I work at a large tech company. One of the company's senior Black executives was giving a talk on creating a more diverse workforce. One of the attendees (and I actually credit him for his honesty, because he really seemed to be mystified and to want to know the answer) stood up and made this statement:

"I've interviewed a number of candidates from HBCUs, and not one of them has ever passed the interview. Why?"

The executive replied, did you know that there is a course at Yale that is called "passing the Google interview"?

It's just like the SATs. Yale students (as smart as they are) had no more luck passing the test than anyone else if they weren't specifically prepared for it.

The other thing going on is that all of the original Silicon Valley bros were from Stanford and Duke and the Ivies. When they needed to hire people, they turned to their classmates and friends, who were all from the same schools. Those relationships and mutually reinforcing affirmations eventually got codified into a "company culture" and candidates were vetted for a "cultural fit."

It will take another shift in thinking for companies to break out of that cycle. Interviewers need to stop wondering how candidates will fit into a team or culture, and start understanding how that person can add to it.