Candidate Experience ASMR & Neurodiverse Talent

Our bi-weekly video series of The Tea On Recruiting is back with hiring neurodiverse talent as the main theme. The episode and its transcript are in the section below. We hope you’ll find them informative and useful for your recruiting career!

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Transcript

This… is the sound of your candidate after receiving your email invite to an interview. This… is the sound of your embarrassed recruiter writing to your candidate, three weeks after the interview, saying that they’re not a cultural fit in spite of their great credentials – “you just wouldn’t “fit in””. This… is the sound of your candidate writing about their disappointment on your Glassdoor page. And this… is the sound of potential star talent reading it… and sharing it with their LinkedIn connections. You’re wondering about what sound it makes when the star talent applies to your company?

Neurodiversity refers to a brain that’s wired differently. In 2020, neurodiverse individuals are still heavily discriminated against. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. Welcome back to the Tea on Recruiting, where we share insightful and thought-provoking content that can help you shape your recruiting career!

Let’s check out the first article I picked.

Hiring Neurodiverse Candidates

We’ve read Hidden Talent: The Case For Hiring Neurodiverse Candidates. Let’s see what we learned: 62.6% of autistic individuals have some exceptional talent or ability – not always, but often those are technical skills. And yet, 80% of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are under or unemployed. Want to improve?

• Be honest about the job requirements
• Screen candidates in, not out
• Do not rate candidates on their interpersonal communications skills, unless it is an essential function of the job
• Ask direct questions, expect direct answers
• Provide candidates with a skills-based interview
• Stop interviewing candidates on speaker phones
• Provide your full attention when interviewing
• If the candidate asks you to repeat yourself, don’t get upset
• Focus on getting the candidate you need, and not the one you think you want

Now, onto our second piece of content.

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

Different article, same theme. America. 1/42 boys and 1/189 girls are on the Autism Spectrum. Then there are people with dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, social anxiety disorder, and more. That’s a huge group of talented individuals that goes untapped. We read Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage. Here’s what we learned.

If you want to apply a model for assessing, training and managing neurodiverse talent, you should:

• Team with government or nonprofit organizations for expertise you lack. They can suggest neurodiverse candidates, assist in prescreening, and so on.

• Use nontraditional, non interview-based assessment and training processes.

• Train other workers and managers. The aim? Workers understand what to expect from their new colleagues, managers familiarize with sources of support for program employees.

• Set up a support ecosystem for your new employees. SAP has two—one for the workplace, one for an employee’s personal life.

• Tailor methods for managing careers. Performance evaluations should be mostly the same for your neurodiverse employees, with some goals relating to their conditions.

• Scale the program, and mainstream it too. Help colleges and high schools set up nontraditional “work experience” programs.

Ontooo theeeee

CandE Crash

The more barbaric your treatment of candidates, the more demonic their reviews on your Glassdoor page. Shoutout to a company I won’t name. Let’s relive this experience, shall we?

Candidate : “Hi, I’m your candidate! I have no prior experience.”
Boss          : “Work-related question!”
Candidate : “But… I have no prior experience.”
Boss           : “More work-related questions! How did you solve problems with your coworkers in the past?”
Candidate : “As I said, I’ve never worked before. What coworkers? Mmh… Could you please give me a chance?”
Boss           : “NO.”
Candidate : “I’m embarrassed. I’ll leave.”

Now, if I may say so myself, this is a wonderful example of why I’m not an actress but a content marketer… but also of what NOT to do during an interview.

Got something to say about this? Drop a comment below, we’d love to pick your brains. Help us get better at helping you get better: with your help!

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