5 steps to attracting neurodiverse talent in 2021

Who do you want in your team this year? The person with the highest IQ or the one with the best transferable skills and innovative solutions? 

Is it your ability to adapt to changing environments? It has been defined as the general mental capacity that involves reasoning, planning, solving problems, thinking abstractly, comprehending complex ideas, learning efficiently, and learning from experience. It also includes the ability to be able to adapt to different situations and be able to live and function independently.

Over the years we have tried to compound this to a test with a composite single score such as using IQ as a measure as if this describes multiple facets of a person’s ability.

Binet and Wechsler, are known as the founders of the intelligence test movement which drove us to use terms such as high or low functioning. Cut-off scores determined whether someone had a ‘severe learning disability’ or a ‘moderate learning disability’ for example, and service provision and educational support would be determined by the single score. You could end up in the slow learner's class in school and labeled as such for the rest of your days...

Standardised tests such as these have many challenges because they are static and don’t take into consideration the emotional state of the person when undertaking the test ( e.g. been up all night raving or with a new-born baby) or the environment they were completed in ( e.g. taking a test in with background noise. They rely on a right or wrong answer so they can be scored and are usually time-bound with little opportunity for consideration or reflection.

This test usually benefits those who have better communication and written skills. The good news is that it can be used easily in large groups and repeated again and again in what is considered to be a standardized manner. The bad news it may exclude the people you want to attract or alternatively keep attracting the same people.

There is evidence that an IQ score alone doesn’t necessarily correlate with your ability to cope for example in times of a pandemic. The need for us to consider if someone has adaptive skills is more important now than ever before in the challenging world, we live in. These adaptive abilities relate to such things as understanding rules, the ability to navigate the tasks of daily living, and participation in family, school, and community activities. IQ scores and adaptive skills have not been shown to correlate very well. Some reasons for this may be a function of how we define intelligence and how we consider what adaptive behaviour is. There is good evidence that individuals with similar IQ scores will often demonstrate very different skills related to their adaptive behaviour functioning, as a result of their opportunities, expectations, or motivation.

Psychometric assessments have taken somewhat of a bashing in recent times and have been shown to have some negative biases for some neurodivergent people.

A now-famous case Brookes vs General Legal Services, (2017) with a candidate with ‘Asperger’s Syndrome was asked to take a multiple-choice psychometric test as part of the recruitment process for General Legal Services but didn’t achieve the required score and was told that her application would not be taken any further.They took the case to tribunal explaining that she would have preferred to have given short responses, rather than conducting multiple-choice as this was a more challenging test for her. The EAT ruled that the multi-choice test was discriminatory and urged employers to use reasonable recruitment practices. This means that in the future employers should consider whether their processes put certain people at a disadvantage when applying for a job.

For some time many employers have discussed the importance of ‘soft skills rather than recruiting for hard skills. A person-centered approach to assessment while harder to score and needing to be contextually appropriate may be far more helpful to attract different talent and get a better mix within your team.

The Collins English Dictionary defines the term "soft skills" as:

"desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude."

Soft skills may be seen as more people flexible, and transferable in a world that keeps changing. They can be grouped as people skills, social skills, and personal career attributes. However, it is interesting to consider how socially driven are they, and in reality, in hiring situations how much time is focused on them.

How often do our biases reduce our ability to explore the skills we want to recruit for?

·      Confirmation bias is when you seek out information – and sometimes only that information – that confirms your pre-held beliefs and ignore information that counters your beliefs. For example, in an interview situation how often have you assumed that someone who says they have ADHD won’t be able to focus at all or will take a lot of time to support, or someone who is autistic won’t or can't ‘look you in the eye’?

·      Similarity bias (or likeability bias) is when your ability to relate to this person, largely because they’re like you (age, gender, same school, same pedigree, from the same geography or culture). How often do we like the candidate that laughed at a joke we have made, or ‘gets’ the banter, or shows social confidence like you, or has similar hobbies to you? In contrast, how often do we get ‘turned off’ by the candidate who is straight-talking or needs to have questions repeated or rephrased several times? How often do we think it's easier if we just have someone around us who is 'more like me'? (The latter of course could be related to our own poor communication skills, but we often attribute miscommunication to the other person).

Do we often have pressure to fill a role and then resort back to traditional metrics that can be administered en masse and scored easily, regardless of the scores that may not even relate to the traits you want for a specific job?

5 steps you can start with

1.  Get your job description to match the job itself. Avoid terms like “culture fit” and use evidence-oriented interview questions. Consider inclusive approaches that value all neurodiverse talents to be able to participate at all stages of the process and know what the processes are - ask people about their hiring experiences and be open to honest responses.

2.   Train interviewers in interviewing skills so they are aware of their unconscious biases and how they can consider their own communication styles. Try to design your processes pro-actively so they are as inclusive as possible and consider making adjustments if required.

3.   Work with recruiters so they know you are taking on an inclusive approach and they need to align with your values.

4.   Have a diverse recruitment team that reflects the team you want to acquire.

5.   Allow debriefing time that allows for the interview panel to have time to reflect and learn from each other.

Hiring costs a lot - it's worth getting it right!

Professor Amanda Kirby is the CEO of Do-IT Solutions (www.doitprofiler.com) and has developed neurodiverse workplace screening tools that take a person-centered approach to help the person to be the best they can and the employer to get the best from their talents. She also runs accredited training courses and provides consultancy to organisations wanting to embed policies and practices and make a real difference.

She was one of the Top 20 LinkedIn voices in 2020.

Book coming soon in 2021