But people who are qualified are not considered and discarded because they "don't fit" the idea of some bosses of who should have the position. In fact, many times people who are more qualified, at discarded because gender or race.
Many selection processes ignore merit. They ask for titulation where none is required to do the job or decide someone very good at it is not valid because at some point in life might become pregnant.
Quotas force those people to consider those qualified people who are being unfairly discarded. If you aren't discarding qualified people for reasons unrelated to the job, you are already filling quotas without even trying.
If you work in STEM, then you do know that it is qualified people who are being pushed out because toxic culture. And that includes men who doesn't fit "culture". Like the ones who don't want to go drinking, have no titles (but might be very good programers), the ones who aren't aggressive at meetings... I could go on.
It is a big problem if you lose your best programmer because when she becomes pregnant you make her life hell so she doesn't want to come back after maternity leave. It is a problem if you lose a great analyst because she is fed up of being sexualy harashed. It is a problem if your project manager leaves the company because is tired of racist "jokes".
All those reasons have nothing to do with lack of qualification and everything to do with not so good and not so qualified guys that know that leveraging male-white culture they can get rid of more qualified competition. But that is bad for the company. It is telling that more diverse companies are getting better results.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-numbers-dont-lie-diverse-workforces-make-companies-more-money-2020-07-30#:~:text=Diversity%20%3D%20profitability&text=According%20to%20the%20McKinsey%20study,were%20predominantly%20white%20and%20male.
Or that companies are doing courses on diversity (because it is linked to more profits, not because they care about justice). And it makes sense, since customer base would always be diverse if you aim to a broad market. Sure, when part of the customer base is neglected, someone can make profit by focusing in that niche market. But for big companies, diversity is needed to reach all the customers they can.
You are making the false assumption that all qualified people is always considered for a position, but data shows that that is not true. Also, you make the false assumption that always the more qualified gets the position, which is also false (think nepotism if sexism hurt your feelings). And that people who get there thanks to quotas is unqualified in opposition to being qualified but previously overlooked for not fitting the preconceived idea some managers and CEO's have.
If a company is already judging on merit, no extra effort would be needed to fulfill quotas, they would be filled or even surpassed without even trying. Quotas are a patch for those unable to see that they are discarding talent for no good reason. In fact it is a favor we are doing to those companies, after all, we could just let them fail or try to implement their own internal policies like google does. XD
