This is extremely common among my recruiter friends. I know several and keep in touch in order to have my finger on the pulse of the hiring industry.
The vast majority of their clients seem to word it like "we'd love to have great talent" followed by "do you have any non-white, preferably women engineers?"
Since this is all off the books conversation it would be difficult to bring up a sexism or racism case. But there is currently a distinct, non-meritocratic, sub-industry cropping up in recruiting and it's getting more aggressive. Companies are being subverted in the name of "Diversity and Inclusion".
I have personal experience with this. When I was working out of a bay area consulting shop the "diverse" candidates were most often hired onto client projects despite experience levels not being the same. Again, the internal sales people had no choice. The companies would ask for "diverse" engineers off the books. I've also been passed up for promotion vs less tenured (but similarly experienced) engineers because the next rank up wasn't diverse enough. This one was not confirmed through any source but was deduced by the racial make up of promotion and personally knowing the promoted engineers. You'd expect it to be more random.
Racism is acceptable to big tech. It's both obvious and appalling.
The vast majority of their clients seem to word it like "we'd love to have great talent" followed by "do you have any non-white, preferably women engineers?"
Since this is all off the books conversation it would be difficult to bring up a sexism or racism case. But there is currently a distinct, non-meritocratic, sub-industry cropping up in recruiting and it's getting more aggressive. Companies are being subverted in the name of "Diversity and Inclusion".
I have personal experience with this. When I was working out of a bay area consulting shop the "diverse" candidates were most often hired onto client projects despite experience levels not being the same. Again, the internal sales people had no choice. The companies would ask for "diverse" engineers off the books. I've also been passed up for promotion vs less tenured (but similarly experienced) engineers because the next rank up wasn't diverse enough. This one was not confirmed through any source but was deduced by the racial make up of promotion and personally knowing the promoted engineers. You'd expect it to be more random.
Racism is acceptable to big tech. It's both obvious and appalling.