Ensuring neuroinclusivity at all stages of the employee life cycle

01 October 2024

In the second article on ensuring neuroinclusivity at all stages of the employee life cycle, Cybill Watkins MCIPP, product legislation manager, Zellis, shines a spotlight on the job application process

In my previous article, we scrutinised job advertisements and some of the hurdles people looking for a new job could face. Following this stage, applicants are then presented with the job application process. We all know that every employer has their own processes here, with specific software systems and their own preferences in place to ensure they secure their perceived perfect employee. The processes chosen will fit in with the employer’s strategy and ethos and will probably remain unchanged for long periods of time as we hear phrases such as “this has always been the way they carry out the job application process” or “we don’t need to fix what isn’t broken”. From my neurodivergent perspective, many job application processes are, in fact, broken, and employers are potentially discriminating against neurodivergent candidates. Here are some areas for employers to consider to ensure their job application process is neuroinclusive.

The challenges around online job applications

With the continuing development of all-in-one human resources / onboarding software, many businesses now complete the entire application process online. Here’s hurdle number one for a neurodivergent person who struggles with various aspects of the wonderful world of ‘online’. Have recruiting employers properly considered how someone who struggles to remember passwords could cope with multiple systems, each with their own login credentials? Each piece of software will potentially have different password parameters. For example, one might use eight characters with one capital and another 15 characters with a special, capital and a number, not allowing more than two of the same letters.

You may have already just lost your perfect candidate if you don’t allow applications via other methods, for example a CV, an email or even, verbally. Just look at the tribunal case of Mallon v AECOM Ltd (https://ow.ly/L3qx50ShOoi), in which the claimant was unable to complete an online application due to dyspraxia and the respondent should have allowed him to submit a verbal application.

Let’s consider what happens after the applicant has managed to set up an online account for their job application. They must then complete sections of the application which could be easily found on their CV or have absolutely no relevance to the actual job application at this early stage. Personally, my attention span would be totally depleted by this point and I would just move on to applying for the next role.

Employers should also assess whether they’ve considered if the person applying has challenges in completing something which is new to them, that they haven’t done before. An applicant may be brilliant at following processes and make the perfect payroll administrator, but the employer’s job application process may just be one step too far if it involves submitting copious amounts of data online.

Possible adjustments

Employers should consider if there are any possible adjustments which could be made for the application process and list them on job advertisements. A short video could be created or human support provided to help with the application process if they have to use the system approach.

Employers should also look at how they present questions to gather information on the application form. I’m not referring to those which ask about age, address or that type of information, but if there’s a good reason to ask competency-based questions early in the employee life cycle, the way they read to a neurotypical person could be totally different to the way they read to a neurodivergent person.

Also, remember to include context and possibly some examples. My brain works by looking at things from many different angles, and my explanations and answers to questions would make total sense to me, but anyone else reading them may struggle to understand me. Where an employer has turned someone down because they didn’t answer in the expected or required way, they should ensure the applicant has been given every opportunity to understand what was being asked, along with why it was being asked. I believe these types of competency-based questions should be removed from such an early stage in the employee’s life cycle. But, if employers feel they really must have them, they should allow applicants to have a conversation with someone rather than being made to attempt to provide their answers in a limited amount of words, in an online, written format.

Only ask for what’s really needed

I’m going to be a little controversial here. Have employers taken a close look at all the information they’re asking for at the application stage and whether it’s actually required? All they really need to know at this point is:

a person’s career history from the relevant roles they’ve had or how previous roles fit in with the role they are applying for. Perhaps ask what transferable skills the person can bring to the new role
whether the applicant can work in the required location (we will look at flexible working in a later article)
any relevant qualifications the person may have (but, on a side note, do you actually really need to know what someone did at school 25 years ago? And would a lack of qualifications actually mean that a person couldn’t do the role? I was very successful for 20 years without a qualification)
the name the applicant would like to be addressed by
how to contact the person. Remember, some people do prefer email over a call and vice versa
if there are any further reasonable adjustments required at this stage.

Employers don’t realistically need anything more at this point. Any more than that could potentially leave them open to a discrimination claim. Why, at this stage, does the employer need to know any more about a job applicant? The more information an organisation asks a potential candidate to provide, the higher chance of them not completing the job application process, or of them struggling with it.

Many businesses also use the job application stage to ‘shortlist’, by asking the applicant to answer a selection of questions they have defined as scenario questions, which have absolutely nothing to do with the applicant’s ability to do the job. A neurodivergent person may only give a really succinct answer, which doesn’t demonstrate anything around their capability of doing the job, while another may find it too overwhelming or not be able to translate their experiences into words that other people can read and understand. Do employers really need job applicants to tell them how they dealt with a difficult situation, especially at an early stage? Let’s face it, this could well be made up! Sure, maybe further down the line, but that’s what the job interview is for.