And once again, the fallacy of the “most qualified candidate” pops up among a bunch of white guys who are sure the system is rigged against them. Sure, if you could accurately rank 10,000 applicants from 1-10,000 you’d always do best to take however many you need straight off the top of the stack. That isn’t even remotely possible. The standard for ranking airline pilot aptitude to that degree of accuracy simply doesn’t exist.

The reality is there are usually a handful of standouts at the top, and an under-qualified group at the bottom. Once you give preference to the former & discard the latter, what you're left with is a big group in the middle that all look essentially equal on paper. To put it another way, there’s a big difference between #1 & #2,000. But no discernible difference between #2,000 & #7,000.

Essentially, any of us who had to make the final decisions on selection would have to rely on some arbitrary metrics to do so. I’m not saying UAL’s diversity initiative is perfect in its conception or application, but if you see intrinsic value to your company in a well diversified labor force, there’s no reason you shouldn’t build that into your metrics for sorting equally qualified candidates- as long as you’re not promoting discernibly under-qualified candidates. Anyone who feels that diverse demographics in hiring necessarily means that more qualified white males have been passed over should probably examine why they feel that way.