This article is what happens when you push diversity by fiat and don't extend the initiative beyond recruiting. Even when programs like this are well-intentione

This article is what happens when you push diversity by fiat and don't extend the initiative beyond recruiting. Even when programs like this are well-intentioned, you can see the extremely destructive fallout: the author and those like him are going to look at all "diverse" employees and think, "You got a free pass. You're not as good as everyone else." Let's flip all these changes around to show how it's not about "lowering the bar", it's about realizing that a one-size-fits-all "bar" isn't an effective hiring method in the long run. 1. Update your interview scoring methodology to account for non-traditional backgrounds. (Extra points for ethnicity, e.g., are a detrimental hack that shows how your system is broken.) 2. Don't discount candidates because of their degrees. (While a CS degree may be an indicator of qualification, its absence isn't a disqualifier.) 3. Don't discount candidates because of their educational institutions. (While a top college may be an indicator of quality, I'd rather hire the best candidate from a second- or third-tier school than a middling candidate from an Ivy.) 4. Expand your outbound candidate search to non-traditional channels. (See #3.) 5. Don't discount non-traditional industry experience. (A developer outside of the software industry may be just as good.) 6. Don't discount candidates because of their previous employers. (An ex-Googler may rightfully be an impressive candidate, but they also might be a low-performer.) 7. Don't conflate "years of experience" with "experience". (Very often, 15 years of experience is 1 year of experience repeated 15 times. No one has 15 years of experience in Node.js.) 8. Don't discount a lack of "extracurriculars" like OSS, volunteerism, or other factors. 9. Don't rely on referrals. (You can't staff a company entirely with "friends-of-friends".) All of these statements are focused on broadening your perspective and getting away from statistics. Yes, a Stanford CS major with 15 years of experience at Google and an awesome GitHub profile is probably a good candidate. But a developer from Temple with 8 years of experience in the retail industry may be just as good. Yes: it will take more effort to find those candidates, and your signal-to-noise ratio may go down, but your reward comes in the form of awesome people you never would have found before. Diversity will be a natural by-product, and a way to measure your progress.