> If a good developer you know, recommends someone they worked with: It's almost an instant hire. But for the rest, yeah, it's incredibly tough.

A talk I watched recently by Ijeoma Oluo made a point I had never considered before: statistically, most people refer friends, and most friends are of a similar background, race, culture, gender, etc. It's not intentional- people aren't going out of their way to only refer people like them- but it's measurable. And those referrals are more likely to be hired (they're good people, that's why they were referred!)

Which means referral bonuses have a perverse incentive of making a company less diverse.

I don't even have a good answer to what to do about it, because you're right: referrals are a great way to hire good developers. It's just got this big worrying downside that leaves me bothered.