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Do you really think that companies were hiring that many unqualified people for DEI reasons? Just about every time the subject came up there were people saying

Do you really think that companies were hiring that many unqualified people for DEI reasons? Just about every time the subject came up there were people saying it was just lip service and theater -- put a DEI statement on your company's public-facing webpage and pretend they actually did anything.

leetrout 1y ago
Maybe. I had two different hiring managers in two different companies explicitly tell me and others to hire women or PoC. Yes it was illegal. No one cares.
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - nomel 1y ago
    > why AfD is on the rise Except for the 6 that just died, right before a local election [1]. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-afd-candidates-die-election-2025-q05fsnjj9 https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-afd-ca...
    - humpty-d 1y ago
      No mention that 2 candidates from other parties died in the run up. Or that it's out of 20,000+ individuals contesting various seats. No mention that they are mostly 59+ years old with preexisting health conditions. Luckily it gives us the most critical bit of info we could ask for, that Musk tweeted "!!" In summary this article is shit.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - thrance 1y ago
    Hating on minorities is nothing new, and has always been a powerful political driver. DEI is just another thing to direct that hate to, it doesn't matter what it actually is or does. Also, establising a link between DEI, a vague group of very mild and mostly ineffectual incentives, and the rise of right wing ideology is really dumb. No one would care about DEI if it hadn't been made a major talking point by right wing propagandists. If DEI didn't exist it would be something else that would "turn young men to the right". Don't fall for such basic propaganda. The war on these supposedly unfair hiring practices is being led by rich heirs that never did an honest day of work in their entire lives. Those disenfranchised young men buying the hate are made to turn against their own interests by the very same ones that fucked their opportunities in the first place.
    - ajsnigrutin 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - jachee 1y ago
        I know HN is gonna downvote me into oblivion for this, but… I’m a cis-het white dude, a this rings true for me: “When you’ve been in the majority for a long time, equality can feel like oppression.” Just because a system desires proportional representation does not mean it’s discriminatory against the majority. It just means it’s no longer preferential toward them.
        beeflet 1y ago
        [flagged]
        jachee 1y ago
        When the system is dominated by the majority, and has been for a long time, a correction requires being “discriminatory against the majority”. “The system” itself was incorrect before. This is why it’s called systemic racism/sexism/etc.
- IX-103 1y ago
  Yep. It's much easier to improve your DEI metrics by doing it illegally than it is by doing it legally. I had an internship at a place like that and the first disabled woman of color to apply would have been practically guaranteed a job. Needless to say I didn't end up working there after the internship - if they're willing to break labor laws just to improve metrics then what's stopping them from trying to cheat their employees.
- kenjackson 1y ago
  What do you mean by PoC? Because PoC hiring barely budged during the "DEI era" -- unless you meant Indian/Asian PoC. For example at Google over that 10 year era (from 2014 to 2024) Black+Latino hiring by 6% points. Indian/Asian increased by almost 15%.
  - greenavocado 1y ago
    PoC refers to non-European in HR speak
    - seivan 1y ago
      [dead]
- fennecfoxy 1y ago
  Yes, even in my current job we don't explicitly hire for DEI type initiatives, but there is the general sense that we want to retain as many female or PoC staff as we can and we'd potentially go "above & beyond" for that.
NothingAboutAny 1y ago
Only anecdotally I can tell you when I was at a medium sized (~200 employee) fintech business in Australia, I was told by my engineering manager to hire any woman or PoC that applied. but in my 2 year tenure I think only 1 of either applied, both were hired immediately.
strken 1y ago
If you rephrase "ending DEI" to "reducing the risk of getting sued when laying off x% of staff", does it make any more sense? Nobody knows how to actually hire competent staff because it's a constantly changing bar: if you give people leetcode, they start cramming leetcode; if you review their GitHub profile, they start spending disproportionate amounts of time on projects; if you give them take-homes, they spend 5x the recommended time; if you give them real-world problems in a timed interview, that's probably harder to game, but some candidates will send a completely different person along. On top of that, some people just interview really well but aren't good 9 to 5. At a big enough company, you've always got a list of people who you incorrectly hired and want to get rid of. DEI is a minor barrier to doing that for some cohorts. It's not that you hired incompetent people in XYZ groups to bump up your diversity numbers, it's that you hired incompetent people in every group and now you're unable to get rid of some of the ones in XYZ. Also, let's not forget that some people are just genuinely sexist and/or racist and/or whateverist, either consciously or unconsciously. What happens when those people aren't held back by HR as strongly?
humpty-d 1y ago
I've had like 10x more pressure lately to hire cheap contractors from India than I ever did to hire a woman or black guy at any point in my 10 years of hiring in this field.
Aurornis 1y ago
I don't think it's as big of a factor as the parent comment, but I witness a lot of extremely weird DEI related hiring things in 2020-2022. C-level executives would flag certain job openings as only eligible for women or minorities. I clearly remember a meeting where our CTO declared that he had rejected an extremely qualified male candidate because "we have enough of those". When some people complained they started hiding the details, but it was still obvious. There would be hiring rounds where the only candidates coming from HR were dozens of women for a specific role. After interviewing all of them and giving several second chances we couldn't find anyone qualified in that batch of candidates, so there was a very tense meeting where we were heavily pressured to just pick one. You could tell a lot of the candidates involved in this process were catching on and/or being pandered to and they really didn't like it either.
- tibbon 1y ago
  I hate to admit it, but I saw similar things. I referred someone incredibly qualified for a Chief of Staff role at a company. Their resume was well beyond what the company could have hoped to find. The executive recruiting firm was over the moon with him. However, they basically told him that this company was looking for a 'more diverse background' and as a straight white guy, he wasn't it - but they were excited to take him around to other clients. For a few years, the hiring process seemed broken overall, and in retrospect, it didn't do much to actually help the people it claimed to. I'm all about strength from diversity, but you can't throw away everything to get there.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  I hope you forwarded that CTO's documented order to candidate so appropriate action could be taken.
StanislavPetrov 1y ago
>Do you really think that companies were hiring that many unqualified people for DEI reasons? Depending on what industry you are in, absolutely. I can offer one anecdote that I can personally attest actually occurred. (though I was not the protagonist). There was an opening for a new, salaried, full-time faculty member after the unfortunate death of the previous position holder. During the hiring discussion at a staff meeting at this (private) NYC college the Dean stated, "we aren't hiring or promoting any more straight white men". They said this openly, and without shame, in front of a room full of people including a well-credentialed adjunct (who happened to be a straight, white man) who had worked there for several years, without an annual contract or any of the accompanying benefits. And, in fact, they ended up hiring a completely unqualified black, LGBTQ woman for that position. The woman was so unqualified and out of her depth that she stopped showing up entirely just a month into the semester. The passed-over adjunct tried to file an EEOC complaint but was told (rightly or wrongly) that since he wasn't part of a protected class he didn't qualify. For the next several years, of the ~10 people that were hired or promoted at this NYC college, none were straight white men.

