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.

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.

I hope you forwarded that CTO's documented order to candidate so appropriate action could be taken.