Autistic people often face an uphill battle when searching for a job, especially during interviews. New Virginia Commonwealth University research underscores the enduring value of employer neurodiversity training when coupled with candidates’ disclosure of their autism diagnosis during the hiring process.

Less than 60% of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder who do not have an intellectual disability are employed full-time or enrolled in post-secondary schooling. A growing body of research suggests that could be due to how employers perceive autistic people during job interviews.

People are saying, ‘I feel like I’m being discriminated against during the interview process,’ But you can’t really prove it. We wanted to establish whether there was actual or significant bias going on.”

Christopher Whelpley, Ph.D., assistant professor in VCU’s School of Business

To do so, Whelpley started to investigate the barriers to employment for autistic people. One of his earlier studies found that while neurotypical people outperformed autistic people during taped video interviews, autistic people were more likely to be hired based on the transcripts of those same videos.

In a later study, Whelpley and his collaborator, College of Charleston professor Cynthia May, Ph.D., found that autistic candidates were more likely to be hired if they voluntarily disclosed their autism diagnosis during the interview, but only if their interviewers had taken neurodiversity training. Such training alone did not change hiring outcomes.

But autistic people may be understandably hesitant to reveal their diagnosis, fearing negative reactions from future employers and colleagues. A solution, Whelpley said, may be for employers to offer interview accommodations to all job applicants, such as one-on-one interviews instead of panel interviews.

In this new study, the researchers recruited 30 undergraduate students, half of whom had been diagnosed with autism, to be videotaped during a mock job interview and discuss their qualifications for their dream jobs.

Then, the researchers recruited 190 undergraduate students and 95 U.S. adults to watch neurodiversity training videos. After either two weeks or two months, the evaluators were asked to watch 10 of the mock job interview videos, half of which would be from an autistic candidate. They were also told whether or not the candidate had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder before watching the interview.

The researchers found that the positive effects of employer neurodiversity training persisted for at least two months after the training. And while neurodiversity training did not completely eliminate factors that can work against candidates with autism – reviewers were still more likely to rate those candidates’ social skills poorly – they did score their trustworthiness equally to the neurotypical candidates, and said they were just as likely to hire the autistic candidates as they were to hire their neurotypical peers.

That’s a good sign, Whelpley said, especially as more children and adults in the United States are diagnosed with autism each year. It could be good for employers as well, who may be overlooking qualified job candidates because they interpret the symptoms of autism as awkwardness or antisocial behavior.

“Organizations should think, what are the unique skill sets that people are bringing in, and why is this a win-win?” Whelpley said. “Because you are ultimately finding unique candidates who bring unique skill sets that are beneficial to organizations.”

The new research did have some limitations. The mock interviewers were not human resources professionals or hiring managers, who may react differently to the training and to candidates revealing their diagnoses before the interview.

The researchers are also unsure why coupling candidate diagnosis disclosure with interviewer neurodiversity training helps level the playing field for autistic candidates. But it may be because it allows employers to empathize more with their potential employees, Whelpley said.

“It makes it a two-way street rather than a one way-street,” he said. “It’s not that you’re different than me. It’s that we’re different from each other.”