How personality tests are locking autistic people out of jobs

Some of the UK's leading companies are still using personality tests when they recruit staff, despite government advice that they make finding jobs harder for neurodivergent people.

These tests are "locking autistic people out of jobs", said the Big Issue, and charities believe they are discriminatory.

Significant barriers

Personality tests, sometimes known as psychometric tests, aim to "determine if a worker will fit into a company's culture", said Huck, as well as "how they will respond to their employer's directions".

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The tests are used by some of Britain's leading retailers, including Morrisons and John Lewis, but they make job applications "near impossible" for people with autism, said the Big Issue.

A government review has found that only three in 10 working-age autistic people are in work, compared with around five in 10 for all disabled people and eight in 10 for non-disabled people.

A study in Sage Journals found that one reason for the higher unemployment rate among autistic people may be that hiring processes are "inaccessible" for them, and a study on PubMed found that pre-employment personality tests "prey on several features of autism in an unfair way".

The London Autism Group Charity told the Big Issue that the tests "present significant barriers for autistic applicants" while Ambitious about Autism said "many highly qualified autistic people" have been "unable to find work" because of the "prevalence" of the tests.

Although it's illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities, personality tests can be used "to sidestep the law", said Accessibility.com. The tests "often screen for so many autism characteristics" that they "come just short of outright asking a person if they're autistic".

Personality tests are a "recipe for discrimination" against people with disabilities, wrote Henry Claypool for NBC News, and it's "junk science" to assume that people's "self-reported moods or confidence accurately correlate to their future job performance".

Human complexities 

Companies in the UK are legally required to offer "reasonable adjustments" for people with additional needs during the hiring process, said Huck, and they may be offered "extra time, screen-reading software, or other provisions".

John Lewis said it made interview questions publicly available online to help applicants prepare, while Morrisons is introducing a new online assessment which it says "will have far greater functionality" to support all applicants, "including those that are neurodivergent”.

But completely "opting out of a personality test" is "rarely permitted", said Huck, and the tests have "great potential for harm" when used to decide the fate of a worker who is looking for employment and an income, because "people are far more complex than a quiz", and "it's about time that modern recruitment processes reflect that".