Direct evidence of discrimination is “that evidence which, if believed, requires the conclusion that unlawful discrimination was at least a motivating factor in the employer’s actions.” Jacklyn v. Schering-Plough Healthcare Prods. Sales Corp., 176 F.3d 921, 926 (6th Cir.1999). Circumstantial evidence, on the other hand, is proof that does not on its face establish discriminatory animus, but does allow a factfinder to draw a reasonable inference that discrimination occurred. Kline, 128 F.3d at 348.
1. Direct evidence
We first consider whether Wexler offered direct evidence of age discrimination. Wexler contends that the following six statements constitute direct evidence that unlawful discrimination was a motivating factor in his demotion:
(1) Schiffman’s comment, during the meeting in which Wexler was demoted, “that you’re 60 years old, aren’t you, Don? ... [W]ell, we both have been in the business 117 years. You don’t need the aggravation, stress of management problems, customer problems, taking care of all these salespeople’s problems that keep calling you on the phone all day every day.”
(2) Lively’s statement, at that same meeting, that White’s was “going to really be grinding their managers in the future,” making them do tasks that he did not think Wexler would want to be doing.
(3) Schiffman’s comment during a telephone conversation with Wexler on June 16, 1997, when he said that he would explain to the other employees why Wexler would no longer be the manager by mentioning “that you’re getting older, although not as old as I am.”
(4) Schiffman’s statement during his announcement of the demotion that Wexler had come to him and said: “I’ve been in my [sic] management for a bunch of years, and I’m not sure what I want to do. Maybe I should just be worrying about my own customer^] and not everyone else’s customers. This is getting to be tiring.”
(5) Schiffman’s repeated references, during the same speech, to the youth of Wexler’s replacement.
(6) Numerous prior references that Lively made about Wexler’s age, including comments such as “a bearded, *571grumpy old man,” “pops,” and “old man.”
The district court held that the above statements were “too abstract, irrelevant, and prejudicial to support a finding of discrimination.” In reaching this conclusion, the court relied in part on the fact that Schiffman had been responsible for both hiring and demoting Wexler: “[I]n cases such as this where the hirer and firer are the same individual and the termination of employment occurs within a relatively short time span following the hiring, a strong inference exists that discrimination was not a determining factor for the adverse action taken by the employer.” This inference is generally referred to as the “same actor” inference. Buhrmaster v. Overnite Transp. Co., 61 F.3d 461, 463 (6th Cir.1995). The district court also emphasized that Schiffman was actually older than Wexler when he demoted Wexler. Considering the fact that the decisionmaker is a member of the same class as the plaintiff is referred to as making a “same-group” inference. Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 78, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998).
a. Mixed-motive analysis
In Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court announced a burden-shifting framework for cases where an adverse employment decision was the product of a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 247, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989) (detailing the “mixed-motive” analysis in a Title VII gender-discrimination action), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Norbuta v. Loctite Corp., 2001 WL 45114, at *9 (6th Cir.2001) (unpublished table decision). Under this mixed-motive analysis, the plaintiff must produce direct evidence that the employer considered impermissible factors when it made the adverse employment decision at issue. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 244-46. Once the plaintiff has shown that the unfavorable employment decision was made at least in part on a discriminatory basis, the burden shifts to the employer to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have taken the same adverse action even if impermissible factors had not entered into its decision. Id. at 258, 109 S.Ct. 1775.
The plaintiff in Price Waterhouse was denied a partnership position after a long review process in which the partners’ input on each candidate was solicited. Remarks made by several partners, when considered in the context of common stereotypes about women, indicated that at least some of the voting partners’ actions were motivated by the plaintiffs gender. For example, she was criticized for “unfeminine” characteristics such as her clothing, the use of profanity, and her abrasive style. Id. at 234-36, 109 S.Ct. 1775. Although the factual bases of these criticisms were not challenged by the plaintiff, it was the veiled connection between these perceived character traits and her gender that led a majority of the Court to conclude that there was sufficient evidence that gender discrimination was a motivating factor in her being denied a promotion to partner. Id. at 251, 109 S.Ct. 1775.
