diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 39106bb6f4c..ce97a818164 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -321,6 +321,9 @@ Release 0.23.3 - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-4206. Sorting by Last Health-Update on the RM nodes page sorts
     does not work correctly (Jonathon Eagles via tgraves)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-4212. TestJobClientGetJob sometimes fails 
+    (Daryn Sharp via tgraves)
+
 Release 0.23.2 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/TestJobClientGetJob.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/TestJobClientGetJob.java
index 5ba5f25a63b..f929e4f4a8e 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/TestJobClientGetJob.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/TestJobClientGetJob.java
@@ -49,8 +49,9 @@ public class TestJobClientGetJob {
     JobConf conf = new JobConf();
     conf.set("mapreduce.framework.name", "local");
     FileInputFormat.addInputPath(conf, createTempFile("in", "hello"));
-    FileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(conf,
-        new Path(TEST_ROOT_DIR, getClass().getSimpleName()));
+    Path outputDir = new Path(TEST_ROOT_DIR, getClass().getSimpleName());
+    outputDir.getFileSystem(conf).delete(outputDir, true);
+    FileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(conf, outputDir);
     JobClient jc = new JobClient(conf);
     RunningJob runningJob = jc.submitJob(conf);
     assertNotNull("Running job", runningJob);