Disability Discrimination in Hiring: Prevention Strategies Every Organization Needs

Top TLDR:

Disability discrimination in hiring occurs when qualified candidates are excluded based on disability rather than ability, violating the ADA and undermining organizational strength. Employers can prevent disability discrimination in hiring by auditing job descriptions, training recruiters on unconscious bias, and building accessible interview processes. Start by reviewing your current hiring workflow for one concrete barrier you can remove this week.

Hiring is one of the most consequential things an organization does — and it's also one of the places where disability discrimination is most likely to happen, often without anyone intending it. From the language in a job posting to the format of an interview, every step of the hiring process carries potential to either include or exclude people with disabilities. The good news is that prevention is entirely possible, and it starts with awareness, intentionality, and the right systems in place.

At Kintsugi Consulting, LLC, the work of disability inclusion isn't theoretical. It's grounded in real experience — both lived and professional — and it recognizes that strengthening access strengthens organizations. This pillar page walks you through what disability discrimination in hiring looks like, why it persists, and the concrete strategies your team can start implementing now.

What the Law Actually Requires

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits employers with 15 or more employees from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in any aspect of employment, including hiring. Under the ADA, a person with a disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.

The law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations during the hiring process — not just on the job — unless doing so would cause undue hardship. This includes things like providing materials in accessible formats, allowing extra time during assessments, or offering a remote interview option.

What the ADA does not require is lowering standards. The goal is to remove unnecessary barriers so that a candidate's actual qualifications can be fairly evaluated. Understanding that distinction is foundational to building an equitable hiring process.

Where Discrimination Hides in the Hiring Process

Disability discrimination in hiring rarely looks like an outright refusal to hire someone because of a disability. More often, it's embedded in processes, language, and assumptions that haven't been examined. Here are some of the most common places it shows up.

Job Descriptions and Qualifications

Job postings often include requirements that have nothing to do with the essential functions of the role. Physical requirements, travel demands, or degree requirements may screen out qualified candidates with disabilities before they ever apply. Reviewing job descriptions through an accessibility lens — asking "Is this truly essential?" for each requirement — is one of the simplest and most impactful places to start.

Application Systems

Online application platforms are frequently inaccessible to people who use screen readers, voice recognition software, or other assistive technology. If your application system isn't WCAG-compliant, you may be filtering out candidates before you've had a chance to see what they can do. Accessible technology in the workplace extends to every touchpoint in the employment lifecycle, including recruitment.

Interview Formats and Environments

Standard in-person interviews in non-accessible spaces, timed assessments without accommodation options, or video interviews without captioning can all disadvantage candidates with disabilities. These aren't edge cases — they're common barriers that organizations can address with modest adjustments.

Unconscious Bias in Evaluation

Even well-meaning hiring managers carry assumptions about what a "capable" candidate looks like. Disability-related stereotypes — that someone with a visible disability will have more absences, or that a candidate with a speech difference won't communicate well with clients — can quietly influence hiring decisions in ways that are both discriminatory and factually wrong. Unconscious bias training is a concrete tool for bringing these patterns into the light.

Prevention Strategy 1: Audit Your Job Descriptions

Every job description should be reviewed to distinguish between essential functions and preferred characteristics. Essential functions are the core tasks that someone must perform to do the job — everything else is negotiable. When a job posting lists "must be able to stand for eight hours" for a role that's primarily desk-based, or "excellent verbal communication skills" for a position that could be done in writing, it may discourage or screen out qualified candidates unnecessarily.

Ask your team these questions for each posting: Can this task be performed differently and still meet the outcome? Has someone ever received an accommodation that changed how this task was done? Is this listed because it's truly required, or because it's how the job has always been done?

Disability-inclusive job descriptions use clear, outcome-focused language. They describe what success looks like, not the specific physical or sensory method of achieving it.

Prevention Strategy 2: Make Your Application Process Accessible

Accessibility in hiring starts before the first conversation. Your careers page, application portal, and any pre-employment assessments should meet current accessibility standards. This means testing with assistive technologies, offering multiple ways to apply, and clearly communicating how candidates can request accommodations.

A simple line in your job posting — "We are committed to an accessible hiring process and will provide accommodations upon request" — signals inclusion and opens the door for candidates to self-identify their needs without fear. Inclusive hiring practices for recruiters and hiring managers cover these foundations in detail and can be built into your standard onboarding for anyone involved in recruitment.

Prevention Strategy 3: Build Flexibility Into Interviews

An accessible interview process doesn't mean a less rigorous one. It means structuring your process so candidates are evaluated on their qualifications rather than their ability to navigate an inaccessible format.

Practical steps include offering candidates the option of a virtual or in-person interview, providing questions in advance when possible, allowing note-taking or the use of assistive technology during the interview, ensuring physical interview spaces are accessible, and providing captions or interpreters when needed. These accommodations benefit more people than you might expect and contribute to a more structured, equitable evaluation for everyone.

When candidates need to request accommodations for the interview itself, your team should have a clear, confidential process for receiving and responding to those requests. This is not an optional extra — it is a legal requirement and a reflection of your organization's actual commitment to inclusion.

Prevention Strategy 4: Train Your Hiring Team

Every person involved in screening, interviewing, or evaluating candidates should have foundational training on disability discrimination, ADA obligations, and inclusive hiring practices. This training needs to go beyond a one-time compliance checkbox. It should address the nuance of how bias operates, what accommodation conversations should look like, and how to create interview conditions where candidates can do their best work.

