I'm in tech and if you're not familiar with tech interviews, the usual process is something like this:
- Recruiter screen
- Tech screen with engineer, usually done while screensharing and over the phone so you can explain your thought process
- One or more interview loops in person/over video call, usually including at least one or more live coding session
For reasons that are not important, I can't do live or timed coding. I require no other accommodations once hired. I probably could use some, but I hate disclosing my disabilities so I make do. When I talk to a recruiter, I let them know in the beginning that I need accommodations for the interview, and in lieu of live coding I can do a take home project and then review the code with the interviewer and talk through the approach. Here's what my experience with this has been:
- Not a single company has been prepared for this request
- Several of them ghosted me after promising to look into accommodations
- Most of them took an excessive amount of time to return with an appropriate prompt. Maybe 1/3 of those had something that fit my request
- Several of them came back with timed coding prompts anyway
- Several of them repeatedly asked me why I needed accommodations
The worst was recently when I was interviewing with two companies. They both took some time to get me a prompt, but one was taking much longer than the other. They finally sent me a prompt the day I accepted another offer. I let them know and
thanked them for their time. That recruiter got mad at me for “wasting their developers' time” that they spent making the prompt. I told her that at least next time they would be prepared in the event another person who requires a similar accommodation interviews with them.
The interview process sucks for everyone, but it especially sucks for people who need accommodations. I am always very explicit with what I need and how they can help me, yet half the time they flat out ignore my needs if they bother to reply at all. I hate how the industry makes me feel like a burden.
On a related note, I work in web accessibility. My last job explicitly hired me to help them fix their accessibility issues but then cockblocked at every turn because they didn't want to put in the time or the design would look too ugly if it were made accessible. 'I don't care if blind people don't get to read this alert. How many of them use our site anyway?' (Actual quote). But that's another story…