Imagine you discover an ideal job opportunity. You have the skills, drive, and vision to excel in this role. However, barriers invisible to others are preventing you from even getting a foot in the door. This scenario might seem unlikely in a modern organization. Yet, for millions of potential candidates with disabilities, obstacles to inclusive hiring arise more often than you may think.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the end of 2022, the employment rate among Americans with disabilities was only 21%, compared with a 65% employment rate for others. This opportunity gap underscores a continuing need for more accessible and inclusive hiring practices.
If you’re an employer, addressing this challenge may seem daunting. But by taking some simple steps, you can ensure your organization doesn’t overlook this “hidden” pool of qualified talent.
Follow these guidelines to help your recruitment team educate themselves, identify key issues, and implement policies that will create a more inclusive hiring process.
An Employer’s Guide to Accessible, Inclusive Hiring
Making small changes to standard hiring procedures can go a long way toward providing equal opportunities for all candidates. Here’s how:
1. Rewrite Your Job Descriptions
Descriptions with intricate language full of industry jargon place an unfair burden on applicants. No one should have to decipher pages of arcane terminology just to determine if they qualify.
Also, take care not to imply that only non-disabled candidates possess the mobility, hearing, vision, or mental capabilities required for a position. This adds exclusionary barriers that keep disabled applicants from applying. Even if inclusive hiring is your intent, oversights like this discourage candidates from pursuing roles in which they could actually thrive.
- Mistake: Using overly lengthy, complex, or discriminative language.
- Tip: Review job descriptions carefully and remove unnecessarily complicated and exclusive wording. Stick to essential skills and keep descriptions concise.
2. Provide Multiple Ways to Apply
Don’t rely solely on email for resume submissions. Implement web forms with qualification fields that don’t require document attachments. Provide phone and email contact information, so applicants can navigate the process with live assistance.
Also consider offering online video, audio, or chat options. These are appealing to all kinds of candidates, but especially those who lack the dexterity to type lengthy responses.
- Mistake: Relying solely on email-based resume submission restricts applicant options.
- Tip: Accept applications through a variety of channels: email, web forms, and phone conversations. This increases accessibility.
3. Ensure Your Website and Recruitment Materials are Accessible
When building online portals for job postings, applications, or supplementary recruiting content, ensure a user’s disability doesn’t prevent them from accessing information.
Perform WCAG compliance checks to confirm that your sites comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This includes features such as text descriptions for images, captions for audio, multiple ways to navigate pages, and accessible document formats. To ensure a strong user experience, conduct usability testing with participants who rely on assistive devices.
- Mistake: Publishing print or digital communications that put people with vision-related challenges at a disadvantage.
- Tip: When designing online materials with visual elements, incorporate text equivalents specified by WCAG.
4. Foster Community Relationships
Develop ties with local disability networks, employment services, rehabilitation centers, veterans groups, and educational institutions that support people with disabilities. For example, reach out to PurpleSpace, Disabled American Veterans, and abilityJOBS.
These organizations can consult with you to identify aspects of your hiring strategy that need improvement. Also, they can be valuable sources of qualified candidates.
- Mistake: Failing to engage with disability groups means you’ll miss out on sharing job opportunities with their constituents.
- Tip: Leverage your reach through partnerships with entities that serve and support members of the disability community.
5. Educate Your Hiring Team
Require everyone involved with talent acquisition to understand accessibility and inclusion. Ensure that recruiters complete mandatory training in the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as instruction in how to promote a disability-inclusive work culture.
Be sure to debunk misconceptions around the cost of accommodations. Also, focus on how employers can foster more creative, collaborative, innovative teams by supporting employees with disabilities.
- Mistake: Ignoring biases directly affects applicant treatment and jeopardizes the candidate experience.
- Tip: Require formal training in accessibility and inclusion issues, policies, and hiring practices.
6. Coordinate Accommodations
Rather than leaving accommodations up to individual managers, centralize the coordination of requests. Develop and communicate standard procedures for requests, from recruitment through employment.
For example, Microsoft facilitates disability hiring by providing candidates with accommodations such as extended interview times, longer breaks between interviews, assistive technologies like screen readers, CART captioning services, sign language interpreters, and personal devices.
