This CEO’s speech impediment led him to rethink virtual recruiting

As employers revamp their recruiting processes and continue to rebuild an ever-changing workforce, how can they be sure they’re allowing all candidates to be their genuine selves?

This is a common roadblock for people with speech impediments, says Jahanzaib Ansari, CEO of Knockri, a video recruiting platform. An estimated 3 million Americans struggle with stuttering, according to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders. These speech impairments may impact a person’s ability to navigate high-pressure situations like a job interview, a challenge Ansari has faced throughout his career.

But the perceptions — and misconceptions — around this disability are often more damaging than the speech impediment itself, Ansari says.

“There's the sense that an interviewer doesn't feel like this person is confident in their abilities to deliver on something. They feel that this person is not smart because they can't have a regular conversation,” he says. “But their skills and competencies have nothing to do with the fluency of the words that are coming out of their mouth.”

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Ansari says he has worked for many years to overcome a blockage speech impediment, where the voice box doesn’t pick up the brain’s signal to talk, leading to long pauses or repetition. Despite now having the tools to overcome his stutter, he is still dogged by the occasional verbal challenge.

“Obviously I might sound fine right now, but that's because of years and years of speech therapy,” he says. “But when I would go to job interviews early on, I felt like I was being judged unfairly because of the way that I speak.”

While 75% of children who stutter recover, 25% will continue to have this communication disorder throughout their life, according to NIDCD. Later in life, these individuals are more likely to be rejected immediately from a job interview, or to be placed in positions they’re overqualified for, according to research from the Stuttering Foundation.

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While being transparent about a speech impairment with a potential employer can help applicants get the accommodations they need, oftentimes people feel uncomfortable disclosing this information to a potential employer, Ansari says. His platform, Knockri, is hoping to bridge this communication gap and provide an interview experience that doesn’t discriminate.

Knockri utilizes artificial intelligence to conduct employee assessments and interviews, and then gives employers the scores based on the transcript, without providing any other identifying information like gender, race, age or disability status, among other descriptors.

“Our whole goal here is to share that bias exists in the hiring process and deliver a solution that will move the needle. It’s solely founded on a lot of the biases I personally faced,” Ansari says. “We’re giving a score to the employer based on the interview transcript and objectively analyzing the interview using AI technology and industrial and organizational psychology.”

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While Knockri’s technology is not created specifically for those with speech impediments like stuttering, the platform helps employers “level the playing field” when it comes to recruiting, Ansari says. This is an important benchmark to strive for as employers seek to meet diversity and inclusion goals in their hiring practices.

“We want to level the playing field, but without tokenism,” he says. “Our goal is not to fill diversity quotas, but to make sure that every person has a fair and equal shot.”

Ansari says that while his speech impediment has been a challenge throughout his life, it doesn’t define his worth as a person, or as an employee. Like any individual, how they appear on the outside is not the only reflection of the value they can bring to an organization.

“We should be looking at extending the spectrum of DEI and talking about how we can accommodate this specifically in the candidate selection, where a lot of people feel that they get left out unfairly,” Ansari says. “The way that I speak has no correlation to how well I can perform at a particular job role.”