Follow us on LinkedIn to see future News.
April 22, 2025
According to recent studies, 50 to 75 percent of autistic adults in the United States are unemployed or underemployed. During Autism Awareness Month, employers often ask how to adjust everyday employment practices to be more inclusive of the autism community.
Autistic individuals are “neurodiverse” – their brains vary from “neurotypical” people with respect to thinking, learning, and processing information.
We counsel clients that it’s ok not to understand all there is to understand about the autism community and how that community can effectively contribute to the workplace. Employers can take steps both to educate and address potential biases. The reality is that, most often, accommodating neurodiverse individuals can be rather simple and inexpensive, and such individuals can provide so many benefits to an organization.
We recommend examining each step in the employment lifecycle. Here, we’ll address the recruitment and hiring process.
Keep Job Postings Simple
Audit your job postings. Keep them short. Avoid technical language. Be clear about the skills required for the job. And, more importantly, make sure that the skills that you identify as required truly are required for successful job performance. Be clear about the important stuff, like work hours (including whether flexibility in work hours exists), salary, and benefits.
Set Expectations for the Interview
Provide clear instructions about the interview process. For example, let candidates know with whom they will meet during the interview. Let them know if they will be required to undergo skills testing and, if so, provide a comfortable environment for such testing. If you can conduct the first (or other) interviews virtually, offer that format to candidates to allow them to demonstrate their skills in a comfortable setting.
Interview for Success
Interview candidates in a quiet location. Neurodiverse individuals often are hypersensitive to noise – and sometimes even to lights and smells. Limiting distractions can help make candidates feel at ease.
Provide adequate time. Neurodiverse individuals may need more time to respond to questions or to ask their own.
Be direct in your questioning. Consider asking candidates about their personal experiences (e.g., tell me about a time when …), rather than posing hypothetical questions (e.g., what would you do if …). Hypotheticals can be confusing to some people and may not showcase the candidate’s experience.
Many interviewers use the interview process to test a candidate’s social skills. Interviewers may view a candidate negatively if they fidget, avoid eye contact, or lack a firm handshake. Though social skills may be important for public-facing roles, they are less important for most jobs. Just like with job postings, make sure that the skills that you are assessing in the interview actually are required for successful job performance.
A Benefit to All
Though these tips will help you to attract and hire neurodiverse talent, they will be beneficial for all of your job candidates.