- Mistake: Leaving accommodation decisions and logistics up to individual hiring managers can lead to unequal or unfair treatment.
- Tip: To standardize accommodations, centralize request processing through a team of trained specialists.
7. Send Materials in Advance
Don’t wait until an interview to provide necessary materials. Candidates deserve an opportunity to prepare.
If brochures, tests, presentations, or other content are part of the interview process, offer to send accessible information or documentation in advance if candidates prefer. Do this proactively — don’t wait for requests. Also, when sending materials, provide plenty of lead time for candidates to review these items.
- Mistake: Supplying last-minute or inaccessible materials.
- Tip: Provide supplemental hiring materials in an accessible format on a timely basis, so candidates can review the information in advance.
8. Design and Host Inclusive Interviews
Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, ask candidates beforehand if any accommodations would help facilitate their interview. Get specifics on needs like wheelchair access, interpreters, technology assistance, and so on. This gives you sufficient time to arrange the appropriate equipment and ensure that it is in place and is operating properly.
Also, demonstrate willingness to be flexible in scheduling virtual sessions, if needed.
- Mistake: Conducting interviews without anticipating and accommodating known needs is a sure way to lose a strong candidate.
- Tip: Proactively communicate about interview-related accessibility needs, and clearly confirm arrangements in advance.
9. Offer Remote Interview and Work Options
Remote work tools and resources open the door to employment for those who cannot easily commute to an onsite location for interviews or daily work shifts.
Invest in digital technology like video conferencing services that integrate screen readers and keyboard shortcuts. In addition, provide equipment loans or stipends to reduce the cost of work-from-home arrangements.
- Mistake: If you don’t offer a remote work structure or necessary tools, you’ll struggle to attract candidates with disabilities.
- Tip: Supply video conferencing services that are fully compatible with assistive tech needs. And ensure that hiring managers are onboard with using these tools on an ongoing basis.
10. Stay Open to Candidate Feedback
Encourage candidates who face barriers to provide feedback about their experience with the application and interviewing process.
Track feedback to identify successes, as well as problem areas that require improvement. Revise policies and practices accordingly. This demonstrates your organization’s commitment to inclusivity.
- Mistake: Failing to track and evaluate candidate experiences means you’ll miss key issues and opportunities to respond.
- Tip: Collect feedback about barriers, and analyze data to determine where and how you can improve.
11. Provide an Accessible Job Environment
Google is one of today’s most prominent employers, and this organization believes disabled people “make great Googlers.” So, avoid making limiting assumptions about what employees with disabilities can handle.
Openly discuss the need to provide appropriate equipment like elevated desks for wheelchair users or devices enabling people with dexterity issues to operate tools and technology.
Ensure that work buildings are accessible by installing and maintaining appropriate devices like ramps, automatic doors, and support services. For example, Google provides a variety of accommodations, including personal care assistance, visual support, sign language interpreters, and real-time translation captioning.
- Mistake: When worksites and equipment don’t take accessibility into account, people with disabilities are left out.
- Tip: Proactively confirm that necessary tools and facilities are in place and are operating appropriately to support employees with disabilities.
12. Audit Your Hiring Process
Annually review and assess your recruiting and hiring processes, alongside colleague feedback. Focus on inclusion indicators in job post language, outreach efforts, interview practices, onboarding, and the workplace itself. Also look for improvement in key metrics such as applicant volumes and hiring rates among those who voluntarily disclosed their disability status.
Use these audit findings to update hiring guidelines and policies, and improve processes accordingly.
- Mistake: Hiring realities continue to change. Assuming your existing approach is still sufficiently inclusive may mean you’re overlooking new issues.
- Tip: Formal annual reviews help identify gaps, so you can improve your ability to attract and hire candidates with disabilities.
Commit to an Accessible, Inclusive Hiring Strategy
Rather than treating inclusion as an afterthought, the best employers consider it a central pillar in workplace culture transformation. You can emphasize accessibility and diversity as core values right from the start, with inclusive hiring policies that show people with disabilities they matter to your organization.
Inclusive hiring practices are an opportunity to expand your talent pool by reaching out to countless candidates who offer viable skills, knowledge, and human strengths. By proactively including people with disabilities, you enrich your teams with more diverse perspectives and experiences. This, in turn, elevates creativity, productivity, and performance.
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