Recruitment Accessibility in the days of lockdown

CLARE RYDER • 29 Apr 2020

Very early into the pandemic, I hadn’t heard of Crowdcast or Teams and my view of home working would have been very different to that of today. The Covid-19 pandemic turned the world on its head and whilst the UK lockdowns restricted us to when we could leave our homes, the facility to work from home became far more accessible than it ever had before. 

"Globally, at least 2.2. billion people have a vision impairment or blindness"

(source: WHO)

 

During Teams meetings (whilst discovering we could change our MS Teams background image to a palm lined beach or in my case, taking myself off to ‘Lego world’), we also discovered that Teams meetings could include real-time subtitles, automatically providing a transcription of our conversation. A clever use of technology, enabling hearing impaired colleagues to join a virtual meeting.

MS Teams 2

Open and accessible recruitment processes

In a world where talent attraction is as competitive as ever; ensuring every candidate can engage easily with your careers content and apply for jobs can provide a significant competitive advantage. 

The subject of accessibility for disabled candidates should be a critical element for recruitment teams - in the UK alone there is a disability employment gap of more than 30%. Many people with disabilities face barriers that prevent them from accessing career opportunities, let alone entering the workplace, but if we can make the candidate attraction and application experience an accessible one, recruiters can more successfully tap into this huge pool of talent.

Making your candidate hub accessible for all could not be more important - the stats speak for themselves

  • In the UK alone, 16% of the population is dyslexic
  • 4 million people have a learning disability
  • 19% of working age adults are disabled
  • 2 million people in the UK have English as a second language

In a time where information is vital, it is increasingly important that information is accessible for all. 

At Jobtrain, we have enabled our candidate hubs to be fully accessible through an integrated Accessibility Toolkit. Amongst an array of features, the Toolkit allows candidates to:

  • Adjust font size
  • Amend the contrast on the screen for the partially sighted
  • Change the language
  • Run the screen reader to read aloud the website's content

Small, easily achieved changes that can make a world of difference to those who benefit.


WHAT NEXT?

Download our guide to accessibility when recruiting

DOWNLOAD - guide to Accessibility when recruiting April 2021 fc

 

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