Guide Dogs NSW/ACT has launched a new campaign via Keep Left designed to expose how recruitment systems can screen out qualified candidates who are blind or have low vision before an employer ever sees their application.
Titled ‘Screened Out’, the campaign puts employers directly into the experience, following a recruiter as they attempt to complete what appears to be a standard job application.
But as the process unfolds, they encounter inaccessible application steps, automated filtering and rigid criteria that can prevent candidates with blindness or low vision from progressing through the recruitment process.
Rather than simply telling employers that accessibility remains a problem, the campaign is designed to make the barriers tangible, showing how seemingly routine recruitment technology and processes can exclude candidates before a human being has the opportunity to assess their skills.
The work builds on Guide Dogs NSW/ACT’s Breaking Barriers research, commissioned from disability-led research organisation Knowable Me, which found that 76 per cent of Australians with a disability are unable to complete job applications because of inaccessible online systems.
Guide Dogs NSW/ACT Campaigns and Public Affairs Manager Sarah Watts said the campaign was intended to shift the focus away from candidates and towards the systems creating the barriers.
“We know from talking to jobseekers who are blind or have low vision that the barrier has never been their talent, it’s the process,” Watts said.
“Every inaccessible application step or screening tool that isn’t built for assistive technology, is a qualified candidate an employer never gets to meet. Screened Out helps expose the issue and asks businesses to take real, practical steps to fix it.”
The campaign is designed to turn the research into an experience, with the creative deliberately recreating the kinds of barriers candidates can encounter when applying for jobs.
Keep Left head of creative Johanna Murray said the aim was to make employers experience the issue rather than simply hear about it.
“Telling employers that recruitment systems exclude people is one thing. Having them feel it themselves is another,” Murray said.
“We wanted the audience to hit those same barriers in real time; the unnecessary form field and the filter that quietly disqualifies them, so the problem stops being abstract.”
Keep Left executive creative director Blair Kimber said the research provided a clear picture of where recruitment processes can break down, but the agency wanted to show those findings rather than simply repeat them.
“The Breaking Barriers research told us exactly where the process breaks down for candidates who are blind or have low vision,” Kimber said.
“We could have just repeated those numbers, but a figure gets nodded at and forgotten. So, we built the film around what that research describes: a job application, failing the same way it does for real candidates. Seeing that happen sticks in a way a statistic never will.”
Screened Out will run as a paid campaign across LinkedIn and Meta, supported by earned media, with Guide Dogs NSW/ACT also encouraging businesses to sign its Inclusive Employment Commitment.
