Session Title:  Are We Supporting Neurodiverse Job Candidates?: Creating a Neuro-Inclusive Workplace 

Session description: 

Inclusive hiring practices benefit all candidates and signal the organization is committed to creating a workplace for everyone. Implementing these practices, including ensuring administrators and managers are trained on supporting neurodiverse employees, remove the need for candidates (and employees) to disclose their disabilities to receive accommodation, or feel compelled to mask their identities to “fit-in” to a workplace.

Our research team surveyed 400+ private and public academic libraries who advertised positions in 2021 and 2022, to determine the current state of affairs in academic libraries with regard to hiring and/or interviewing neurodiverse candidates based on best practices identified from HR literature and the experiences of our neurodiverse team members.  Respondents reported on how they wrote their job ads and descriptions, practices for virtual and in-person interviews, accommodations provided to candidates, general HR procedures, and which practices for hiring neurodiverse candidates they currently offer. 

In this interactive presentation, we will report on these findings, and share out how hiring committees at academic libraries can establish inclusive hiring practices for neurodiverse candidates. 

 Presenters:

• Liz Bellamy (she/her), Instruction & Research Librarian
• Alexandra Flores Glosson (she/her), Instruction & Research Librarian
• James Glosson (he/him), Collections & Discovery Librarian
• Mary K. Oberlies (she/her), Instruction & Data Services Librarian
• Michael Runyon (he/they), Digital Archivist
• Paul Showalter (he/him), Coordinator of Instruction & Assessment