Accessibility and Archives: Being recruited while disabled - Part Two

In this, the second of two blogposts about how the recruitment process impacts disabled workers in our sector, Philip Milnes-Smith from the Accessibility working group of ARA’s Diversity and Inclusion Allies curates testimony from anonymised contributors.  These are presented without additional commentary or analysis beyond noting that there seems to be room for sectoral improvement.  The Accessibility working group would like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors.

It is again important to state at the start that disabled people are not all alike.  It is certainly not true that the experience of one represents the experience of all.  But it would also be wrong to suggest that any one experience is an outlier anomaly from which nothing can be learned. 

Recruitment Witness 3:

I often wonder whether the effort and energy cost of disclosing is worth it for contracts. I also try not to apply for contracts although this is difficult in archives because permanent jobs are rare. Change can be difficult, so I would prefer to get settled into a permanent job and spend my energy on getting disclosure, adjustments etc right once rather than having to go through the same thing (often in limited levels of success) every year.

Job applications often have unnecessary skills listed in the specification and this can put me off applying. Adverts that make it clear there is no flexibility (e.g. in hours, on/off site) also put me off.

Recruitment Witness 4:

I don’t want this to be a ‘poor me’, ‘X-factor-esque’ sob story, yet, I feel it’s disingenuous and damaging to present a neat and glossy feel good story pushing the notion that if you work hard and keep positive, you too will realise your ambitions.

Recruitment Witness 5:

In my experience any ‘one size fits all approach’ to interviewing techniques does not recognise diversity and the different learning and communication styles of the candidates the role hopes to attract – naturally favouring the ‘quick thinkers’ and so automatically putting some at an advantage, regardless of their level of skills and experience.

This can make the recruitment process even more inequitable for those with disabilities and/or neurodiversity, such as I experience, who may already be trying to navigate other barriers in these situations. Personally, not always being able to communicate well verbally or organise my thoughts quickly means that that interviews can become especially difficult and often do not provide the opportunity for me to sufficiently demonstrate my suitability or appetite for the role.

I am often unable to think fast enough to construct examples of my experience in response to immediate questions and often, naturally, do not use my words well enough to offer the full answers interviewers are looking for. This is especially difficult in interviews where a candidate is selected based on the number of points they score for a ‘set answer’.

Advance sight of the questions would be helpful, even if it was just a small amount of prep time pre-interview to gather some thoughts and make some notes in a less pressured/distracting environment. It would be useful to have some points written down to focus and build upon during the actual interview -sometimes a reminder is all that is needed. This would help me to ‘anchor’ my thought processes which tend to either operate on overload or run on empty! On a practical level I’ve been told that I naturally avoid eye-contact so I find that glancing up and down from notes also helps me to focus on directing my gaze towards the interviewer(s)!

I think I would be a bit more comfortable requesting this sort of adjustment now, but certainly not when I was younger/less experienced. There remains the anxiety about having to explain yourself, whether this information will be shared amongst professional colleagues and/or result in a negative impact, but I think I’m at the point now where I would be looking for an employer who was going to be accepting of my differences. This sort of request would be a good test of attitudes, providing an opportunity to raise open discussion about reasonable adjustments before commitment to a particular role.

Generally speaking though I imagine there are many who would not necessarily feel comfortable doing this, or perhaps even be aware that such a request could be made, and it would be good to see recruiters offer adjustments such as this one as a matter or course. This, I think, would help the employer to raise their credentials as being ‘disability friendly’ and attract a wider, more diverse range of candidates by raising confidence that the organisation is actively aware of its role in removing barriers and willing to work to provide a welcome and supportive environment for its employees. From a job -hunting perspective, I think this sort of approach can only encourage applicants from candidates, such as myself, who may previously have had some reservations about applying - possibly as a result of earlier negative recruitment experiences or lack of positive visibility. On a personal level I would initially feel much more confident about applying for a role in an organisation which is visibly disability friendly, rather than only finding out whether this is the case after feeling confident enough to make an adjustment request!

Contributions to this series are welcomed, particularly if you have experience of applying for jobs in the sector as a disabled person.  If you are interested in contributing to a similar anonymised post, in the first instance, please email diversityandinclusion@archives.org.uk .