leetrout 1y ago

Maybe. I had two different hiring managers in two different companies explicitly tell me and others to hire women or PoC. Yes it was illegal. No one cares.

ajsnigrutin 1y ago
[flagged]
- nomel 1y ago
  > why AfD is on the rise Except for the 6 that just died, right before a local election [1]. [1] https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-afd-candidates-die-election-2025-q05fsnjj9 https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-afd-ca...
  - humpty-d 1y ago
    No mention that 2 candidates from other parties died in the run up. Or that it's out of 20,000+ individuals contesting various seats. No mention that they are mostly 59+ years old with preexisting health conditions. Luckily it gives us the most critical bit of info we could ask for, that Musk tweeted "!!" In summary this article is shit.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- thrance 1y ago
  Hating on minorities is nothing new, and has always been a powerful political driver. DEI is just another thing to direct that hate to, it doesn't matter what it actually is or does. Also, establising a link between DEI, a vague group of very mild and mostly ineffectual incentives, and the rise of right wing ideology is really dumb. No one would care about DEI if it hadn't been made a major talking point by right wing propagandists. If DEI didn't exist it would be something else that would "turn young men to the right". Don't fall for such basic propaganda. The war on these supposedly unfair hiring practices is being led by rich heirs that never did an honest day of work in their entire lives. Those disenfranchised young men buying the hate are made to turn against their own interests by the very same ones that fucked their opportunities in the first place.
  - ajsnigrutin 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - jachee 1y ago
      I know HN is gonna downvote me into oblivion for this, but… I’m a cis-het white dude, a this rings true for me: “When you’ve been in the majority for a long time, equality can feel like oppression.” Just because a system desires proportional representation does not mean it’s discriminatory against the majority. It just means it’s no longer preferential toward them.
      - beeflet 1y ago
        [flagged]
        jachee 1y ago
        When the system is dominated by the majority, and has been for a long time, a correction requires being “discriminatory against the majority”. “The system” itself was incorrect before. This is why it’s called systemic racism/sexism/etc.
IX-103 1y ago
Yep. It's much easier to improve your DEI metrics by doing it illegally than it is by doing it legally. I had an internship at a place like that and the first disabled woman of color to apply would have been practically guaranteed a job. Needless to say I didn't end up working there after the internship - if they're willing to break labor laws just to improve metrics then what's stopping them from trying to cheat their employees.
kenjackson 1y ago
What do you mean by PoC? Because PoC hiring barely budged during the "DEI era" -- unless you meant Indian/Asian PoC. For example at Google over that 10 year era (from 2014 to 2024) Black+Latino hiring by 6% points. Indian/Asian increased by almost 15%.
- greenavocado 1y ago
  PoC refers to non-European in HR speak
  - seivan 1y ago
    [dead]
fennecfoxy 1y ago
Yes, even in my current job we don't explicitly hire for DEI type initiatives, but there is the general sense that we want to retain as many female or PoC staff as we can and we'd potentially go "above & beyond" for that.

