How to make your hiring process more accessible

When your recruitment process is easy to access you welcome a broader and more diverse talent pool, including people with disability. This guide offers tips on simple ways to make your recruitment process more accessible in ways that will benefit everyone.

Most jobseekers engage with employers online, but common practices can unintentionally exclude people with disability. Barriers include inaccessible websites, videos without captions, poor colour contrast and unreadable PDFs. Using inclusive language and improving digital accessibility removes these obstacles and promotes a more inclusive workplace for all.

Tips to improve accessibility in recruitment include:

• using plain language in job ads
• ensuring PDFs are readable or offer Word/HTML alternatives
• making sure your website meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards and supports font and contrast adjustments
• sharing content on accessible platforms with captions and image descriptions.
• allowing flexible application formats such as video or audio submissions
• offering reasonable adjustments
• inviting feedback from people with disability
• including a diversity statement to encourage inclusive hiring
• using AI tools cautiously to avoid bias.

An audio version of this resource is also available.