The article quotes an accountant from the 1950s: > hiring decisions were “based on a candidate having a critical skill or two and on soft factors such as eager

The article quotes an accountant from the 1950s: > hiring decisions were “based on a candidate having a critical skill or two and on soft factors such as eagerness, appearance, family background, and physical characteristics.” To me, this looks like the 1950s accountant preferred to hire WASPs. (Especially the last three items.) Now that we've mostly agreed this kind of thing is bad, what we're left with is critical skills and eagerness. So intelligence becomes a bigger factor in hiring decisions because the other factors were pretty terrible.