• Swindon & Wiltshire Governance
• Monday September 9 2024
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Zurich adopts former MP’s recommendations to support autistic job candidates

A report by former Swindon South MP Sir Robert Buckland has been adopted as part of the recruitment policy by insurance giant Zurich, which has its headquarters in the town.

The Buckland Review of Autism Employment, which was published in February, found autistic people have negative experiences of interviews, group tasks, and psychometric tests.

The report also found the traditional model of sending a CV in response to a generic job specification, being shortlisted, attending a face-to-face interview with strangers, and being asked questions they have not seen before does not work well for neurodiverse applicants.

In response, Zurich has removed group exercises from the early in careers application process, to allow individual skills and the best talent for the role to be considered when hiring, rather than performance in group scenario which some may find intimidating.

Reasonable adjustments are made for individual applicant needs if requested, including detailing what to expect from the interview.

These adjustments can help abate any nervousness that neurodiverse applicants may experience pre-interview, says the firm.

Zurich is also continuing with its use of ‘blind CVs’ during the recruitment process.

Introduced into the early in careers process for the 2022 intake, using blind CVs sets out to tackle recruitment bias.

It means that hiring managers have no sight of the applicant’s details outside of the fact they’ve passed the pre-screening stage.

This allows for a more diverse and inclusive process to help remove unconscious bias whilst aiding social mobility.

Research by a software company Arctic Shores in their 2022 report, Scrap the CV, found that CVs were a barrier to early in career employment with 43 per cent saying they are an outdated recruitment model.

Half of the young people interviewed said they did not think they had sufficient experience on their CVs to get jobs, with 39 per cent pushing for an assessment on personality instead.

Zurich applicants are now encouraged to use examples of life-experience and draw on their strengths during assessments, which could put those with less work experience on a level-playing field and encourage applicants to consider their transferrable skills from alternative sources of experience.

Since introducing blind CVs and simplifying the recruitment process, the firm says the proportion of candidates from ethnically diverse backgrounds has remained constant from application to interview stage.

Michelle Ransome, Zurich’s lead talent acquisition manager, said: “We are proud to use blind CVs, which allow managers to hire based on candidates’ strengths and skills, removing any unconscious bias and encouraging social mobility.

“We’ve seen a strong increase in applicants for both graduates and internships. By streamlining the process and making it more accessible to all, it’s allowed us to be more diverse and inclusive.”

Opening for applications today (Monday, September 9) the Zurich graduate scheme and internship programme will offer 34 graduate roles and 21 internships spaces.