Finding the right talent is a top priority for businesses. Building a deep and diverse candidate pool is key in matching open positions with the best employees to fill them. 

In a new episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast from eCornell, Susanne Bruyère, a professor of Disability Studies and academic director of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability at the Cornell ILR School, joins host Chris Wofford to discuss the growing number of corporate affirmative hiring programs to recruit individuals who are neurodivergent.

Wofford: “Why is a growing number of companies designing and implementing affirmative hiring practices to recruit individuals who are neurodivergent or autistic?”

Bruyère: “The driver is need for talent. I mean it's always true that businesses are looking for the very best talent imaginable to meet their strategic imperative, and it's never been more true than now.

“We've seen over the past 10 years, in some cases longer, but particularly the tech sector seemed to take an ardent interest about 10 years ago, there were leaders like SAP, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and others that [recognized] certain characteristics . . . like the ability to see patterns. Great for data, great for cybersecurity, great for accounting anomalies. Prolonged focus. These are amazing characteristics for certain jobs. And then an ardent search for the talent that had these characteristics began in certain sectors. Those skill sets and others in the population of neurodiverse, neurodivergent and autistic individuals can apply to many jobs in many sectors.

“What I would encourage people to think about is just raising awareness that this is a population that can be a talent source, that the community often has representation in it that you can align with, and also look at how to establish some naturally occurring communities within your workforce to help understand who's interested and what place would they like to serve in raising visibility about this like employee resource or affinity groups — great place to start that conversation.”

Learn more about creating a culture that embraces a diverse workforce, including those who are neurodivergent, in Episode 40, Neurodiversity at Work: Inclusion Policies and Practices.

Bruyère is an author of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Building a Diverse Workforce certificate program. Other relevant Cornell online courses include Workplace Disability Inclusion and Autism at Work.

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Quotes have been edited for clarity.