I am an engineer that involves in hiring (technical interviews, assignment reading (we have a home assignment for candidates)) and I have a couple experiences i

I am an engineer that involves in hiring (technical interviews, assignment reading (we have a home assignment for candidates)) and I have a couple experiences in which I felt like my decision was overruled. One was a female applicant. I was reading her assignment and felt like it was subpar and my decision was a thumbs down. Later we went forward with the application to the technical interviews because it was a female and we "really needed to hire one" (to be clear, I didn't even know it was a female until my decision is overruled. We don't receive CVs or names while reviewing home assignments) The other was a minority from a different country. My decision was thumbs down because the applicant basically lied in his CV about his past experience. HR overruled that by saying something like "...in his culture it is hard for people to admit their weaknesses..." and to top it off "we don't have anyone in our company from country X!" and he got hired. So yea, positive reinforcement means you are not really looking for qualification and most things can be ignored to fill some quotas. And you won't be getting that bonus when someone else refers a minority that gets hired.