Neuroinclusion at Work Starts at the Interview Table
Updated: Oct 4
An interview panel finishes its last candidate of the day and compares notes. One applicant gave technically sound answers to every question, but kept eye contact brief, spoke in an even tone and rarely expanded beyond what was asked. The shared verdict is that he didn't come across well, and the role goes to someone warmer, quicker and more animated in the room. Nobody on that panel would describe what just happened as exclusion. It feels like ordinary professional judgement, which is exactly why it is so hard to see.
The note in the file records a style of communication, not a level of ability. In fifteen years of working with professionals and organisations, I have watched that confusion cost people opportunities they were well suited to, and cost employers people they would have been glad to keep. It is also where any honest conversation about neuroinclusion at work has to begin, because recruitment is one of the first places where a narrow definition of what a strong employee should look or sound like can begin to shape opportunity.
Why Neuroinclusion at Work Begins Before the First Day
The CIPD's 2024 Neuroinclusion at Work report, produced with Uptimize, found that only 37% of neurodivergent employees surveyed felt their organisation provided meaningful support to neurodivergent people. The research surveyed more than 1,000 employed adults, 790 of whom identified as neurodivergent.
Those figures describe people who had already been hired, which I find telling. The research doesn't measure who was screened out along the way, but if support feels thin for people who made it through the door, it is reasonable to ask how many others never got that far. Organisations tend to treat neuroinclusion as something that happens after appointment. The selection process that came before it receives far less scrutiny.
In my experience advising individuals and employers, the interview is rarely examined as a piece of work design. It is treated as a neutral test, when in practice it can reward a particular way of thinking aloud, responding quickly and presenting yourself to strangers under pressure. Plenty of excellent people do their best work in exactly the conditions an interview removes, with time to think, room to concentrate and a problem in front of them rather than an audience.
The Graduate Who Kept Reaching the Final Stage
Last year, a graduate came to me for interview preparation. He was getting interviews for engineering roles, which told me his applications were doing their job, but he wasn't getting past the interview itself. Our first meeting was mainly a chance to get to know him, so we tried a couple of practice questions to see where things stood.
His answers were accurate and sensible, but they were short, delivered in an even tone with limited eye contact, and they stopped just as they were getting interesting. Some aspects of how he communicated were familiar from my five years at Northern Regional College supporting students with disabilities and learning disabilities, and from my current work with neurodivergent people in my own business. I was careful not to turn that observation into a diagnosis. At the end of that first meeting, he chose to tell me he was autistic. From there, what mattered was understanding what made the interview format difficult for him and what would help his evidence come through more clearly.
We agreed on three sessions over the following month. His answers needed developing, with far more detail about what he had done, how he had done it and what difference it made. We worked on turning each example into a short story with a clear situation, a real decision and an outcome, so a panel could picture him in the role rather than simply hear about it. There was plenty to bring forward. His numeracy and critical thinking were clear, and when he talked about the group projects he completed as part of his degree, his leadership came through. The work was about getting those strengths into his answers.
By the third session the conversation was flowing, and his answers had substance. Not long afterwards he secured a graduate engineering role, exactly the kind he wanted. It was outside Dublin rather than Belfast, and he was happy to move for what he felt was the best opportunity available to him. His ability hadn't changed at all in those four weeks. What changed was how clearly a panel could see it.
What Interviews Actually Measure
What often surprises people is that a good interview answer is not the same as a correct one. In less structured interviews especially, engagement, fluency and presentation sit alongside the evidence a panel is meant to assess, and they influence it. Communication matters in plenty of jobs. Where those behaviours are not genuine requirements of the role, though, weighting them above the evidence means the panel is no longer assessing the job.
Fluency, speed of response, eye contact and an animated delivery are easy to observe in forty-five minutes, so they stand in for qualities that are harder to judge. An even tone can be read as low enthusiasm. A pause before answering can be read as uncertainty. A precise, brief answer can be read as a lack of depth, when it may simply answer the question asked. None of these readings is malicious, but each one moves the panel's attention away from the work and towards the performance.
The hidden costs for organisations build quietly. Strong candidates can be screened out at the first stage. If the same communication style is repeatedly rewarded, an organisation risks narrowing who gets through, even when a broader range of candidates could perform the work well. Managers may then conclude that good people are hard to find, when some of them were sitting across the table a few weeks earlier.
