As we are experiencing a global skills shortage and the “infamous” talent battle is ongoing employers must now start to focus on an excellent talent pool that has been underutilised for many years.
A significant number of person living with ASD have a wide range of skills that are relevant in today’s new world of work and employers need to focus on ensuring that they change the old system of hiring people with disabilities with 505 of people with ASD woking in jobs that they are over qualified for.
Persons with ASD must be hired on the same basis as a standard recruitment process and some of the skills in the ASD talent pool are in high demand today including,
- Systematic Information Processing
- Precise Technical Abilities
- Attention to detail
- Honesty
- Efficiency
- Consistency
- Low Absenteeism
- A disinterest in “office politics”
- Strong mathematics and solving skills.
As a Talent Specialist I have come across many ASD people who have are strong visual thinkers and have matched Job Specifications for the following roles
- Computer Programming
- Photography
- Automobile Mechanic
- Web Page Designer
- Computer Animation
Among the non-visual thinkers I have met 100s with skills that suit the following roles,
- Accountancy
- Engineering
- Statistician
- Copy Editor
- Content creation
- Telemarketing
- Bank Tellers
and much more.
In order to hire and get involved in the recruitment of persons with ASD employers need to develop on boarding programmes in the very same way that they do when the hire from the open labour market with the provision of some simple amendments to their HR processes.
Employers must ensure that there are no group interviews, as one to one interviews are best for the recruitment process as interview panels with a number of people can prevent someone with ASD from engaging.
Recently some highly active and innovative employers have started to recruit talented people with ASD like SAP Ireland with the company’s Managing Director Liam Ryan explaining the advantages: “once you get over the basic issues, you get employees who are very focused, loyal and dedicated advocates for the organisation.”
SAP’s decision to start hiring people with autism came from an initiative at its operation in India where a senior manager had a child with autism and the recruitment programme was piloted there and rolled out throughout the entire SAP organisation globally.
SAP are not alone in hiring people with autism including
- Microsoft
- Willers Towers Watson
- Walgreens
- Freddie Mac
With unemployment at a record low across the globe, this Talent pool now has its opportunity to show the world of work what they can contribute and the smart employer will reach out to this pool to ensure the their organisation has an edge over their competitors.
If you want more information of finding talent in this pool contact info@dontleavethembehind.com today.