Disability interview guarantee

[Islandsadness]

Has anyone got any experience with a system which actually works in diversifying the interview pool?

I'm hiring at the moment and my employer has a system where we don't use cvs, but assessments. Anyone scoring over 50% who has declared a disability is automatically invited to interview in addition to the top 5 candidates.

I've just been told I've someone added to my interview list for next who got 50%. But all the other candidates I'm interviewing got 80-90% so a big gulf.

AIBU in thinking that this is just a waste of the persons time and is setting them up to fail? Or am I wrong and this is the best way to try and level the playing field?

You don't need a tick box of perceived race to have a fair society, But if one section of society is not represented, then you probably do not have a fair society.

My son was offered this and said no! Got an interview anyway (and the job). Maybe he was quite high scoring as well?

Sounds like there's a good chance they will not get the job but, I guess, it's possible that they cannot express themselves succinctly in a CV and will be awesome when you interview them?

Have an open mind. If the offer is there because of your employers policies then they deserve an interview. Whilst it appears they will probably not exceed the competencies of the others, test them against the same criteria and see.

@MereDintofPandiculation there are rarely any Asian sex workers.... shall we change that? What about single families etc.... hardly any Asian bin collectors, shall we change that?

I think society is quite fair.

White people are least likely to go to uni.

You need to refine your application process then.

If people are meeting the criteria to do the job on paper, but then in person are totally incapable, your 'on paper' system needs to be better at filtering those out.

If it IS filtering those people out really well, then theres no need to lower the bar for disabled people - either they can do the job, or they cannot.

Much depends on the disability though - a fit healthy person who uses a wheelchair is a very different prospect to someone like me, not fit or healthy, nor ever going to be, and uses a wheelchair.

It also depends on the job and I have seen many where there are elements of the role I couldn't have done, that were not ACTUALLY necessary for that role, just 'lumped in because we've always done it this way' - which is a lack of sensible thinking and not a 'disabled people aren't employable' kind of issue.

For example, I applied for an interviewed for a supermarket job - I could (at the time) sit behind a till, assist customers, shuffle clothing products around/fold jumpers, mop a spill...

I could not however, serve behind the cheese or deli or pizza counters - and the role required people to cover ALL these things. They couldn't be flexible at all, so no job for me.

It wasn't necessary for all staff to cover all roles, though I can see it is ideal if most can, but they could not flex on that, thats the way its done, tough luck, sod off.

It's been a long time since I ever bothered as I am now in the lucky position of being able to work but absolutely unemployable.

An interview system that involves a good degree of 'show us how you'd do this/tell us what you need' would be good - but where theres a culture of interviews being underhanded tricks, and employers who absolutely do NOT want to make appropriate accomodations for disabled people, I can't see that taking off.

Name changed as a bit outing.

My workplace is a member of the DWP Disability Confident Scheme, so we commit to interview any disabled candidate who meets the minimum criteria for the job. Our recruitment system is set up so applicants with disabilities have to actively 'opt in' to this scheme by ticking a box, rather than automatically being considered under it because they disclosed a disability on our equality monitoring form. So we have two pools of disabled candidates - those whose applications are only considered competitively against the rest of the applicant pool, and those who are considered under the Disability Confident minimum criteria.

I did some analysis of this data over a couple of years. Disabled candidates who were competitively selected for interview had the same appointment rate as non-disabled candidates. The Disabled Confident candidates overall had a lower appointment rate than both the non-disabled candidates and disabled candidates who were selected competitively.

Unpicking this, it was the gap between meeting minimum criteria and being interviewed against candidates who were way above minimum criteria that caused the difference in appointment rates. Of course there were Disability Confident candidates that were appointed, but they would have been selected for interview under the competitive arrangement anyway.

YANBU. I am disabled and only used this scheme once (a LOOOONG time ago so it may have changed a bit). I got an interview but I clearly barely met the criteria. It was a waste of my time and the interviewers'.

You applied for the job - why

I think it's a waste of time, so never disclose despite having a serious, life-long disability.

I'd rather be hired on merit. People hired for diversity on lower entry requirements usually struggle in the role.

There’s a massive difference between what you can describe in an assessment situation and how well you do in an actual job. (And yes, marginalised people can find such assessments much harder)

Go in with an open mind. You might be surprised.

