[jeswin]

> This is not how "affirmative action" works. "Affirmative action" states that if you have two "equally" qualified candidates you favor the least represented in your society or company. Thus there should be no added risk.

Your definition of affirmative action is not entirely accurate. Affirmative action does not kick in merely as a tie-breaker. In practice, affirmative action almost always causes a better qualified person to lose out.

However, that's fine. We have to take a long term view of the benefits of affirmative action. So corporates, especially those not under as much scrutiny as the Fortune 100, are not automatically incentivized to do this. Which is one reason why mandating it by law might be worth considering.

[ramensea]

I don't think you're correct. However I do not have a lot of experience hiring people, so I can only argue over the philosophy of the subject.

[panda88888]

It really just comes down to the difficulty in assessing candidate capability and predict future performance. Couple that with pressure from executive to improve diversity numbers, reinforce it with bonus tied to hitting diversity numbers, now there's a lot of incentives to hire minority candidate that's good enough and pass on a stronger, non-minority candidate (better by how much, who knows? Interviews are notoriously unreliable indicator of future job performance anyway). :P

Edit: note that if the minority candidate is as strong or stronger than non-minority candidate, it is a no-brainer decision and win-win for all involved. :)