How is disability addressed in a job interview?

Abstract

Evidence reveals that disabled people face discrimination during the hiring process. Nonetheless, knowledge is scarce about how employers and disabled applicants relate to the phenomenon of disability in job interviews. This article explores the understandings of disability emerging from actual job interviews for a company with an expressed diversity policy. By combining the analytical concepts of ‘dialogism’ and ‘staring’, the article illustrates the tendency to use an individualised understanding of disability, thus blocking affirmative understanding and the candidates’ limited agency to perform the role of ‘staree’ in the job interview setting (i.e. advocating for disability as an asset). To facilitate more inclusive hiring practices, employers could explicitly link the diversity statements in their job listings to their inclusion policies in practice to show their concern about staff diversity and work-life inclusion to their candidates.

Points of interest

• Disabled people are known to face discrimination during the job hiring process.

• This article shows that even inclusive employers may use a person-deficit approach when talking to disabled applicants in a job interview.

• Educators and employment service providers should educate employers on the different understandings that exist about disability to foster inclusive dialogues and work environments.

• Educators and social workers should support disabled job seekers, as they strive to achieve self-awareness and build self-advocacy skills, which would enable them to inform potential employers about the assets of disability.

Keywords:

• Disability
• discrimination
• employment
• inclusion
• recruitment

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the interviewees for taking part in the study. I would also like to thank John Eriksen, Anita Sundnes and Kaja Larsen Østerud as well as the two reviewers for constructive comments to the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council.