The Double Empathy problem - No problem pt 3

Greg Wyatt • May 7, 2026

I realised I had observed Double Empathy problem in recruitment as early as 2006.

It was at the time a candidate was offered a role, and the (fortunately overcome) issue of her start date came up.

She told me she had said to them at interview “I won’t be able to start any sooner than three months notice, due to managing a site closure”.

Somehow they heard “I can start in a month”.

They were both adamant they were right.

We agreed that what Julie meant to say, what she said, and what they heard, were all slightly different.

Perception and intent.

It’s fundamentally true that what an employer and a candidate want from a recruitment process is different, even though the outcome they want is often similar.

How they intersect was defined in a very different arena, yet has application in many walks of life.

Around 2016, I learnt about the Double Empathy problem.

This is a term proposed by Damian Milton to explain that autistic people don’t lack empathy. It’s more that they experience the world and express their emotions differently to non-autistic people.

The theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. This is likely to be exacerbated through differences in language use and comprehension.

You may be aware that ND people often mask their personality to fit in with an NT world.

Speaking to an autistic friend about this we speculated that masking is about understanding the rules of engagement in society, unconsciously breaking these down into principles and applying them contextually to a given situation.

Can you imagine how tiring that is?

I didn’t really think of it again until a couple of years later.

Around the time my eldest daughter started secondary school, she went from being a child to someone who wanted to find her own personality and interests, while separating herself from what she felt was the child she used to be.

Of course, this wasn’t something I noticed, so stuck in the trenches was I in parenthood. It was something I read in the marvellous book Untangled by Lisa Damour.

If you have daughters, I strongly recommend it. I also recommend it to people interested in leadership and in recruitment - because of how it's inspired me to look at what I do differently.

In reading various chapters for the umpteenth time, I realised it describes the Double Empathy Problem without using those words.

My experiences and hers were so different that when we spoke we had two completely different conversations, different experiences of the same instance, with different reactions.

Perception and intent.

As my mind often does, it wondered into different rabbit holes of double empathy.

“We had it much tougher in my day” “Music these days is rubbish”

Or indeed anywhere that has an ism, from the direct discrimination to unrecognised bias - for example, when you see photos of 'a diverse team', have you noticed few have grey hair?

I’m sure if you’ve regularly interviewed you’ll have noted that the person who gets the job is often the one who interviewed best, not necessarily the best candidate.

It’s because they’ve learnt the rules of the game and given their audience what they think they need.

This is one reason ‘job search coaching’ is such a simple career to develop.

Once you’ve learnt the rules of the game, you can teach others the same.

And the one skill most job seekers haven’t learnt, when they start a job search, is how to look for work.

However a good job search coach is rare, and many rely instead on the sales of hope and fear.

But of course, there’s another side to this, which is that job seekers who haven’t learnt the rules of the game may encounter worse examples of the double empathy problem than others.

Their candidacy is stuck in their head, with insufficient skill to interpret it with meaning.

Not just at interview, but in their CV, in their requirements, and even in which jobs they think they should be applying for.

This is an opportunity in recruitment when we can see that good candidates are hidden by how they’ve expressed themselves.

This means the onus should be on us to create an experience that enables them to show us how they can fulfil our needs.

This, for me, lies at the heart of what good candidate experience is.

Employers suffer from their own double empathy problem.

Replace what I’ve said about candidates with job descriptions, adverts and every touchpoint in recruitment.

Typically it’s about the employer and their needs, unable to articulate with the meaning ideal candidates need. Inside out.

When the opportunity to solve double empathy lies in starting with the experience candidates need. Outside in.

Double empathy is a neurologically built-in issue that can be harmful for autistic people.

As opposed to how it presents systemically in recruitment.

Another reason why process is the opportunity for improvement, rather than just technology.

I find this a fascinating topic to discuss, and I hope this doesn’t do injustice to people who genuinely suffer from a society built against them.

If you disagree with anything I’ve said, I’d love to hear from you. Perhaps we can both learn something.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. Outside of diving into rabbit holes that might improve how we recruit, I also recruit - drop me a line if you're a UK employer and these articles strike a chord. I can help with key hires, fractional talent acquisition and projects you don't have capacity for.

