For those who have been through job interviews, most will be familiar with The STAR Technique used by recruiters and employers.
This style asks the candidate a series of questions to be responded to by explaining a Situation Task Action and Result.
The majority of neurodivergent people are automatically disadvantaged. Not cool.
The questions are varied and could be a combination of approximately 3-5 from 100s.
The recommendation now is to prepare responses to some of the more common questions known, such as "Can you tell us about a challenging interaction" or "What is a situation you can explain where you resolved a complaint"
Job interviews usually increase people's nervousness
Candidates are trying to remember details of a new role and new company along with anticipating the types of questions they may be asked (while no doubt also having to apply to other companies increasing the mental load of details)
Suggesting people have pre prepared responses simply leads to people making up a situation to fit the common questions, or re-telling one story with a slight twist. This means the candidate has to be lucky enough (or know someone internally) to have prepared answers to the exact questions asked, or be highly adept at retrieving and relaying specific yet complex scenarios instantly.
What about the luck of the candidate that prepared five responses to the most common questions and was not asked one of those but five others? What about employers who request you research a topic or product and have prepared knowledge to discuss in a Q and A, and then they never ask you about the requested topic but something different?
Recruiters inform people to answer STAR questions as per the required structure and many encourage to have STAR responses prepared and on your computer for virtual interviews. The STAR Technique is a victim of its own Bandwagon Fallacy popularity, everyone said it was the best approach because someone else said it was the best approach, now everyone either knows how to game the approach or is rejected if they follow their own style.
I just can't accept employers will find innovative, honest, problem solvers best suited to the role with STAR.
Forcing people to answer questions this way really only tests rapid memory recall in the absence of pre-prepared questions and answers.
The argument for STAR that supports the ability of candidates to structure information and reduce unnecessary content is valid, but overall inadequate due to the rampantly high numbers of candidates who can easily lie their way through the process or read from their screen.
If you're looking for people who can read from a script and you don't want critical thinkers, or if you need low quality sales people who can talk shit but not value, it might be your choice.
Why is any job interview keeping the questions a big secret, and testing candidates on the spot like a timed quiz show for a response? Especially, when you have advised candidates to have prepared answers to suggested and well known questions? Some people will luckily have answers to questions and others won't, and this does not get you the best person for the job. It's not a fair and equitable approach, it's employing people from questions in a roll of the dice random chance scenario. Imagine telling the CEO you onboarded the latest thief because they rolled the highest number in the dice game.
Recruiters on LinkedIn openly advising "Those who can answer questions in the interview get the roles, not those who might have the skills and capabilities for the roles, those who work this out get the jobs" How did we get here?? If you want to test thinking, analysis, structure, conversational, and true knowledge skills, could you find some specialists to 'structure' an effective analytical approach that eliminates the wide open bullshitable loophole of the STAR technique?
Skills and capabilities for the role are quite critical. Especially when most companies don't have full training. Just saying. I'd like my mechanic to know how to replace the radiator, not just bill me for $500 to tell me about the time he crashed his car, damaged the radiator, took it to the mechanic, helped the other mechanic (by standing idle with a spanner), and drove off with it all shiny and fixed.
Neurodivergent Candidates!!!!!! They have 1000 thoughts ready to fire forth at any given time and are challenged with simply selecting one thought easily. This is literally the reason neurodivergent people often talk fast, have multiple ideas at once, can swap from concept to concept easily, and have mid-sentence pauses when their brain has generated too much information at once (Such as in an interview) and they're usually good with spotting gaps and logical fallacies.
It is no exaggeration to say a question requiring retrieval of one scenario from their thousands, under pressure in an interview, is the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack in 10 seconds. Often the neurodivergent brain will experience a freeze on retrieving anything when in this state. Similar to twenty devices trying to connect to the wi-fi and there's too much information trying to get through at once🥶
ND people have some of the highest rates of creativity, multiple thinking styles and abilities, problem solving, ideas generation, talents, logic, reasoning, knowledge, and they are being screened out because they couldn't instantly default to a fabricated story about the time they "made Jane happy at the office when she was sick by buying her some flowers at lunch to cheer her up, resulting in Jane feeling much better before she left early to have a rest" Give me a freaking break!! This gets people in the door for the assumed high empathy (very valid) even if the story is entirely false!? (very common). It's a Hasty Generalisation Fallacy to assume the STAR responses are true. Begging the Question: How do you know if Jane exists? Because the candidate said so.
If empathy is dishonest doesn't that result in the candidate's qualities actually being apathy and dishonesty? Do you then have an employee who doesn't care and can't be trusted? It's a bit of a Slippery Slope STAR! 🌠
The best approach, and one I saw backed up on LinkedIn by another brave person is to provide an email to the candidates with their choice from 3-5 interview styles (virtual, in person, questions or conversational etc.) and a copy of the questions being asked so ALL candidates can prepare responses to the right questions. Mix up the question and response style to engage people (some knowledgable industries already use this approach). Group your interviews accordingly. This is respectful. This is accommodating all thinking styles. This is inclusive. This is stress reducing. This improves quality of responses and reduces bullshit with more time to prepare. This is common sense?
No more faux game show approaches and interviewers guarding their questions like cards in a poker game (without even knowing why) 😎 I don't know how they became Colonel Sanders top secret, but I'm keen to hear from anyone who can present a solid, logical explanation why.
Please be reasonable and employ skilled plumbers to fix leaking sinks, not content creators 🙏
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