Hundreds of large employers travel to college campuses each year to recruit entry-level workers, a tradition two rejected PricewaterhouseCoopers applicants argued this week hurts the chances for men and women over 40 to land those same jobs.

Attorneys for the unsuccessful candidates—men who applied to PwC dozens of times in their late 40s and early 50s—aimed to convince San Francisco District Judge Jon Tigar on Tuesday that 14,000 older workers were similarly disadvantaged by the accounting firm’s system of finding applicants...