How ability tests impact neurodivergent candidates
3 minutes
Find out whether ability tests are fair for neurodiverse candidates.
Organisations worldwide are waking up to neurodiversity and why it matters in the workplace. Given the long history of discrimination against neurodivergent individuals, that's a genuinely welcome shift.
And it's not just good for neurodivergent candidates. It's good for the organisations themselves.
There are countless high-potential applicants who happen to be neurodivergent, and a biased selection process makes it harder to find them. Beyond that, neurodivergent candidates bring different ways of thinking, working, and problem-solving that add real value. You can only access that by actually hiring them.
Understanding neurodiversity in the context of recruitment
Neurodiversity refers to the full range of distinct neurotypes in a workforce: autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and neurotypical people too. An organisation is genuinely neurodiverse when it has meaningful representation across all of those, not just one or two.
It's a surprisingly common mistake to think a workforce of 100% autistic employees is "neurodiverse." It isn't. The benefits of neurodiversity come from the differences between neurotypes. A team of people who all think the same way, regardless of what that way is, misses the point entirely.
In practice, most organisations over-represent neurotypical employees, because selection processes sometimes discriminate against neurodivergent candidates, whether intentionally or not. Traditional face-to-face interviews are particularly hard for candidates with autism. CV sifting has long been a barrier for candidates with dyslexia, where spelling errors get people screened out before anyone's assessed their actual ability.
Most organisations worry most about psychometric assessments, but in most cases assessments are substantially fairer than other selection methods. Rather than dropping assessments and leaning even harder on interviews, it's worth understanding what best practice actually looks like.
How different assessment types affect different neurotypes
Neurodivergence isn't one thing. It covers many different neurotypes, each with a different profile of strengths and challenges. That matters because some assessment formats will be genuinely harder for certain neurotypes, while others might actually suit them well.
It's also worth separating two different things: test bias and genuine differences between neurotypes. Genuine differences are real and assessments may accurately reflect them, for example, some personality traits do differ on average between neurotypes. Bias is something different: it's when a specific assessment is inherently harder for a neurotype in a way that has nothing to do with the qualities you're trying to measure.
For a closer look at how assessments affect specific neurotypes, follow the links below:
Cognitive ability tests
Cognitive ability tests are the ones that make HR teams most nervous, partly because the phrase "cognitive ability" alongside "neurotypes" implies a direct interaction. In reality, different neurotypes respond differently to these assessments, and adjustments are usually pretty straightforward.
The main issue across most neurotypes isn't overall ability, it's processing speed. Many neurotypes process information more slowly under timed conditions, even when their underlying ability is comparable. Assessments can be more accommodating than organisations tend to expect - a simple extra time reasonable adjustment can remove any bias.
Personality questionnaires
Personality questionnaires are, if anything, the fairest assessment format for neurodivergent candidates. Very few adjustments are typically needed. With the exception of severe dyslexia, most neurodivergent candidates can complete them without any specific accommodations, as long as the platform works with standard accessibility software.
Personality questionnaires have no time limit and require the answering of very simple questions about yourself.
Why personality tests are ideal for neurodiverse hiring
- 3 minutes
Find out how fair personality tests are for neurodiverse candidates.
Situational judgement tests
Situational judgement tests are generally fair for most neurotypes and easy to accommodate. The exception is autism. People with autism tend to be more literal and concrete in their thinking, which makes hypothetical "what would you do if..." scenarios genuinely harder. This has been successfully challenged legally, so it's worth thinking carefully about where situational judgement tests sit in your process if neurodiversity is a priority.
We tend to not recommend SJTs anyway, the insights you can get from other selection methods are much stronger. You can read our analysis of the most predictive selection methods which covers each type.
Reasonable adjustments to ensure fairness
The point of adjustments is to reduce the disadvantages candidates face as a direct result of their neurodivergence, particularly where that disadvantage is irrelevant to the role. A candidate with autism may find the interpersonal performance of a face-to-face interview genuinely difficult, but in a software engineering role, that has nothing to do with whether they can do the job. That's where adjustments matter.
The guiding principle is that adjustments must be reasonable: practical and actually implementable. A telephone interview instead of a face-to-face meeting is potentially reasonable (especially in the case of a physical disability). But an adjustment of skipping the interview entirely is not.
Inevitably, there will be some subjectivity as to what constitutes 'reasonable' in the context of neurodivergence, but it's a line that organisations must navigate."
These are probably the main reasonable adjustments you must ensure you offer when using ability tests:
Extra time with cognitive assessments. Processing speed is the main issue across most neurotypes with timed ability tests. Extra time is a reasonable adjustment because, in most real roles, no one is being asked to complete tasks with a one-to-three-minute time limit. Make sure your assessment platform supports this.
Compatibility with accessibility software. Your platform should work with third-party accessibility tools and allow candidates to adjust background colour, contrast, font size, and text display to their preference. These adjustments don't make tasks easier, they just remove barriers that have nothing to do with ability.
Tell candidates adjustments are available. None of this works if candidates don't know they can ask. Neurodivergent candidates are often reluctant to disclose requirements, worried it'll count against them. Many would rather push through without any help than risk explicit discrimination. Make it clear, early and more than once, that disclosing a requirement won't harm their application and that you'll do everything reasonable to accommodate them.
How Test Partnership supports neurodiversity
We've spent a lot of time at Test Partnership thinking about how psychometric testing and neurodiversity interact, and we try to make that thinking visible to our clients.
Our platform is built to be compatible with accessibility software, native display changes, and third-party browser extensions, so candidates can adjust their experience to match how they normally access the internet.
We allow extra time to be added to a candidate's assessment easily.
We offer a broad range of cognitive and behavioural assessments, as well as gamified tests, which addresses several of the most common challenges neurodivergent candidates face with traditional cognitive tests. Game-based formats reduce reliance on long blocks of text, which makes a real difference for candidates with dyslexia. They're also more engaging by design, which helps sustain attention for candidates with ADHD.
If neurodiversity is a genuine priority for your organisation, it's worth exploring what gamified assessments could do for your process.
Conclusion and next steps
Building a more inclusive hiring process for neurodivergent candidates doesn't mean tearing up everything you already do and starting again. It's about making sure your existing recruitment methods are flexible and accommodating for everyone. Small, intentional adjustments can go a long way towards creating an environment where all candidates feel comfortable, valued, and able to show what they're really capable of.
Psychometric assessments, done well, are actually one of the most accommodating parts of a selection process. They're easy to adjust, easy to standardise, and far less exposed to the interpersonal dynamics that make interviews so difficult for many neurodivergent candidates.
If you'd like to talk through how Test Partnership can support your neurodiversity goals, book a call with us and we'll work through it with you.
Primary author
Ben Schwencke
Chief psychologist at Test Partnership. MSc in Organisational Psychology with over ten years experience in psychometric testing.
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