Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

You’re arguing a different point. I’m talking about the filter on candidates, not eventual hires. Though of course, people who don’t become candidates will never become hires so there’s a relationship there.

It would be easy to see whether doing X to increase candidate diversity (opening up the filter) led to more diverse hires. Especially combined with blind hiring process or whatever at the individual level. But the individual work alone is not worth much if the candidate pool itself is too limited.

If changing the candidate pool leads to more diverse candidates, and then employees as a whole end up more diverse, it would follow that some of those people brought in at the candidate level out-competed their peers & that the overall standard of hires has increased, or at least is no different.

This is not about a target ratio of employed people. Though I think observations about such ratios compared to the general population and to other similar companies can be informative.

To get at the point you thought I was making though… How I feel about quotas is: they might be an ok temporary measure, especially if managed gently, not “must be a woman” for X role, cause yikes. Hiring is capricious a lot of the time anyway, especially at the margin when there is more than one acceptable candidate and all have different backgrounds and experience. All sorts of stuff will come into play. Good people will still be in demand regardless of their race. But if you lose a couple things because you aren’t from an underrepresented group and another acceptable candidate was, who actually cares. If it wasn’t that, it would be some other nonsense like the guy was the same race as you but supports the same football team as the interviewer, or your interview took place before lunch and the other person’s was after.

Since it’s already capricious and full of coin flips, I don’t care at all that sometimes it’s capricious for a relatively good reason like giving somebody else a shot. Fine.

I disagree completely that we have to be 100% certain about a problem before we take action. We just have to know that, more likely than not, there is a problem, and take measured, cautious steps to address it. To me it would be an extraordinary, mind-boggling, coincidence if it turned out that the status quo was working perfectly to get the best candidates hired.

+1. I work in a senior engineering role at a large tech company. While not a HM, I have been in similar situations to OP - where apparent EEOC violations are casually discussed and documented. I would never comment on or report these issues, though I have saved some "evidence" just in case it’s needed. It’s literally all downside risk to engage in the subject matter. At this point the goal is to get to retirement/FI/downshifting in a few years without being irradiated by these issues.

If you’re reading this and are in a similar situation, please don’t accept this advice without further reflection. On this particular topic, it could very well be wrong. If you’ve decided to report it then I’d suggest using your company’s outside anonymous reporting facility if such a thing exists.