Accommodations for Hearing Impairments
- A sign language interpreter, requested with as much notice as possible since scheduling one can take time.
- Live captioning on video calls, which many video platforms now support natively or through a plug-in service.
- A written summary of the role and key questions shared in advance or during the interview.
- Sitting or positioning yourself so you can see the interviewer's face clearly for lip reading, if that is something you rely on.
- Asking the interviewer to reduce background noise, mute when not speaking, or speak one at a time in a panel format.
If the interview is over video, testing the platform's caption feature beforehand and asking the recruiter to confirm which platform will be used gives you time to prepare. It is also worth asking whether the interview could be recorded with your consent, so you can review anything you were unsure you caught in real time.
For an in-person interview, arriving a few minutes early to choose your own seat, rather than being placed wherever is convenient, can make a real difference if lighting or sightline to the interviewer's face matters to you.
Accommodations for Vision Impairments
- Any written materials, tests, or portals provided in a screen reader compatible format or as accessible text rather than an image or scanned PDF.
- Materials provided in large print if that is more useful to you than a screen reader.
- A well lit room for in-person interviews, or being told in advance if a presentation or slides will be shown so you can request them ahead of time.
- Extra time for any exercise involving reading on screen or on paper.
If you use assistive technology day to day, it is worth asking directly whether any online assessment tool the company uses is compatible with it, since not all platforms are built accessibly, and finding this out ahead of time avoids a stressful surprise partway through an assessment.
If travel to an unfamiliar location is involved, asking for clear directions or a contact person to meet you at the entrance can also make the logistics of the day considerably smoother, and is a small request most companies are glad to accommodate.
How to Request These Accommodations
Email the recruiter as early as possible with a specific, short request: 'For our interview on [date], could we arrange [captioning / an interpreter / materials in an accessible format]? Happy to answer any questions about what that involves.' Offering to answer questions shows you have thought it through and makes it easier for a recruiter who may not have arranged this before.
If the company uses a scheduling tool or portal to book the interview, look for any notes or accessibility field before defaulting straight to email, since some systems have a dedicated place to flag this kind of request during booking.
If you do not hear confirmation back within a day or two of a request tied to a near-term interview date, a short follow-up call rather than another email can sometimes get a faster, clearer answer, especially for something like interpreter booking that has its own lead time.
What to Do if Something Was Not Arranged in Time
Sometimes a request gets lost between the recruiter and whoever is running the interview. If you arrive and something you asked for is missing, it is reasonable to pause and say so directly: 'I had requested captioning for today, is that something we can turn on now?' Most interviewers will want to fix it on the spot rather than proceed with an interview that is not accessible to you.
If the missing accommodation cannot be fixed immediately, it is fair to ask whether the interview can be rescheduled once it is properly arranged, rather than pushing through a conversation that puts you at a real disadvantage.
Afterward, it can help to follow up briefly with the recruiter to flag what happened, not to place blame, but so the same gap does not repeat itself in a later round of the same process.
Most recruiters genuinely want to fix this kind of gap rather than dismiss it, especially once it is flagged clearly and calmly.
Preparing Your Own Equipment and Setup
For video interviews, testing your own hearing aids, captioning app, or screen reader with the exact platform the company will use ahead of time can catch compatibility issues while there is still time to fix them. If you rely on specific lighting, screen magnification settings, or a particular browser for your assistive technology to work well, setting all of that up the day before rather than minutes beforehand removes one more source of last-minute stress from the day of the interview itself.
It can also help to have a backup plan in mind, such as a phone number to call if the video platform fails entirely, so that a technical problem does not turn into a missed interview on top of everything else you are already managing.
If you are interviewing in person and rely on a mobility aid, a guide dog, or other equipment, it is worth mentioning that when confirming the location, so the venue can plan for space or access needs before you arrive rather than improvising on the spot.
A short checklist you reuse for every interview, covering these setup steps, can make this preparation quick and routine rather than something you have to think through from scratch each time.