1. Recruitment processes are outdated

“Our research shows that traditional recruitment processes are creating unnecessary barriers for neurodiverse candidates and could be excluding as much as 15% of the job market,” says Steve Collinson, chief HR officer at Zurich. “This is why it’s so important that employers adopt inclusive practices at the hiring level – not just to already onboarded employees.”

There’s a sense among the research respondents that current recruitment processes are designed to ‘weed out’ neurodivergent people rather than assess their abilities. Indeed, a recent government review of research and recommendations (The Buckland Review of Autism Employment) has revealed that neurodivergent candidates face more barriers to employment due to the neurotypical design of job applications and interviews.

2. Interviews are challenging

While it is tricky to speculate on the reasons for a candidate not being offered a job, it’s clear that it can be harder for a neurodiverse candidate to come across ‘well’ in a traditional interview setting. Interviews are anxiety-inducing for everyone, however, more than a third of neurodivergent job seekers have panicked in an interview because the question structure was overly complicated, with other struggles including timed tasks, group-setting assessments and pre-prepared presentation tasks.

Data scientist Victoria Walls found her role at Zurich with the help of Diversita, a specialist recruitment agency for neurodivergent candidates, and she understands these struggles all too well. “I really struggled to progress with my job hunting, despite my qualifications and academic ability,” she says. “It just felt as if each of my neurodiverse triggers were activated during the interview process. The whole thing was so overwhelming for me. Performing well enough to get to a job offer was so far down the list of things I was trying to process I just fell at every hurdle.”

Almost half of neurodivergent adults hide their neurodiversity when looking for a job, according to new research