How to Create a Great Neurodivergent Candidate Experience

Are you creating the best candidate experience for all job applicants?

Whilst there is a strong consensus for the rationale for providing a positive candidate experience, it’s not always clear on how to do that for all potential applicants.

I completely understand that you may not be confident how to treat and manage autistic or dyslexic candidates for example. You may find it confusing how to address their ‘differences’ and be worried about making mistakes.

Then there are the range of things you may be doing right, though just not in quite the right way for these particular candidates.

The risk of a bad experience

Korn Ferry found in their research that nearly 80% of applicants for a company that had a poor candidate experience would cease being a customer of that company. Even more painfully, almost half would encourage their friends and families to drop any relationship with the organisation. And in this age of social media usage, most concerning of all is the finding that 25% would take to their platform(s) of choice to share their bad experience.

That’s some seriously bad publicity you could certainly do without! And sure whilst the population numbers of neurodivergent people are lower, there’s likely to be an amplification effect given the fact they are so often already excluded and discriminated against.

But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom…

When you do provide a positive or even great experience to candidates, especially neurodivergent candidates, the likelihood of attracting more of the same is dramatically increased.

You’ve heard the saying “birds of a feather”?

Well, when people feel they are well treated, listened to, appreciated, valued and respected - even if they don’t get a job - they will talk to their friends and peers.

How much would it surprise you that neurodivergent people often have many neurodivergent friends? Yep, big surprise there right!

So, by offering a great experience for this group you can open the doors to a more diverse range of candidates without having to take any other special action.

A real win-win scenario

You’ll also find that as you explore more what it takes to support neurodivergent candidates as they come through your recruitment process, you’ll be providing a more inclusive and supportive recruitment process for everyone else too.

You’ll be paving the way for many other diverse applicants to apply for roles. You’ll find yourself recruiting more and more people who just think and operate differently. They’ll bring a fresh lens and perspective to issues and challenges in your organisation.

It’s not about giving everyone a job or bending over backwards for every ‘different’ applicant. But it is about being a little mindful of some of the simple things you could that can have disproportionate impacts on how inclusive your process is.