There is an honest tension in the graduate's story. He was the one who adapted. I would give any individual the same advice today, because the format isn't going to change overnight and their career shouldn't wait for it. At the same time, the organisations running those interviews should be asking why their process needed someone to change how they communicate before it could recognise what they were able to do.
The Same Signals Follow People Through Their Careers
The interview is only the first place this can happen. Similar signals can reappear in promotion panels, meetings and performance conversations where visibility, speed of response or confidence in the room are given more weight than they deserve. One of the phrases I hear most often from mid-career professionals is that they were told they were "not quite ready", without anyone saying clearly what ready would look like.
In my own practice, I work with managers and experienced professionals, including some diagnosed later in life and others who have come to recognise that something like anxiety has shaped how they work for longer than they realised. For several of them, the hardest part is looking back over years of feedback describing them as too quiet, too intense, disorganised or lacking presence, and wondering how much of it was ever really about their performance. Some have built strong track records while continually adapting their working style to environments that were not designed with their needs in mind.
Organisations frequently overlook how much talent sits in this group. If your picture of leadership readiness consistently favours people who look and sound a certain way, familiarity may be influencing the judgement more than anyone realises. Left unquestioned, it tends to keep producing the same kind of leader. A Workforce Potential Review tests that judgement by looking at how well people's strengths align with their roles and the career paths open to them, rather than how visibly those strengths show.
What HR Managers and Leaders Can Change
Neuroinclusive recruitment is not about lowering the standard. It is about making sure the standard measures what the job actually requires, rather than accidentally rewarding one preferred way of communicating. The practical changes are less dramatic than people expect, and they tend to improve selection for everyone. I approach them with leaders through three lenses: the work, the person, and the path.
The work is about how the assessment itself is designed. Sharing interview questions or themes in advance can give candidates more opportunity to show their thinking rather than simply how quickly they can form an answer, although some roles do genuinely call for a spontaneous response. Asking people to talk through a real piece of work, or setting a short task that mirrors the role, gets much closer to the evidence than a list of hypothetical questions. Agreeing beforehand what a strong answer contains, rather than how it should sound, keeps the panel focused on substance.
The person is about asking rather than assuming. Include a standard line in every interview invitation asking whether the candidate needs any adjustment or support to take part fully in the process. It opens the door without requiring anyone to disclose anything. What matters is that the offer is ordinary and that taking it up carries no cost.
The path is about what happens after appointment, and it is where good intentions most often fade. Before a promotion panel sits, agree what readiness means for the role and what evidence would demonstrate it. Then check whether the evidence you are weighing reflects that definition or simply who has been most visible. Leaders who do this consistently tend to find people they had been overlooking.
Neuroinclusion in Practice: Neurodiversity Spark
I mentioned my work with Neurodiversity Spark earlier, and it would be remiss not to say more about what Gary Gates and his partners are building there. Spark is a Belfast-based specialist neuroinclusive practice that brings together lived experience, research and practical expertise. Its starting point is one I share completely, which is that awareness on its own rarely changes anything. Organisations can understand a great deal about neurodiversity and still struggle to carry that understanding into the way work is designed and managed day to day.
Spark began as a community of neurodivergent people connecting, sharing experience and supporting one another. As that network grew, the same gap kept appearing. People needed practical, person-centred support, while organisations needed better ways to make meaningful change. The practice that has grown from that community still keeps lived experience at its centre, and it designs solutions with neurodivergent people rather than simply for them.
For organisations, Spark offers training, workplace support and help with implementation, built around a clear sequence of understanding what is happening, measuring what matters and then putting better practice in place. Its free workplace and education readiness assessments identify strengths, barriers and priorities, giving employers a clear starting point rather than an off-the-shelf programme. Alongside that sit applied research, evaluation and co-design, so changes can be tested and adapted rather than assumed to work. Spark also provides structured business support for neurodivergent professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners, along with a flexible space in Belfast for training and collaborative work.
