Towards a Training Intervention To Assist Recruiters to Level The Playing Field In Their Interview Process When Dealing With Neurodiverse Candidates

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to develop an intervention to assist recruiters to make the interview process easier for neurodiverse candidates.

The idea for this topic has its roots in the Innovation for Learning Module of the Postgraduate Diploma. An article, where Dominic Cummings (the former adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson) called for more “gifted weirdos” to be recruited to the civil service, triggered an interest in neurodiversity (Sayal, R., 2020). This led to further research on the topic and to a piece which stated that in order to facilitate this diverse thinking, business leaders needed to alter their culture to accommodate such individuals (Reynolds and Lewis, 2017). However businesses are often echo-chambers who recruit in their own image, and thus, how to break this cycle?

The chosen format for this research was Dissertation by Practice, which would enable the development of something that would be of practical benefit to recruiters and neurodiverse applicants.

The researcher works in employment enablement programmes, delivering material in the job-skills and performance-enhancement fields and therefore the development of a tool that would add to the body of work already developed by key support organisations such as AHEAD, the National Learning Network and Ability@Work, was a strong motivator for choosing Dissertation by Practice.

The information-gathering phase of the project consisted of Secondary Research of articles, journals, interviews and reports from industry and neurodiverse support organisations; and Primary Interviews with Recruiters, Neurodiverse Support Officers and Learning Designers (to seek input on designing the Artefact).

The research phase sought to answer three key questions:

To what extent might the current recruitment methodologies discriminate against neurodiverse people? Why / How? (bias? prejudice? unwillingness? lack of awareness?) What can be done about it? What emerged from the research was that the interview process was indeed generally more difficult for neurodiverse applicants, because the key things recruiters assess (and which the process is designed to uncover) are often (though not always), areas where neurodiverse applicants may struggle (communication skills, interpersonal connection, etc.).

The reason this imbalanced system is used, is generally because it is an established, easy to use, mainstream approach; however it does not easily facilitate people who do not fit the norm. As such, neurodiverse individuals are not really considered and are something of a blind spot.

The solution is a training day (presented in the Artefact) designed to open recruiters’ eyes’ to the potential of neurodiverse talent and trigger the desire for recruiters to reconfigure their own recruitment processes.

Guided by Adult Learning Theory, the training day takes a Guided Discovery/Problem Based Learning approach, scaffolding the interactive exercises over the day, to trigger the motivation of recruiters to change their interview process, and thus benefiting all.