Supporting Neurodivergent Students: AI Interview Tips for Career Coaches

A Quick Guide for Maximizing Student Success on Quinncia

Quinncia’s AI interview simulates real-world hiring scenarios, providing students with personalized feedback on their performance. For neurodivergent students—including those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, anxiety, or other cognitive differences—this process may present unique challenges. With the right support, these students can thrive and gain confidence in their virtual interviewing skills.

What to do:

Walk students through what the AI interview entails: they’ll be answering 7 questions conducted by our bot Quinn. There is a practice section for students to become more familiar with Quinn, they can access this from their interview confirmation page. Practice is not scored or recorded. Students will be asked to select an industry or add a job description before taking their scheduled interview. After students complete their interview, we will provide feedback on:

Rate of Speech: Ask students to speak slowly enough that Quinn can easily understand them, but quickly enough that they are engaging. This metric impacts students’ overall audio score.
Quinncia Tip: Fast talkers often forget to breathe. Practice breathing techniques with students. One breath = one idea.

Filler Words: This score represents how many extraneous words students use per minute, such as like, aaa, and um.
Quinncia Tip: Ask students to take a few moments to collect their thoughts before responding to limit the number of filler words they use.

Communication Style: This metric assesses how analytically, confidently, or tentatively students respond.
Quinncia Tip: Help students find their own version of communicating. Coach for clarity and how to be understood.

Answer Length: Quinn shows students the ideal response length and where they fall in this range for each question.
Quinncia Tip: We recommend students select “standard interview” this option will allow students to turn off the timer. This helps students who need extra time to organize their thoughts or feel pressure under time constraints.

Skills Cloud: The skills cloud extracts the essential and technical skills that students mentioned in their responses.
Quinncia Tip: Review the student's skills cloud they received from their resume analysis with them ahead of their interview.

Enthusiasm: This metric measures the excitement they express in each answer by analyzing facial expressions and eye contact.
Quinncia Tip: Students don’t need to act. Frame enthusiasm as just showing interest in the role. Practice slight variations in pitch with them to avoid monotone deliveries.

Eye Contact: This metric measures the percentage of time students are looking at the screen or camera to gauge how frequently they make "eye contact."
Quinncia Tip: Pin a sticky note with a smiley face next to the student’s camera. This can help them look at the camera more often.

Micro-Expressions: This category does not analyze the emotions they are feeling during the interview rather how genuine students are in their responses.
Quinncia Tip: Work with students to smile briefly when talking about an exciting time.

*This card is not counted towards the student's overall score.

Emphasize that it’s a low-stakes practice tool, not a real employer interview. We are here for students to practice!

Help students identify a calm, distraction-free location to record their interview. Recommend noise-canceling headphones or other tools that support focus.

It would help to review the AI-generated feedback with the student and discuss it constructively. Remind them that the AI measures patterns, not perfection. This could help students not take the feedback personally.

If your institution offers accessibility services, consider partnering with them to create custom plans for students who may need more tailored support.