Disability inclusion training for HR professionals is a starting point. So is building disability awareness into your broader DEI training framework, so that it's integrated rather than siloed. The goal is for everyone on your hiring team to understand that disability competence is a professional skill — one that can be developed with the right support.

Training should also address language. Terms like "able-bodied" as a compliment, assumptions about what someone "looks like" they can do, or questions about a candidate's diagnosis (which are illegal prior to a conditional job offer) are all things hiring teams need to be aware of. Disability etiquette and communication best practices provide clear, practical guidance on this.

Prevention Strategy 5: Standardize Your Evaluation Criteria

One of the most effective defenses against discriminatory hiring decisions is a structured evaluation process with clearly defined, job-relevant criteria established before interviews begin. When every candidate is evaluated on the same criteria — and those criteria are tied directly to the essential functions of the role — there is far less room for bias to influence the outcome.

Structured interviews, standardized scoring rubrics, and diverse hiring panels all reduce the influence of individual assumptions. Inclusive leadership training covers how to build teams and processes that are more equitable by design.

Document your evaluation decisions. If a claim of discrimination were ever brought, clear documentation demonstrating that decisions were made on job-relevant grounds is essential. More importantly, the habit of structured evaluation improves your outcomes — you hire the right people more consistently.

Prevention Strategy 6: Create a Culture That Supports Disclosure

Many candidates with disabilities choose not to disclose during the hiring process — and they are legally protected in that choice. But organizations that create genuine cultures of inclusion often find that employees feel safer disclosing when they need support, rather than masking or struggling in silence.

This starts at the hiring stage. When your job postings, application process, and interview experience communicate that your organization actually values inclusion — not just in a boilerplate statement but in how you operate — it builds trust. Building a disability-inclusive culture is about moving beyond compliance to create an environment where people with disabilities want to work and feel supported to succeed.

Disability Employee Resource Groups are one structural way to signal this commitment. When candidates can see that your organization has active, supported communities for employees with disabilities, it communicates something compliance statements alone cannot.

Understanding Intersectionality in Disability Discrimination

Disability doesn't exist in isolation. Candidates may experience compounding barriers because of the intersection of disability with race, gender, age, sexual orientation, or other identities. A Black candidate with a disability may face both racial bias and disability bias in the same hiring process. A woman with a mental health condition may be evaluated through the lens of multiple stereotypes simultaneously.

Preventing disability discrimination in hiring requires understanding how bias operates across intersecting identities. Microaggression awareness training and cultural sensitivity training are part of building a hiring team that can recognize and interrupt these patterns. Disability inclusion work is most effective when it's embedded in a broader commitment to equity that takes intersectionality seriously.

What to Do When Discrimination Has Already Occurred

Despite best efforts, discrimination can still happen. When it does, organizations need a clear, responsive process. This means taking complaints seriously and investigating them promptly and thoroughly, ensuring that employees or candidates who report discrimination are protected from retaliation, reviewing the circumstances to understand what systemic issue may have allowed the discriminatory action to occur, and being willing to make meaningful corrective changes rather than isolated apologies.

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) receives complaints of disability discrimination in hiring under the ADA. Employers who are found to have engaged in discriminatory practices may face civil penalties, back pay obligations, and required policy changes. Prevention is not only the right thing to do — it is substantially less costly than remediation.

Building Long-Term Prevention Infrastructure

Prevention of disability discrimination in hiring is not a one-time project. It requires ongoing attention to policies, practices, and culture. Organizations that do this well typically conduct regular audits of their hiring materials and processes, invest in recurring training for HR staff and hiring managers, track data on the disability inclusion of their applicant pools and hired employees (where appropriate and legal to do so), and create channels for employees to provide feedback on the accessibility of their hiring experience.

Kintsugi Consulting's services include consultation and training designed to help organizations build exactly this kind of sustained, systemic capacity. Working with a disability consultant brings both lived experience and professional expertise to the process — something that makes the difference between compliance on paper and inclusion in practice.

A DEI training needs assessment is a practical first step for organizations that want to understand where their current gaps are before building out a prevention strategy.

The Business and Human Case

The disability community represents the largest minority group in the United States, and people with disabilities are a significant part of the workforce. Organizations that actively remove barriers in hiring access a broader talent pool, reduce turnover among employees who feel included and supported, strengthen their reputation as an employer of choice, and reduce legal and financial risk.

Beyond the business case, there is a human one. Every qualified candidate who is excluded from a job opportunity because of a discriminatory process is a person whose potential goes untapped. Disability discrimination in hiring causes real harm — to individuals, to their families, and to communities. Prevention is not just a compliance strategy. It is an expression of what your organization believes about human dignity and worth.

Where to Start

If you're not sure where to begin, start with one thing: pull your most recent job postings and review them for requirements that may not be truly essential. That single exercise often reveals more than organizations expect, and it leads naturally to the next step, and the one after that.

Reach out to Kintsugi Consulting, LLC to explore how consultation and training services can support your organization in building a hiring process that is both legally compliant and genuinely inclusive. You can also explore prepared trainings designed to meet your team where they are and move them forward.

Inclusion, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, isn't about hiding the cracks — it's about recognizing that the repair itself can make something stronger. Accessible, equitable hiring does the same for organizations.

Bottom TLDR:

Preventing disability discrimination in hiring requires a systematic review of job descriptions, application accessibility, interview formats, and evaluator bias — all grounded in ADA compliance and genuine inclusion values. Organizations that address disability discrimination in hiring proactively expand their talent pool, reduce legal risk, and build stronger workplace cultures. Begin with a structured audit of your current hiring materials and bring in disability inclusion expertise to identify and close the gaps that policies alone cannot see.