NothingAboutAny 1y ago

Only anecdotally I can tell you when I was at a medium sized (~200 employee) fintech business in Australia, I was told by my engineering manager to hire any woman or PoC that applied. but in my 2 year tenure I think only 1 of either applied, both were hired immediately.

strken 1y ago

If you rephrase "ending DEI" to "reducing the risk of getting sued when laying off x% of staff", does it make any more sense? Nobody knows how to actually hire competent staff because it's a constantly changing bar: if you give people leetcode, they start cramming leetcode; if you review their GitHub profile, they start spending disproportionate amounts of time on projects; if you give them take-homes, they spend 5x the recommended time; if you give them real-world problems in a timed interview, that's probably harder to game, but some candidates will send a completely different person along. On top of that, some people just interview really well but aren't good 9 to 5. At a big enough company, you've always got a list of people who you incorrectly hired and want to get rid of. DEI is a minor barrier to doing that for some cohorts. It's not that you hired incompetent people in XYZ groups to bump up your diversity numbers, it's that you hired incompetent people in every group and now you're unable to get rid of some of the ones in XYZ. Also, let's not forget that some people are just genuinely sexist and/or racist and/or whateverist, either consciously or unconsciously. What happens when those people aren't held back by HR as strongly?

humpty-d 1y ago

I've had like 10x more pressure lately to hire cheap contractors from India than I ever did to hire a woman or black guy at any point in my 10 years of hiring in this field.

Aurornis 1y ago

I don't think it's as big of a factor as the parent comment, but I witness a lot of extremely weird DEI related hiring things in 2020-2022. C-level executives would flag certain job openings as only eligible for women or minorities. I clearly remember a meeting where our CTO declared that he had rejected an extremely qualified male candidate because "we have enough of those". When some people complained they started hiding the details, but it was still obvious. There would be hiring rounds where the only candidates coming from HR were dozens of women for a specific role. After interviewing all of them and giving several second chances we couldn't find anyone qualified in that batch of candidates, so there was a very tense meeting where we were heavily pressured to just pick one. You could tell a lot of the candidates involved in this process were catching on and/or being pandered to and they really didn't like it either.

tibbon 1y ago
I hate to admit it, but I saw similar things. I referred someone incredibly qualified for a Chief of Staff role at a company. Their resume was well beyond what the company could have hoped to find. The executive recruiting firm was over the moon with him. However, they basically told him that this company was looking for a 'more diverse background' and as a straight white guy, he wasn't it - but they were excited to take him around to other clients. For a few years, the hiring process seemed broken overall, and in retrospect, it didn't do much to actually help the people it claimed to. I'm all about strength from diversity, but you can't throw away everything to get there.
Ekaros 1y ago
I hope you forwarded that CTO's documented order to candidate so appropriate action could be taken.

StanislavPetrov 1y ago

>Do you really think that companies were hiring that many unqualified people for DEI reasons? Depending on what industry you are in, absolutely. I can offer one anecdote that I can personally attest actually occurred. (though I was not the protagonist). There was an opening for a new, salaried, full-time faculty member after the unfortunate death of the previous position holder. During the hiring discussion at a staff meeting at this (private) NYC college the Dean stated, "we aren't hiring or promoting any more straight white men". They said this openly, and without shame, in front of a room full of people including a well-credentialed adjunct (who happened to be a straight, white man) who had worked there for several years, without an annual contract or any of the accompanying benefits. And, in fact, they ended up hiring a completely unqualified black, LGBTQ woman for that position. The woman was so unqualified and out of her depth that she stopped showing up entirely just a month into the semester. The passed-over adjunct tried to file an EEOC complaint but was told (rightly or wrongly) that since he wasn't part of a protected class he didn't qualify. For the next several years, of the ~10 people that were hired or promoted at this NYC college, none were straight white men.