When we sat down with Paula Nuzzi, CHRO at Tarter, host Rebecca Taylor brought her a case that tests good intentions. A tech company launches a hiring initiative for candidates with autism, ADHD, and other neurological differences. It offers modified interviews, mentorship, and workplace accommodations. Then a rejected candidate who does not identify as neurodivergent files a reverse discrimination complaint, arguing the program favored applicants with disabilities.
The scenario is fictional, but Rebecca called it realistic: many companies are working out how to build hiring around neurodiversity at work. Paula did not dismiss the complaint or read it as an attack on the program. She read it as a prompt to check whether the process, or its explanation, had left a candidate feeling shut out.
Why the Risk Depends on How the Program Is Built
Rebecca’s first instinct was that the complaint would not go far, given the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Paula was more careful. In her words, “it depends on how the company is rolling these initiatives out.” She sees concerns for a company that bluntly refuses to hire anyone without neurodiversity.
Part of Rebecca’s instinct has a statutory basis. Since a 2008 amendment, the ADA has said that nothing in it provides the basis for a claim by an individual without a disability over that lack of disability. The provision covers the ADA alone, and Paula would also check the company’s state requirements.
Modified interviews are familiar ground, too. The ADA’s definition of reasonable accommodation already lists “appropriate adjustment or modifications of examinations.” Paula sees the program as the next step in twenty years of accommodation work, not a break from it.
She placed the gap somewhere else: the explanation. From the sound of the complaint, the company had not done enough to show that the program does not hinder anyone else’s chance at a job. It helps people who never had one.
How Paula Would Investigate the Complaint
Paula would start with the recruiter: who was recruited, who was chosen to interview, why those top three candidates, and what they asked. The hiring manager gets similar questions. Then come the documents: interview notes, resumes, the job description for the role, and the Predictive Index results. The complainant comes last, to explain which steps felt missed.
How she asks matters as much as whom she asks. Paula would not tell the recruiter that a candidate feels discriminated against. The hiring manager does not need to know why she is asking either. The goal is facts, not a defense.
Her own bias gets the same discipline. To Paula, the candidate’s perception is their reality, but it is not yet a finding. She sets her view aside until the data is in, because a judge does not care what HR thought the candidate wanted to hear. As she put it, “They want to know what the truth is.”
Each source is a different type of investigation evidence, and Paula checks where the tool data and interviews agree before she responds.
What Actually Works
Design the Program for Access, Not Preference
Paula warns against any program that leaves people feeling they will never get a role without a diagnosis or label. In her words, “our hiring practices have to get past the subjective.” The aim is to read cognitive strengths so each candidate lands in a role that fits.
Her own experience shows the payoff. Paula described hiring a person with autism into the customer experience group. It took the team three or four days to see what he brought. His computer skills were, in her words, “absolutely phenomenal,” and he was building AI tools no one else had understood.
Paula wants interviewers trained to ask what workplace accommodations would help, the way they would for a candidate who uses a wheelchair. Candidate experience covers the people a program does not hire, too.
Set Up the Tools Before They Screen Anyone Out
Paula’s team uses Predictive Index to build interview guides, and she sees the weak point in what goes in. A role padded with tasks nobody needs to do, or with hopes for a perfect candidate, screens against the wrong standard. She would also check that the applicant tracking system and its AI were not dropping resumes over badly set keywords.
A mismatch is not a verdict. A candidate who misses the Predictive Index profile may still do the job; the interviewer just asks different questions. The stakes are legal as well. Under the ADA, selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability count as discrimination unless shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.
Ask Managers and New Hires Before the Rollout
Paula wants managers in at the start, for input and buy-in, rather than told at launch. When she spots an unconscious hiring bias a manager is not aware of, she raises it that day and coaches with examples. A manager who carries more bias than two or three peers gets the chance to train differently.
Employees belong in the room as well. While rolling out Predictive Index for performance management, her team asked new hires inside their first thirty days for early employee feedback. They found it a lot to take in and asked for color and quick AI answers. Asking early costs less than an expensive platform nobody uses.
Where Employee Relations Fits
A hiring complaint deserves the care of any internal case, even though the complainant never joined. Paula’s investigation draws on several conversations, interview notes, resumes, the job description, and assessment results. Scattered across tools and inboxes, those records tend to slow the answer to the candidate.
The record is also where the lesson belongs. If the investigation finds a broken step, such as a rejection email that landed badly, the fix should sit beside the finding. Investigation software that summarizes evidence and drafts the report gives HR one place for that work.
Frequently Asked Questions About Neurodiversity Hiring Complaints
It can draw a complaint, and the risk depends on design. The ADA provides no basis for a claim by someone without a disability over that lack of disability, but Paula would still review state requirements and the rollout.
She would start with the recruiter, then the hiring manager, without revealing the allegation. Next come interview notes, resumes, the job description, and assessment results, then the complainant.
Yes, when it is set up badly. Paula’s example is an AI filter that drops resumes because the keywords were wrong, so she would check each role’s setup against the job description.
Not at the first complaint. The episode’s advice is to find the step that left a candidate feeling discriminated against, own it, and fix it; a tweak usually costs less than starting over.
Bring them in before launch. Paula pulls managers in early for input and buy-in, coaches a manager the day she notices a bias, and offers different training where needed.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Paula’s framing is a challenge to HR: “stop forcing humans into outdated systems.” A new hiring process will have gaps, and a complaint is a chance to find one, not a reason to scrap the program. Paula Nuzzi’s case rests on process: explain the why, check the tools, and bring people in early. In her words, “Inclusion, when done right, is a competitive advantage.”
See how AllVoices helps HR teams investigate hiring complaints and keep every finding in one record.
