Why Your Screening Process Is Failing One in Seven Candidates

About one in seven people globally are neurodivergent — ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and more. But the employment rate for autistic adults in the US is around 22%. That's not a talent shortage. That's a screening failure built into the tools most HR teams use every day. In this episode, we dig into what the research actually shows about how conventional hiring processes systematically filter out neurodiverse candidates — and what structured, audio-only AI screening does differently. We cover Harvard Business School's hidden workers data, Schmidt and Hunter's landmark study on structured interviews, and the productivity numbers from JPMorgan's Autism at Work program. If your ATS is penalizing employment gaps and non-linear careers, and your video interview process is scoring eye contact and body language instead of substance, you're likely missing some of your highest-potential candidates. We look at what an audio-only, structured approach like OVI changes — and why the fix is more straightforward than most teams think. Brought to you by OVI — audio chat screening that evaluates candidates on what they say, not how they present.