[the_lonely_road]

Not sure why this guy is downvoted. His comment is 100% true in at least some contexts. In a past life I worked at a state university. Greater than 80% of positions during my tenure were filled by nepotism. Friends and family of a currently employed person. Every time they would post the job, bring in 2 poor sobs to interview alongside the friend or family member, and then hire the friend or family member even when they were glaringly weaker (the most egregious example I remember was for a position running a copy center for one of the colleges and one of the passed over interview candidates had 10 years of experience at a local Kinkos like shop. The actual person hired had been a stay at home mom for the last 10 years, and worked in retail before that. She was also a close friend of one of the people at the college where the copy shop was located. Both were asking for commensurate pay.)

[zdragnar]

Yes, academia and private can both be bad about this, but because of DEI initiatives, my friend got sent to many second and third interviews even though they didn't plan on hiring him.

Had he been a vanilla white guy, fewer places would have wasted his time. Instead they used him. Universities were especially bad about doing this, though not the only ones.