Telstra pilots its first neurodiversity recruitment program

Telstra is the latest large Australian organisation to pilot a neurodiversity recruitment program, opening applications across a range of IT domains last week.

The telco has tied up with Specialisterne Australia, an organisation whose goal is to “assist businesses in recruiting and supporting people on the autism spectrum”.

Telstra listed mostly technology domains where it is looking for new hires, including accessibility, UX/CX, network engineering, DevSecOps, cloud financial operations (FinOps), and cloud platform engineering.

In a brief LinkedIn post, Telstra senior capability specialist Serap Potocki said the telco was “excited to be partnering with the team at Specialisterne Australia to launch Telstra's Neurodiversity recruitment program”.

“Through an unconventional approach we aim to attract, assess and hire autistic talent into a number of permanent roles across our business,” Potocki wrote.

Applications are open until the start of February. The telco intends to have its first hires onboarded in April, according to a timeline on a joint website.

Telstra had pledged a neurodiversity recruitment pilot as part of its FY21 accessibility action plan. [pdf]

Last year, DXC has won the first iTnews Benchmark Award for Diversity, for the Dandelion program it created and shares to train people on the autism spectrum for cybersecurity careers.

NAB is among the participants in the Dandelion program, which used it alongside its own Neurodiversity at Work program.