Criticism of an employee’s performance, even if true, which is linked to stereotypes associated with a plaintiffs membership in a protected class is therefore squarely within the rubric of a mixed-motive analysis. Id. at 258, 109 S.Ct. 1775 (“It is not [the Court’s] job to review the evidence and decide that the negative reactions to Hopkins were based on reality; our perception of Hopkins’Cs] character is irrelevant. We sit not to determine whether Ms. Hopkins is nice, but to decide whether the partners reacted negatively to *572her personality because she is a woman.”). The association of these stigmatizing beliefs with an adverse employment decision creates a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the employer was motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent based on those stereotypes. Id.; Weberg v. Franks, 229 F.3d 514, 523-26 (6th Cir.2000) (holding that a supervisor’s inclusion of a reference to the race of the plaintiff in a disciplinary report created a genuine issue of material fact regarding the employer’s intent, even though the supervisor also stated in his deposition that he would have made the same employment decision irrespective of her race). But see Dissenting Op. at 53 (decrying this basic precept of employment discrimination law as “thought police” punishing “thought crime”).
In a mixed-motive case such as this one, then, we are asked to determine whether the officers’ statements reveal an adherence to a stigmatizing belief about older employees that was a motivating factor in the decision of White’s to demote Wexler. Wexler has produced a series of statements by Schiffman and Lively that, if believed, indicate that age was at least a factor in their decision to demote him. These statements permit the inference that both the president and the executive vice-president of White’s adhered to the stereotype that an older manager cannot perform in a high-stress management position where the company would be pushing him to work harder and do more.
The eradication of such stigmatizing beliefs is precisely what the ADEA was intended to target. Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 610, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993) (“Congresses] promulgation of the ADEA was prompted by its concern that older workers were being deprived of employment on the basis of inaccurate and stigmatizing stereotypes.”). Nevertheless, instead of drawing inferences favorable to Wexler from the above statements as required by Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the district court elected to believe the explanation of the company’s officers and imposed its own credibility assessment on both parties. The widely differing perspectives on whether these statements reveal a discriminatory motivation provide a classic example of a genuine issue of material fact; that is, did White’s hold stereotypical beliefs about the capabilities of older managers that influenced its decision to demote Wexler?
A factfinder could reasonably conclude that the above-listed statements evinced a discriminatory intent. They were made by the decisionmaker, indicated a belief that a person’s capabilities as a store manager diminish with age, and the first five were directed at Wexler at the very time he was being demoted.
b. Same-actor inference
The district court concluded its analysis by emphasizing that the “same-actor” inference favored White’s. In Buhrmaster v. Overrate Transportation Co., 61 F.3d 461 (6th Cir.1995), this court adopted the same-actor inference, “which allows one to infer a lack of discrimination from the fact that the same individual both hired and fired the employee.” Id. at 463. But the facts in Buhrmaster did not contain any direct evidence of stereotyping from which a discriminatory intent could be proven. The evidence against the employer, in fact, was rather weak. Moreover, the Buhr-master court was reviewing a jury verdict and jury instructions. Rather than weighing the evidence, as the district court did in this case, the court in Buhrmaster was simply evaluating the rationality of the jury’s verdict, and whether or not the jury could properly apply such an inference.
*573Our sister circuits are split on the amount of weight that should be given to the same-actor inference. Some have found it quite persuasive. See, e.g., Bradley v. Harcourt, Brace & Co., 104 F.3d 267, 271 (9th Cir.1996) (holding that the plaintiffs evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to rebut the strong same-actor inference); Lowe v. J.B. Hunt Transp., Inc., 963 F.2d 173, 174 (8th Cir.1992) (“The most important fact here is that plaintiff was a member of the protected age group both at the time of his hiring and at the time of his firing, and that the same people who hired him also fired him.”); Proud v. Stone, 945 F.2d 796, 798 (4th Cir.1991) (urging the early dismissal of cases where the same individual both hired and fired the plaintiff). A number of these courts have concluded, however, that the same-actor inference was sufficient to warrant summary judgment only where the plaintiffs evidence of discrimination was otherwise weak, even though sufficient to survive summary judgment but for the fact that the same person both hired and fired the plaintiff. Bradley, 104 F.3d at 270 (noting that the plaintiff “produced no meaningful evidence indicating either that [the employer’s] proffered explanation was false or that her supervisor harbored discriminatory animus towards her because she was a woman”); Lowe, 963 F.2d at 174-75 (holding that the same-actor inference warranted summary judgment because the plaintiffs evidence of pretext was “thin”).
