I can't speak for anyone else, but as far as my hiring process, I don't interview like 5 candidates to decide which one I want for one position. I interview them one at a time, and if I think you are qualified enough to meet or beat my standards, then you get an offer. The strategy closely follows optimal solution for The Secretary Problem[0], and I passed the cutoff interview years ago. (I am very fortunate in this regard in that I've never really had headcount restrictions because every company I've ever worked for has basically told me "HIRE HIRE HIRE HIRE" and I can never actually hire enough people to fill that headcount.)

With that in mind, from my perspective the goal of diversity is to increase the number of diverse candidates in the pipeline, which should theoretically lead to an increase in diverse talent on the teams. The goal is NOT to reduce the number of white men in the pipeline. In other words, if you're a cis straight white guy and you're qualified, I'm not going to say "no, I don't need another white guy" and reject you just because of your race and gender. First and foremost, that's illegal. And second, it's a dick move. And I try really hard to live by Wheaton's Law[1]. I've never done that and don't intend to ever do that. Talent is talent, and any hiring manager would be an idiot to turn it away for arbitrary reasons. (Sadly, there are a lot of idiots out there.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem [1] http://www.wheatonslaw.com/

> the goal of diversity is to increase the number of diverse candidates in the pipeline, which should theoretically lead to an increase in diverse talent on the teams.

That's a good goal. You seem to have a good approach to it.

> So when faced with a resume, I know that the non-diverse candidate got there on merit alone. But the "diverse" one? Maybe it was merit, maybe it was the quota... Why should I be the one to take the risk?

So the white candidate benefits from your attributing their career progress to merit alone, while the non-white candidate has to work extra hard to convince you, and every other potential interviewer, in a short amount of time that their career progress was legitimately earned. Maybe they'll be able to persuade you, maybe they won't. You might consider yourself to be unbiased and just doing a basic risk assessment ("Why should I be the one to take the risk?"), but maybe other managers would really just prefer to work with other white people, using thin excuses like "better culture fit."

Let's say that this type of bias leads to 10% fewer offers being made toward a non-white candidate than a comparable white candidate. Now multiply that by the number of interviews a person needs to go through to amass a decent amount of experience in their field. Think of the compounding effects!

This is exactly why we need programs that prioritize diversity in hiring, to try to chip away at the biases that non-white candidates often face.