[jordanb]

> Do you actually have experience with those programs?

I was hiring manager at a "woke" (media) company during and after peak DEI.

The only policy of DEI that really affected me was that we had to have a "diverse slate of candidates" meaning, we had to interview at least one woman and (non asian) minority. This was actually a problem hiring engineers because we wouldn't be able to extend offers unless we'd satisfy the "diverse slate" meaning we'd miss out on candidates we wanted to hire while waiting for more people to interview. We could get exceptions but it'd be a fight with HR.

Asians didn't count as diverse because, in tech, they are not underrepresented. Basically "diverse" hires were women, AA, hispanic, etc.

Our company quietly walked back the "diverse slate" stuff years ago. In fact I think it was only in effect for like a year at the most.

The DEI stuff rolling out was highly performative. It wasn't in place for really long and quietly walked back. Now, the loud walking back of policies that probably haven't been enforced in years is also performative. In both instances it's companies responding to the political moment.

[Karrot_Kream]

This was exactly my experience in a Big Tech company. I will say, a lasting (IMO good) effect we had was that hiring managers continued to consider diversity of candidates as a factor, but there was no gate in extending offers. Some hiring managers took this further and actually enforced diverse slate style hiring because they believed in it and others didn't care. It also meant that if a req was taking a long time to get filled, diverse slate just stopped being a factor.