+1 on the approach - I've been in situations where I wasted my time when later it became clear they were looking for an "under-represented" candidate. This is

+1 on the approach - I've been in situations where I wasted my time when later it became clear they were looking for an "under-represented" candidate. This is very visible in large companies where sometimes trying to move within the company you get blocked by the invisible HR quotas. Everyone knows who applied where and what kind of skills they have so it's very hard to hide, but still they won't admit this straight up. That said though - the very openness with which this institutionalized discrimination is taking place is more than a little annoying. Imagine if they went the other way around :)