Other circuits have minimized the importance of the same-actor inference, emphasizing that although a court may infer an absence of discrimination where the same individual hired and fired the plaintiff, such an inference is not required. Haun v. Ideal Indus., Inc., 81 F.3d 541, 546 (5th Cir.1996) (“While evidence of [same actor] circumstances is relevant in determining whether discrimination occurred, we decline to establish a rule that no inference of discrimination could arise under such circumstances.”); Waldron v. SL Indus., Inc., 56 F.3d 491, 496 n. 6 (3d Cir.1995) (noting that the same-actor inference “is simply evidence like any other and should not be afforded presumptive value”).
This latter approach is more consistent with the requirement that, in considering a motion for summary judgment, the court must view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). We therefore reject the idea that a mandatory inference must be applied in favor of a summary-judgment movant whenever the claimant has been hired and fired by the same individual. Such an approach strikes us as being contrary to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986) (“Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge, whether he is ruling on a motion for summary judgment or for a directed verdict. The evidence of the non-movant is to be believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor.”). Although the fact-finder is permitted to draw this inference, it is by no means a mandatory one, and it may be weakened by other evidence. Buhrmaster v. Overnite Transp. Co., 61 F.3d 461, 464 (6th Cir.1995) (describing how the length of time between hiring and firing an employee may weaken the same-actor inference). We therefore specifically hold that where, as in this case, the factfinder decides to draw the same-actor inference, it is insufficient to warrant summary judgment for the defendant if the employ*574ee has otherwise raised a genuine issue of material fact.
c. Same-group inference
The district court also invoked the “same-group” inference in holding that Wexler’s direct evidence of discrimination was inadequate for his claim to survive summary judgment. By emphasizing that Sehiffman was actually older than Wexler when he demoted Wexler, the district court was relying on the idea that one member of a group is unlikely to discriminate against another member of the same group. This inference has been explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in the context of race and sex discrimination. Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 78, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998) (explaining that “[b]ecause of the many facets of human motivation, it would be unwise to presume as a matter of law that human beings of one definable group will not discriminate against other members of their group”) (internal quotation marks omitted). We see no reason why the same reasoning should not apply to age discrimination cases. Kadas v. MCI Systemhouse Corp., 255 F.3d 359, 361 (7th Cir.2001) (explaining that the Seventh Circuit’s “emphatic” rejection in a prior case of the idea that one member of a protected class is unlikely to discriminate against another member of the same protected class in race-discrimination cases “applies with equal force to proof of age discrimination”). Thus, the district court erred when it invoked the same-group inference at the summary judgment stage.
2. Circumstantial evidence
Although we believe that this case is properly analyzed under the Price Waterhouse mixed-motive framework, there is also sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that Wexler satisfied the burden-shifting analysis for circumstantial evidence outlined in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). A three-step framework guides the analysis of age-discrimination claims based upon circumstantial evidence. Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344, 350 (6th Cir.1998) (explaining the burden-shifting analysis for AJDEA claims). This framework first requires an employee to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination. Id. If the employee meets this burden, the employer may respond by offering a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action at issue. Id. Assuming that such a response is made, the employee then bears the burden of rebutting this proffered reason by proving that it was a pretext designed to mask age discrimination. Id.
■' a. Prima facie case
The district court held that Wexler could not establish a prima facie case because he was not qualified for his job as manager of the Morse Road store. This conclusion was based upon the undisputed fact that the store’s sales were declining, from which the court inferred that Wexler “did not meet his employer’s legitimate expectations.” This conclusion is flawed for two reasons.
First, a court may not consider the employer’s alleged nondiscriminatory reason for taking an adverse employment action when analyzing the prima facie case. To do so would bypass the burden-shifting analysis and deprive the plaintiff of the opportunity to show that the nondiscriminatory reason was in actuality a pretext designed to mask discrimination. Cline v. Catholic Diocese of Toledo, 206 F.3d 651, 660-61 (6th Cir.2000) (“[W]hen assessing whether a plaintiff has met her employer’s legitimate expectations at the prima facie stage of a termination case, a court must *575examine plaintiffs evidence independent of the nondiscriminatory reason ‘produced’ by the defense as its reason for terminating plaintiff.”).
Second, there is insufficient proof in the record for us to conclude that Wexler was unqualified, as a matter of law, because of the store’s declining sales. The district court cites McDonald v. Union Camp Corp., 898 F.2d 1155, 1160 (6th Cir.1990) (quotation marks omitted), for the rule that a qualified individual must perform “at a level which met his employer’s legitimate expectations.” In McDonald, however, the plaintiff conceded that he was not performing at this level. See id. Wexler, on the other hand, disputes the contention that he was unqualified. He argues that the drop in sales was due to factors other than his performance and, further, he proffered evidence challenging the criticisms of his skills that White’s initially raised as the reason to demote him.
