Traditional job interviews may be costing financial firms access to some of their most capable potential hires, according to Justin Nelson, Managing Director at JP Morgan Private Bank. Nelson heads the Asset Management and Financial Principals Coverage Team from JP Morgan’s Connecticut office, leading a group responsible for over $15 billion in client assets. He says the standard interview format works against neurodiverse candidates before their real abilities ever surface.

A Flawed First Step

“Interviews can be hard for them, so an employer has to think differently about the hiring process,” Justin Nelson JP Morgan says. He points out that communication, the very skill most interviews are designed to test, tends to be the hardest part of the process for candidates on the autism spectrum, even those with strong professional potential.

That gap between interview performance and actual capability troubles Nelson because of what gets lost along the way. He describes many neurodiverse candidates as unusually creative or gifted with computational skills that go well beyond typical levels, exactly the kind of strengths that matter in financial analysis and wealth management. Employers who never look past the interview stage, he argues, simply never see it.

Nelson’s proposed fix starts with redesigning how firms evaluate candidates, then carries into how managers support them once hired. He recommends breaking work into specific, well-defined tasks so new employees understand exactly how their piece fits into a broader plan, an approach he says produces some of the most reliable performers on a team.

To help firms make that shift, Nelson works with outside partners including Adelphi University’s Bridges Program and Broad Futures, a nonprofit devoted to connecting neurodiverse job seekers with receptive employers. Between his advocacy and his own leadership style at JP Morgan, Nelson makes the case that rethinking interviews is a small change with an outsized payoff for firms willing to try it. Visit this page for related information.

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