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Julia Torrejón
Julia Torrejón

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Neurodiverse Friendly Recruitment Process

The term neurodiversity refers to variation in the human brain regarding sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions in a non-pathological sense. More information can be found on Wikipedia.

Diverse and inclusive companies who are committed to hiring should also be committed to developing an accessible recruitment experience with the aim to provide an equal opportunity to all during the job application process.

  • What is your recruitment approach to neurodiversity and inclusion?
  • How do you make recruitment inclusive for neurodiverse candidates?
  • Do you allow any reasonable adjustments for technical interviews?

Top comments (2)

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individualit profile image
Artur Neumann

Not sure it's quite the same but I understood a while ago that some people are better writing down ideas and others are better verbally explaining them, specially in a stressful test situation. And that test situation is anyway not what the real situation in the job will be.
So our approach is to give applicant some coding exercises that have to be solved by themselves on their computer. After the test we call everybody in and chat about their code, their ideas and their approaches. That gives people an extra chance, who have been too nervous to write it down, who ran out of time or for some other reasons haven't written down anything much

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juliatorrejon profile image
Julia Torrejón

I think companies could make their recruitment process more inclusive by:

  • Identifying and clearly explaining which skills and experience are essential for the role
  • Providing guidance notes to explain the structure of the interview and including examples of questions
  • Asking clear and specific questions and avoiding open-ended or hypothetical questions
  • Allowing applicants to know the questions they will be asked in advanced
  • Holding interviews or assessments in suitable and quiet spaces away from distractions
  • Considering alternative options to traditional interviews such as practical assessments
  • Training interviewers in unconscious bias and how to avoid making assumptions based upon an applicant's body language or social competence
  • Ensuring any forms to complete during the recruitment process are compatible with assistive technology such as speech-to-text