In Godfredson v. Hess & Clark, Inc., 173 F.3d 365 (6th Cir.1999), a manager’s employment was terminated when the portion of the business over which he had control was dropped due to low revenue. The employer, Hess & Clark, argued that the decrease in revenue was enough to find that the manager was not “meeting his employer’s legitimate expectations.” Id. at 372. But because the terminated manager had proof that he was not solely responsible for the drop in revenue, this court held that there was sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact on the qualifications prong of the pri-ma facie case. See id. at 372. Godjred-son’s analysis of this issue directly applies to the case at bar:
Whether Godfredson was so qualified at the time of his termination is a close question. Certainly, [the] testimony [of the manager who terminated Godfred-son] and the significant losses suffered by Hess & Clark ... support a finding that Godfredson was not meeting his employer’s legitimate expectations. [The] testimony [of the president of Hess & Clark], however, reveals that Godfredson was not necessarily the sole party at fault for this failure. Moreover, Godfredson worked satisfactorily at Hess & Clark for years prior to the pet food business’s failure, and one can infer that he would not have been given significant responsibility ... if his performance had been unacceptable. For these reasons, we agree with the district court that Godfredson had raised a genuine issue of material fact as to this issue.
Id. For essentially the same reasons, we conclude that the district court erred in determining that Wexler was unqualified as a matter of law.
Given the district court’s confusion regarding what evidence was relevant to the question of whether Wexler was qualified, we take this opportunity to explicitly set forth what is required for a plaintiff to satisfy the qualification prong of the prima facie test. At the prima facie stage, a court should focus on a plaintiffs objective qualifications to determine whether he or she is qualified for the relevant job. See Aka v. Washington Hosp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1298 (D.C.Cir.1998) (en banc) (noting that “courts traditionally treat explanations that rely heavily on subjective considerations with caution,” and that “an employer’s asserted strong reliance on subjective feelings about the candidates may mask discrimination”); MacDonald v. E. Wyo. Mental Health Ctr., 941 F.2d 1115, 1121 (10th Cir.1991) (holding that a plaintiff can show that she is qualified by presenting “credible evidence that she continued to possess the objective qualifications she held when she was hired”) (emphasis added). The prima facie burden of showing that a *576plaintiff is qualified can therefore be met by presenting credible evidence that his or her qualifications are at least equivalent to the minimum objective criteria required for employment in the relevant field. Although the specific qualifications will vary depending on the job in question, the inquiry should focus on criteria such as the plaintiffs education, experience in the relevant industry, and demonstrated possession of the required general skills.
b. Pretext
The district court also held that, even assuming that Wexler had created a genuine issue of material fact on the issue of qualifications, White’s had articulated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for his demotion; namely, the store’s declining sales. According to the district court, Wexler’s “attempts to explain the decline in sales is nothing more than a challenge to the soundness of his employer’s judgment in holding him responsible for the performance of the store while under his management.” The district court thus held that Wexler “failed to produce sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that the articulated reason was pretextual.”
White’s maintains that the primary reason for demoting Wexler was that the store was experiencing low revenue. Although a rational trier of fact might believe this explanation, there is sufficient contrary evidence to support the conclusion that this reason was a pretext designed to hide discrimination. A plaintiff can refute the legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason that an employer offers to justify an adverse employment action “by showing that the proffered reason (1) has no basis in fact, (2) did not actually motivate the defendant’s challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct.” Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir.2000).
The district court based its conclusion that the reason proffered by White’s was not pretextual on an unwarranted deference to the “business judgment” defense. Similarly, the dissent insists repeatedly that because White’s did, in fact, experience declining sales, failure to grant summary judgment to White’s “invites impermissible jury nullification of the law.” Dissenting Op. at 40. An employer’s business judgment, however, is not an absolute defense to unlawful discrimination. E.E.O.C. v. Yenkin-Majestic Paint Corp., 112 F.3d 831, 835 (6th Cir.1997) (“Although it is true that a factfinder should refrain from probing an employer’s business judgment, a decision to terminate an employee based upon unlawful considerations does not become legitimate because it can be characterized as a business decision.”).
