There has been an increased focus on digital accessibility at both the state and local levels of government, in part due to a new federal ruling mandating it. And while technology is transforming the hiring process for many organizations, hiring tools can have disproportionately negative outcomes for people with disabilities.
CDT’s new report, Screened Out: The Impact of Digitized Hiring Assessments on Disabled Workers, argues the use of digitized assessments in hiring presents a variety of accessibility barriers and potentially discriminatory outcomes.
Ariana Aboulafia, a project lead in disability rights in technology policy at CDT and one of the report’s authors, said although disabled employment has been up consistently since 2020, return-to-office mandates and hiring tools such as these digitized assessments may hinder that progress.
“I think that it’s hopefully going to be really helpful to have this report out there so that employers who are considering these sorts of tools — and also developers who are considering the creation of these sorts of tools — prioritize the experience of folks with disabilities,” Aboulafia said.
She emphasized no marginalized group is monolithic, something that is especially true for people with disabilities. People with different disabilities have unique experiences interacting with technologies.
Michal Luria, a research fellow at CDT and one of the report’s authors, offered an example of how a digitized assessment may be inaccessible in separate ways for people with differing disabilities.
The study used an emotional intelligence test in which participants had to identify the emotion expressed in an image. People with low vision or blindness could not clearly see the image, and it did not include alt text descriptions — written descriptions of visual content for people using screen readers or other assistive technologies.
That is one set of challenges presented by a single test, which could present alternate challenges for someone on the spectrum of autism; in this case, interpreting an emotion based on an image with limited context could be challenging. And in either case, Luria argued the test does not accurately measure participants’ level of emotional intelligence or their ability to respond to an emotionally complex situation in the workplace.
“Most of these technologies are not made with most disability in mind, much less the broad spectrum of disability,” Aboulafia said.
Luria highlighted the impact of these assessments on participants' emotional experience, even in a simulated hiring environment.
“The discrimination is kind of inherent in these kinds of tools,” Luria said, echoing the study participants’ sentiments: They were split on whether these tools could be made more accessible. However, the report offers recommendations to minimize the harm these assessments could cause.
First, it said, employers should evaluate whether a digitized assessment is necessary for the specific role for which they are hiring. Employers can consider alternate methods of measurement that may more accurately measure relevant skills and abilities.
Second, it recommends following accessibility guidelines, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and initiatives of the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology.
Finally, if it has been determined that a digitized assessment is necessary, organizations can take steps to ensure the reduction of discriminatory impacts. For example, Luria said these types of assessments should be used as a supplementary part of the hiring process rather than in screening.
“Those assessments, ideally, would not replace the comprehensive human evaluation of a candidate that should be in place at all stages of a hiring process,” she said.
Luria also recommended transparency about when and how these tools will be used in the hiring process, urging this information be clear from the initial job posting. For some potential job candidates, the presence of such assessments may deter them from applying to a job.
Transparency can not only help people with disabilities determine whether a job and employer are the right fit for them, Aboulafia said, but it can help job seekers decide if they want to disclose their disability, when to do so and whether to ask for accommodations: “If you don’t know that a tool is being used, there’s no way to know that you might need an accommodation at that stage in a hiring process."
