Autistica - Hire Different
Shining a light on how the traditional interview process is stacked against autistic people by comparing and contrasting the challenges they face with those a neurotypical person might face in the same setting.
Problem.
The campaign is born from the insight that fewer than three in ten autistic adults are currently in employment in the UK.
Difficulties outlined in the campaign include understanding interview questions and body language cues, communication challenges, sensory issues and anxiety which are all factors that create additional barriers to entry into the workplace for autistic people.
Solution.
A simple film consisting of type and visual type-focused out-of-home posters lay out the challenges interviews bring that many neurotypical people might take for granted. The different executions are inspired by real accounts of job interview experiences by autistic people and ran across digital outdoor sites in London and Birmingham and across social media channels.
Results.
As a result, traditional job interviews often inadvertently recruit for social skills rather than job skills, meaning employers overlook the best candidates for the job.
‘Hire Differently’ aims to raise awareness around the injustices in the hiring process that many are simply unaware of having not experienced them. The current process means that employers will not only miss out on all the other skills and expertise that autistic people have to offer due to unconscious bias within the system, but show interviews to be the cause of much stress and anxiety.
Our campaign focuses on the faults in the whole hiring/interview system that hasn't changed for decades. It's madness in this day and age that it has stayed the same and is in no way inclusive or considers someone who cannot interview well under these pressures and will miss out on a job, because of this.
Jo Moore, Executive Creative Director at House 337