This court has held that the reasonableness of an employer’s decision may be considered to the extent that such an inquiry sheds light on whether the employer’s proffered reason for the employment action was its actual motivation. Smith v. Chrysler Corp., 155 F.3d 799, 807 (6th Cir.1998) (holding that, in evaluating a proffered nondiscriminatory basis for an employment action, courts should inquire into “whether the employer made a reasonably informed and considered decision before taking an adverse employment action”) (emphasis added); In re Lewis, 845 F.2d 624, 633 (6th Cir.1988) (“Sears does not have to establish that the basis on which it acted in firing Lewis was sound; rather, Lewis has the burden of demonstrating that Sears’ stated reasons are pre-textual. One way for Lewis to do this is to show that Sears’ asserted business judgment was so ridden with error that defendant could not honestly have relied upon it.”) (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Lewis court based its decision in part on Texas Depart*577ment of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 259, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981), in which the Supreme Court explained that “[t]he fact that a court may think that the employer misjudged the qualifications of the applicants does not in itself expose him to Title VII liability, although this may be probative of whether the employer’s reasons are pretexts for discrimination.” (Emphasis added.)
Several of our sister circuits have similarly concluded that the reasonableness of a business decision is critical in determining whether the proffered judgment was the employer’s actual motivation. Aka v. Washington Hasp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1294 (D.C.Cir.1998) (en banc) (“If a factfin-der can conclude that a reasonable employer would have found the plaintiff to be significantly better qualified for the job, but this employer did not, the factfinder can legitimately infer that the employer consciously selected a less-qualified candidate — something that employers do not usually do, unless some other strong consideration, such as discrimination, enters into the picture.”) (footnote omitted); Ryther v. KARE 11, 108 F.3d 832, 840 (8th Cir.1997) (holding that the factfinder was allowed to consider whether the survey that the employer relied upon as the basis for its decision to fire the plaintiff “was actually a sound — as opposed to pretextual — basis upon which to make employment decisions”); Dister v. Cont'l Group, Inc., 859 F.2d 1108, 1116 (2d Cir.1988) (“Thus, facts may exist from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the employer’s ‘business decision’ was so lacking in merit as to call into question its genuineness.”); Loeb v. Textron, Inc., 600 F.2d 1003, 1012 n. 6 (1st Cir.1979) (“The reasonableness of the employer’s reasons may of course be probative of whether they are pretexts. The more idiosyncratic or questionable the employer’s reason, the easier it will be to expose it as a pretext .... ”).
The district court therefore erred by invoking the business judgment rule to exclude consideration of evidence relevant to the question of pretext. As a result, the district court ignored inferences in favor of Wexler that can be drawn from the evidence about whether it was reasonable to blame him for the Morse Road store’s declining sales. Wexler produced evidence indicating that White’s was aware that the decline in revenue was not his fault. He pointed to evidence showing that the management of White’s knew that the company’s advertising strategy had hurt sales throughout the chain, including a decrease in sales at the Morse Road store. If believed, a trier of fact could reasonably infer that the justification for Wexler’s demotion was insufficient to warrant the adverse decision. When combined with the age-related statements of Schiffman and Lively, a reasonable factfinder could infer that impermissible considerations tainted their assessment of Wexler’s performance as the store manager.
Finally, Wexler put forth evidence that Alvie Crank, a subsequent and much younger manager, was retained despite similarly dismal profits. The district court did not consider Crank’s retention as the store’s manager to be material, however, because the intervening replacement, Neil-son, who was also younger than Wexler, was fired after approximately five months. Although the evidence regarding Crank is not as persuasive as it would have been had he directly replaced Wexler, that does not diminish the fact that the company’s willingness to retain Crank in the face of declining sales calls into question Schiff-man’s veracity when he claimed that he would have retained Wexler but for the revenue problems. The retention of Crank as Wexler’s replacement-once-removed thus undermines the explanation that store revenue is critical to a store manager’s job security. This is an infer*578ence that must be drawn, at summary-judgment, in favor of the nonmovant.
In sum, this is a case that on its facts could go either way. This means that a jury’s verdict in a properly tried case would likely be sustained regardless of whether the verdict was in favor of Wexler or in favor of White’s. But that is precisely the point. The conflicting proof and the inferences that can be drawn therefrom raise genuine issues of material fact that preclude the grant of summary judgment in the case before us. Although the dissent labors long and hard in marshaling all the facts and inferences in support of White’s, this does not, in our opinion, diminish the contrary evidence to the point that “it is so one-sided that [White’s] must prevail as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).
III. CONCLUSION
For all of the reasons set forth above, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.