I'm in my current job after declaring my disabilities; all hidden. Basically guaranteed an interview as long as I met the essentials. I aced the interview using a carefully typed up STAR list that I was allowed to refer to. I could've asked for questions before but tbh, didn't think I'd need them.

I also have a right to work Accessibility passport that I worked through with OH. Such as what is necessarily for my dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism. Means I get regular breaks to decompress, a decent chair to work in and films etc for my screen. I do sometimes feel like asking for corner bumpers for my desk as I am forever walking into it as I have absolute no spatula awareness.

My boss is amazing and totally understands when I suddenly vanish to decompress after a 3 hour meeting of minutes and actions as the masking exhausts me. Unfortunately not allowed to record due to confidentiality issues.

Then I get home and slump into a 2 hour nap as I am so tired after a day of being a people person. Still love the job though and I probably wouldn't cope anywhere else. Was terribly bullied when teaching, by management and I wish I'd never disclosed to them.

Well, yes, of course the Disability Confident scheme is fair on disabled people. That’s exactly the point of it.

Sounds to me like it’s the recruitment process of the company you work for that is flawed, not the scheme overall.

If you’re so certain that the benchmarking criterion that needs to be satisfied by anyone who declares themselves to be disabled is too low, then take this up with your seniors. The least that you can do is to explore the matter further where it actually matters. It’d be a damnsight more helpful to prospective disabled applicants than coming to an online forum and, potentially, planting a further seed of doubt into the minds of people that absolutely should disclose their disability free from fear of rejection or discrimination on those very grounds.

I think this shows a lack of understanding about disabilities and their impact.

Without talking to the candidate, you'll never know why they answered the question as they did. Many people with ASD learn quite prescriptively. They may answer the question based on their knowledge of a different sector, or a past job, or how they've seen the situation managed in the past. It might not quite fit your criteria, but that doesn't tell you anything about whether they would be able to take on board your policies, practice and procedure, which they likely could.

There is a massive difference between someone who isn't capable of doing the job and someone who isn't able to do the job without training.

@Yellowisthenewpink I have raised it with HR to see how we can improve it.

Someone gave a log. List of things we could do to be inclusive. Glad to say we do them all except 'ask experience questions not hypothetical'. We do a balance - hypothetical on application so as to not disadvantage those with less opportunity and experience in interview.

I haven't decided they won't get it I simply raised a query about how likely it is that schemes which pitch people with big gaps are fair. My suggestion to HR has been for a floating level that follows the results eg an applicant has to meet a percentile of the overall pool.

Yes! This with bells on!

No test is perfect, nor is it ever likely to exactly indicate the effectiveness of an applicant in any given job role. You’ve stated in a previous response, OP, that it does. It doesn’t. That’s why there are multiple stages of recruitment for certain jobs.

To that end, I would say that at the point you’ve accepted the scores for the initial sift, you then need to be parking those for the disabled candidate and focussing on the subsequent stages of the recruitment process; playing close attention to any adjustments that the candidate believes they require. There could well be many more adjustments needed once in role, and this is where Occupational Health would come in.

So, again, I can only conclude that your company isn’t ‘doing’ the DC scheme properly. Please do revisit this with whoever it is at your company that can effect change in this arena.

Perhaps signpost your HR department to the Business Disability Forum. They work with employers to make workplaces and employment practices more accessible.

Glad to say we do them all except 'ask experience questions not hypothetical'. We do a balance - hypothetical on application so as to not disadvantage those with less opportunity and experience in interview.

Thats a really positive attitude, it can be hard being a returner especially if you have gaps in your CV from illness or hospitalisation.
One major problem I have is that I need contract with fixed hours and pay, 'as and when' jobs are no good to me as they conflict with claiming tax credits.

Perhaps signpost your HR department to the Business Disability Forum. They work with employers to make workplaces and employment practices more accessible.

This makes me feel it should be harder for employers to be kitemarked as disability confident, which we are.

I wouldn’t use the word ‘harder’ myself, but I agree that branding oneself as a Disability Confident employer shouldn’t be something that companies can do without some fundamental research / legwork being done beforehand. I dare say a lot do it in name only, and then pay little regard to what being truly disability-friendly means. I think the anecdotal evidence on this thread alone - of disabled people feeling that disclosing an impairment is at best pointless and, at worst, harmful - gives support to this.

Every employer can and should be doing more to level the playing field in this area. Maybe try and drive that change where you work.

All the best.