Building Neurodiverse Talent Pools For Diverse Employers
Introducing Neuropool
Being out of work is challenging enough for anyone, but neurodiverse people face extra challenges that can make it even harder to compete with neurotypical graduates in the job market. This traps many neurodiverse jobseekers in a vicious cycle of long-term unemployment.
It was for this reason that Neuropool was founded, a recruitment and training platform designed specifically to give neurodiverse candidates greater opportunities to enter the workplace. Its purpose is to help employers better understand neurodiversity in the organisation, find exceptional talent and reduce the time it takes to locate and maintain a highly skilled talent pool.
To this day, there’s too much focus in society on the limitations of neurodivergences, rather than the benefits of cognitive differences. Neuropool aims to flip that way of thinking by profiling neurodiverse individuals according to the attributes and skills they bring that could benefit an employer. But in order to change societal perceptions of neurodiversity in the longer term, we need to support neurodiverse individuals from a young age, right through their education and into the early stages of their careers.
Neuropool’s platform is designed to guide neurodiverse students to employment opportunities across all fields, bringing them together with a wide range of academic institutions and employers. At the same time, their recruitment services provide clients with access to talent pools of highly talented graduates across the UK that are actively seeking graduate roles. Neuropool’s portal allows employers to connect with these individuals. By understanding the employer’s needs and the candidate’s strengths, Neuropool helps organisations build a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
How can we create a more inclusive and productive working environment?
Skills-based profiling: Don’t think about potential employees according to what they can’t do. Think about what they can bring to the business through their differences. Don’t make any presuppositions about their neurodivergence. Get to know each individual, their specific abilities and the tasks that come most comfortably to them, and how these strengths tie into your requirements as a business. Taking that further, consider creating roles for which you can hire neurodiverse people, as opposed to hiring neurodiverse people who can support you with existing roles.
Employment experiences: Through work experience placements and apprenticeships, you can give neurodiverse talent an insight into the workplace from an early age, which not only shows them that they can thrive in a business environment, but that they can bring valuable skills and perspectives. Your HR, recruitment and management teams will need to be closely aligned to understand what kind of talent you’re looking for and how to attract it. Working closely with local institutes of higher education can help to unearth new talent.
Careers advice: Neurodiverse talent needs to be engaged at a young age so that these individuals understand the value of what they can bring. This begins with education – providing guidance and mentorship to neurodiverse students, training teaching staff to help them understand and support these students – and partnering with employers to ensure young people are receiving all the assistance and encouragement they need.
By being more accommodating to neurodiverse employees, you can increase the variety and quality of your workforce and equip your business to deal with challenges that may previously have been beyond the available skillsets.
If you’re a neurodiverse jobseeker looking for access to mentors, graduate roles or career progression, or you’re a hiring manager looking for access to an untapped talent pool of uniquely skilled individuals with different perspectives, get in touch with Neuropool.
About Neuropool
Over 100,000 neurodiverse young adults turn 18 every year in the UK. A large percentage of these young adults are not entering employment due to lack of innovation, training, and accessibility to career pathways and employment opportunities; Neuropool was founded to help address this issue
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