What I value most is that the work is strengths-based as well as practical. The aim is not to help people fit existing systems a little better, but to create processes and environments that work for a wider range of people from the outset. That is the same argument this piece has been making about the interview table. The work has been recognised locally too, with Spark named Best Training Consultancy at the NI Enterprise Awards 2025, and the organisations it has worked with include Queen's University Belfast, Ulster University and Belfast Met.
If your organisation wants to move from good intentions to practical change, Spark is a good place to start that conversation. You can find out more about its services, community and research at neurodiversityspark.com.
If You Are the One Falling at the Interview Stage
If you keep reaching interviews without offers, that is useful information rather than a verdict. It tells you that your application is getting you into consideration. The next question is whether your evidence is coming through clearly enough in the room, whether the examples are strong enough, or whether something about the format is getting in the way. The professionals who make the strongest progress tend to treat interviewing as a skill they can practise, rather than a personality test they have somehow failed.
Start by looking at the depth of your answers. Take three or four examples from your work and develop each one, covering the situation you faced, the decisions you made, what you did and what changed as a result. A well-developed example gives the panel more evidence to assess than a brief summary of what you can do.
Engagement matters too, though it doesn't mean pretending to be someone you aren't. It can be as simple as explaining why a piece of work interested you, or naming what you would do differently next time. Confidence of that kind comes from practice rather than fearlessness, as I explored in Confidence at Work Is Not the Same as Fearlessness.
If something about the format makes it harder for you to show what you can do, asking for an adjustment is a reasonable request rather than a special favour. Where a disability creates a disadvantage in the recruitment process, an employer may have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments. In Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission's guidance confirms this can extend to interviews and assessments, including questions in advance, additional time, a quieter setting or a different assessment method. Once you are in the role, Building Confidence in a New Job looks at settling in well.
A View From Neurodiversity Coaching
I asked Neil Lawrence, a fellow coach who specialises in working with neurodivergent professionals, to add his perspective to this piece. Here are his tips for employers, recruitment agents and candidates.
Recruitment
Enlighten and check that companies you are aligned with have processes that allow for the best communication options for all neurotypes. A formal interview is just one way to assess someone.
When putting forward any candidate, ensure that they are aware of the best ways for their brain pattern to prepare for interview and how to "play the game".
Offer a coaching session, especially for those whose brain pattern is "misread" by potential employers.
Employers
Ensure that the interview process provides opportunities for all brain patterns to shine. You may miss the best candidate otherwise.
Don't get tied up in knots about ND definitions. Meet the potential candidate where they are. They are the best people to tell you how they perform at their best.
If a candidate names their brain pattern, assume nothing. Bob from finance may be autistic too, but it doesn't mean their personality and core values will be anything like the candidate in front of you.
Candidates
Break down instructions for the interview:
Pre-prep of answers and information about the job
Plan the route
Bounce ideas for the whole process, including the day itself, off your most trusted ally
Whatever your brain type diagnosis is, do not turn this into a story. Your brain is not you, it is part of you. You may well have to enlighten the prospective company on a finer point or two of how you communicate or work best, but your fitness for role is the focus. Nothing else.
Remember you will need to know how to "play the game", and speak the prospective employer's language and rules, which may be appreciably different from your own. It is just as much your job to speak to the culture of the company as it is theirs to understand the nature of yours.
Neil Lawrence, ND Coach helping ND Professionals do less and be more, EMCC Senior Practitioner. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/neillawrencendcoach
A Question Worth Carrying
The graduate I worked with didn't become a different person in those four weeks. He became easier for a panel to see, and that was enough to change the direction of his early career. Somewhere in your own organisation, or perhaps in your own working life, ability has been judged by how it was presented rather than by what it was.
So the question to bring into your next interview panel, promotion discussion or team meeting is a wee bit uncomfortable. Whose potential have you ruled out because it arrived in a form you weren't used to? And if you have spent years on the other side of that judgement, what might change if you stopped assuming your way of working was automatically the problem?
In my team workshops, I use StrengthsScope® to help everyone on a team see the strengths they bring, including those that rarely show in an interview room. If you want your team to recognise and build on them, I would be glad to talk it through.
By Paula Donnan
Strength at Work | Better judgement. Stronger leadership. Higher performance.
If this is affecting you, book in for a free 30-minute initial briefing to discuss the way forward.
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