Withdrawing from internal interview after my reasonable adjustments were ignored

[Workquery1]

Internal interview with my public sector employer who are ‘disability confident’ on paper, and tells people to ask for any reasonable adjustments they require for interviews.

I followed usual process and HR sent my reasonable adjustments but the interviewer has ignored them, then HR sent a chaser but still nothing back. HR then advised me to try messaging the interviewer too (also no reply).

Other interviewers at my company have been very willing to offer reasonable adjustments, never had others decline. I have a diagnosis of my disability too.

I’ve woken up very stressed to have to do this interview without any adjustments or even explanation of why they are unhappy to offer them (not even a compromise). Now I’m thinking to simply cancel because going through a very challenging interview will only knock my confidence for next time

Also, how much time are you giving them to respond?

There was a thread on here recently by people saying they take days to respond to emails now.

You certainly shouldn't withdraw. Nor participate without hearing from them which if any they can accommodate.

Send a message to the hiring manager, cc HR. Explain again the adjustments (see previous emails grrr...) and that you need them to let you know their take on the situation before you can interview.

It's very bad form to just ignore these requests.

Agree that you shouldn’t withdraw, but should raise further with HR (and your union). In my part of the public sector the interviewer deals with all the RA directly which seems better than going via HR. We can see who flags it on their application and then contact them to discuss. It seems to work well (but the cynical part of me knows that some colleagues will have behaved badly and ignored it). Good luck OP.

No don't withdraw.

If you have the email address for the interviewer, can you see their calendar and set up a short appointment with a request to discuss instead?

i would lodge a complaint with HR

non response is not acceptable

Is it possible they've just made the adjustments and didn't think to confirm? I.e it goes without saying?

Ring the interviewing manager and ask?

They should be contacting you to confirm

Just wondering, are the adjustments something that are totally uncontroversial and kind of goes without saying (like if you walk with crutches, not having it on the top floor of a building with no lift), or more controversial ones )like having questions in advance). They should absolutely be communicating with you either way, but if it's the former, they may have assumed that it's so clear cut they don't need to confirm. If it's the latter, they may not have reached a decision yet, though again, you need to be kept in the loop

I think this is really important.

In my workplace it is not common to reply on the same day.

Can you send a follow up email?
Simply ask for confirmation of whether they’re going to be made as if not then you’ll not be able to attend the interview or do the role.

I know you don’t want to say what the RA are but is the new role very different to the one you’re doing now eg the RA would mean not being able to do the new role as effectively?

100% interview questions

That’s probably it. FWIW, I think questions in advance is not a reasonable adjustment. Either everyone get’s them, or nobody does.

This is what I thought, but perhaps the adjustments included receiving something ahead of time?

Hmm yes this is a controversial adjustment. Appreciate it will be for Autism or a processing delay.

I suppose it depends whether receiving the questions in advance reflects the reality of the job (will it be possible to avoid "thinking on your feet" in social-communication contexts on the job?)

If the job won't involve being "put in the spot then there's a strong argument that sending everyone the questions in advance would not give neurotypical people an advantage over an Autistic candidate who also received them in advance. So it would be legitimate to send everyone the questions in advance and therefore provide everyone with a more neurodiversity inclusive assessment process.

No, that isn't the crux of the issue. The crux is that the OP doesn't know if the adjustments will be made or not because she's not had any communication.

OP I would try other avenues of communication before withdrawing.

Don't withdraw from the competition, go to the interview as scheduled and if the accommodations aren't available, tell the interviewer that you'll have to reschedule as there are accommodations which have been agreed for you.

As it's an internal post, it's not for the interviewer to decide if the accommodations are reasonable or not - they need to adhere to the HR decision.

But they haven’t been agreed yet so that’s not something that should be said until they have?