New Book Exposes Three-Barrier System Filtering Black Tech Professionals Out of the Job Market Before a Human Ever Reads Their Resume

Career Strategist Byron K. Veasey Documents How Algorithmic Bias, Unconscious Bias, and the DEI Rollback Compound Against Black Mid-Career Professionals — and Delivers the Strategy to Navigate All Three

ATLANTA, June 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new book by veteran career strategist and corporate executive Byron K. Veasey, MBA, MMgt delivers the first comprehensive job search framework written specifically for Black mid-career technology professionals — a group the author argues is navigating a hiring market with compounding structural barriers that most career advice ignores entirely.

Locked Out: Proven Strategies to Navigate ATS Filters, Overcome Workplace Bias, and Win Senior-Level Roles in a Shifting Job Market for Black Professionals (available now on Amazon) documents what Veasey calls the Triple Barrier: a combination of algorithmic filtering, human bias, and the systematic dismantling of post-2020 DEI infrastructure that operates against Black professionals simultaneously, at every stage of the hiring process, before a single human being has made a single conscious decision.

"The professionals I work with are not failing because they lack qualifications or effort," says Veasey. "They are failing because the system was not designed to see them clearly. This book gives them the blueprint for navigating a process that was built around someone else."

Research supports the claim. Audit studies documented in the book show that resumes with Black-sounding names receive 30 to 50 percent fewer callbacks than identical resumes with white-sounding names — a gap that persists even after ATS systems have already screened candidates. Meanwhile, the post-2020 DEI infrastructure that briefly created internal advocates within organizations has been systematically rolled back: tracking data shows Black workers comprised approximately 26 percent of major corporate layoffs in 2023 despite representing just 7 percent of the tech workforce.

Locked Out addresses the gap with a four-part framework: a diagnostic system for identifying which barrier is producing a candidate's specific search outcomes, a reframe of the psychological damage an extended search inflicts, a tactical strategy section covering ATS-compliant resume writing, Black professional network activation, interview bias navigation, salary negotiation, and the stay/pivot/leave decision, and a long-game career resilience framework built on five pillars designed to survive future disruptions.

The book also includes a chapter addressed directly to organizations, making the business case — grounded in McKinsey Diversity Wins research and team decision-making studies — for seven structural interventions that produce both equity and competitive advantage.

"Most diversity conversations focus on moral arguments," Veasey says. "This chapter speaks in the language organizations actually respond to: competitive risk, talent market positioning, and measurable return on investment."

Locked Out is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. It is Veasey's first book.

About the Author

Byron K. Veasey, MBA, MMgt has spent more than 35 years in corporate America — at Deloitte, AT&T, KPMG, Arthur Andersen, Southern Company, and Morgan Stanley — and a decade advising mid-career professionals navigating job transitions. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Dallas Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree, and Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, he writes the Career Strategies newsletter for more than 3,000 professionals. He lives and works in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Contact:
Byron Veasey
Phone: 404-550-8995 
Email: [email protected] 
Website: https://www.careerstrategies.jobs/

SOURCE Byron Veasey Career Strategies