Hiring Neurodivergent Talent Series : Part 1

Before discussing Neurodiversity in recruitment, let’s take a step back and look at inclusive hiring from a wider perspective. What does inclusive hiring mean to you?

For me, it’s an organisation's approach to attract and hire diverse talent. However, to do that, we need to recognise and address the inequities in hiring processes that create barriers for marginalised groups.

Rajkumari Neogy said:

“To create a truly inclusive environment, we should always seek to fully understand our zones of exclusion and how people want their needs met”

Zones of exclusion exist in every part of the recruitment lifecycle, such as:

• Unclear and confusing job adverts
• Convoluted and inaccessible application process
• Biased applicant selection process
• Interview type barriers
• Biased selection criteria

For example, people with ethnic-sounding names are more likely to have their application rejected due to unconscious bias. Women are still asked about their families and if they intend to have children in the future, despite this being completely illegal...

You've probably heard the saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know", and ain't that the truth! Referrals are often prioritised over traditional applicants, and affinity bias means referral opportunities are limited for marginalised folks.

From a neurodivergence perspective, navigating the hiring process is a minefield. Unemployment rates are startlingly high, for example unemployment rates for Autistic people in the UK are higher than other disability groups. However, underemployment is also an issue; this is when someone is unwillingly working in a lower-skilled and/or lower-paid job than they're capable of.

About this series

This article is the first in my “Hiring Neurodivergent Talent” series. Starting with this introduction to neurodiversity in recruitment, the rest of the series will cover topics like:

• Barriers neurodivergent candidates face in the hiring process
• Navigating disclosure and reasonable adjustments
• Exploring different interview types and potential pitfalls for neurodivergent candidates
• Delivering feedback and nailing your candidate experience
• Addressing and tackling interviewer bias
• Making your job adverts and application process accessible

So, if you’re a recruiter, hiring manager, interviewer, or HR professional, and you want to attract and hire more neurodivergent talent, this series is for you!

What’s the current landscape of neurodiversity in recruitment?

Tech Talent Charters Diversity in Tech Report 2024 showed a sharp increase in the number of their signatories measuring neurodiversity in 2024 compared to the two previous years:

So, organisations are definitely becoming more aware of neurodiversity at work, which is awesome. What about neurodiversity in recruitment?

This is the data from Tech Talent Charters Diversity in Tech Recruitment Report 2024: "What are recruiters planning to focus on in their diversity data?”

As expected, gender remains the most tracked characteristic. However, the most relevant data point is the massive increase (roughly triple) in neurodiversity this year compared to last year.

And interestingly enough, the rise in disability is quite small. Could this indicate that we’re starting to decouple neurodiversity from disabilities in general and treat it as its own characteristic? Potentially, this is coming up more and more.

So it’s evident organisations care about neurodiversity, but intention ≠ action. Neurodivergent candidates are still severely struggling with navigating hiring processes and securing jobs they're capable of doing. So, we need to look at how we can bridge that gap together.

Some of the most common barriers organisations face regarding hiring neurodivergent talent are:

• Having a limited understanding of neurodiversity, so they don't feel confident enough to advocate for it
• Being worried about doing or saying the wrong thing
• Not wanting to look like their efforts are performative
• Not knowing where to start with neuro-inclusion efforts
• Getting buy-in from the wider hiring team: recruiters, hiring managers, interviewers and other key decision-makers

Are we making progress?

Back in my recruitment days, I used to try and champion transparent interviewing (providing interview questions beforehand), along with other neuroinclusive practices, and I was usually met with scepticism. Clients would say things like, “That's ridiculous. How would we properly test their capability if they can make things up?” So, alas, my efforts yielded little success.

Fast forward a few years, and we're starting to see some positive progress. Earlier this year, John Lewis announced that they are publishing interview questions for all roles for all candidates. The Talent Acquisition Lead specifically stated:

Interviews can feel daunting, and for some – particularly those who are neurodiverse – nerves can seriously impact performance. We’ve published our interview questions to allow candidates to prepare and confidently demonstrate what they can do, which gives us the best chance of finding the right person for the role.

As expected, some people were still critical of their approach, saying they want “to be able to see how candidates think on their feet” and “test how they fare under pressure”.

If you ask me, the notion of wanting to test candidates in a highly pressurised environment when their job does not require this (unless they're a fire fighter or paramedic), is pretty silly. Even if a candidate doesn't get the questions before the interview, with the vast range of technology at our fingertips, someone who wants to deceive you will always find a way.

But more positively, many people commended John Lewis for taking this “radical” approach. Personally, I am so pleased to see a company that is a household name setting the standard for what companies should do and what can be done, even if it’s totally different from how we’ve always done things.

And that’s the core message I’ll leave you with: change is possible, even if it’s totally different to how we’ve always done things.

Thank you for reading the first article in my Hiring Neurodivergent Talent series; I hope you enjoyed it!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for great resources, check out my Notion Neurodiversity Resource Bank, which has various collections including neurodiversity in recruitment, reasonable adjustments, etc.

If your organisation wants to attract and hire more neurodivergent talent, either through employer branding strategy/EVP, hiring process audits or training for recruiters, interviewers or hiring managers, I just so happen to provide these services through my consultancy, Parallel Minds ! 👋🏾

Here’s some recent feedback from a bespoke training session I delivered for the careers team at Birkbeck, University of London :

"What I really liked about the workshop was how engaging and practical it was. I loved the emphasis on creating inclusive environments through accessible hiring processes and 1:1 support. The session felt very thought-provoking yet actionable, especially where she had us work in teams to think about what would be most useful for us as a team and our students at the University —it made the content both broad and deeply relevant to our work. It was inspiring and left me with plenty of ideas to take back to the team that we hope to action in the coming week!”

The best way to contact me is to send me an email at parul@parallelminds.io or submit an enquiry through the website.

Stay fabulous,

Parul x