How to doorknock

By Greg Wyatt • June 11, 2026
What follows is Chapter 43 from A Career Breakdown Kit. Is it a magic salve guaranteed for success? No of course not. But much like anything in a job search, nothing is guaranteed. What we do is identify which avenues can be effective for your context, and form an appropriate strategy. LinkedIn optimisation is great if people search for you on LinkedIn. Except speaking to my recruitment peers, fewer and fewer rely on it. Would it surprise you if I told you I rarely invested in at all before 2019? I've been working in recruitment since 1996 including at CEO level. Applications, networking, referrals, content, CV databases. All have a place and a purpose. Doorknocking on the other hand - some would tell you it has no place in the modern job search. If my daughter*, her friends and other 18 year olds can get a job from an old school technique, while those employers say "only through Indeed" then that might be a hint it still works. Some of whom are socially anxious, but then it's a replicable process, not a cult of personality. Or the periodic messages I get from CxOs who made their own jobs from direct outreach. Not forgetting Granovetter's seminal research and recent LinkedIn-specific studies in Science journal showing weak ties drive more job mobility than strong ties. And why wouldn't doorknocking work on LinkedIn, when you have a weak tie that suggests a viable employer? But no, it's not a guarantee. It's just an arrow in the quiver of a multichannel job search. 43 - How to doorknock Doorknocking is an old-school sales approach you may well have experienced, such as when a salesperson with a clipboard rings your doorbell and asks you to change electricity provider. My wife even once bought from exactly this scenario. While it’s not uncommon in a business-to-consumer situation it can also work business-to-business… if you can get past security. Although technology has moved on, the principle is the same whether in person, by phone, email, letter or LinkedIn: You approach someone cold and create your own opportunity. This isn’t an approach for everyone and requires chutzpah. If you are used to a high failure rate in applications - what do you have to lose by being proactive? More than that - look at all the advice on LinkedIn on how to improve your odds in a job search. It’s all transactional and applicable, available to everyone - if you all follow it, everyone takes the same step forward. While taking steps others are less prepared to do means the approach alone may stand out. If you encounter the equivalent of a sign which says, ‘Trespassers will be shot!’, pay attention. My own career of looking for work includes many non-transactional approaches: Walked into the local Cinema and asked for a job Walked into Office World and asked for a job Worked for Dad Talked to one of my ex-colleagues and gained some by-the-call phone research work Temped through an agency Walked into an Inn and asked for a job Referred to a publishing, training & consulting company In managing their small-scale recruitment alongside my day job I got to know the MD of a recruitment firm as a supplier. I went to work there Tapped up to return to a more senior role Started my business upon being given the boot - thanks Dave! It’s true I did apply through job boards and agencies. It’s mainly through my own means that I have secured my employment. *My daughter even tried doorknocking for her first job in our local town last summer. It didn’t work for her - she found a nice retail job through an application on Indeed. Her experience was positive enough that she helped a friend do the same - who got a job at the first shop they tried. Doorknocking is about approaching companies by category not because they are recruiting. These categories can be: All the employers in your local business park (often they have websites, with directories and job adverts) Companies listed in local newspapers, directories or platforms (local to me this could be Cambridge Evening News, Bury Free Press, Cambridge Network or Business Weekly) Top 100 employers in your domain Companies that have recently had funding and are about to scale Doorknocking companies you’ve come across through networking and its resulting market map Make contact and make a case for yourself on the principle of the right person, right time, right place, right message, right offer, and right price. There’s an element of luck involved for these elements to all come together. A disadvantage is that they may not be recruiting or ever have a need to employ you and even if they do have a vacancy, you still have to establish the right fit. That means a logically low hit rate. Your threshold for an acceptable failure rate will inform whether this is the right approach for you. The difference is the anonymous rejection of a volume-based application versus the ‘personal rejection’ from your direct outbound approach. Right person, right time, right place, right message, right offer, and right price. Let’s reorder and examine this marketing principle: Right Place Those Categories above. The place is the Company, and how you contact them. You can go in blind if you are a bold prospector or research them in advance. ‘site:’ is a useful command in Google. You can search on specific websites: ‘site: linkedin.com ACME jobs’ Right Person Typically this will be the ‘next one up’ - Head of department, Director, CxO or Owner. Who would be the budget holder at work? Those are prospects. Look them up on LinkedIn, PR, news, video platforms. What can you find out? Right Time While time can be happenstance, can timed factors create opportunity? What might be a hiring trigger? Perhaps you could contact a list of companies that have recently announced funding or a big win - news that may lead to hiring additional people. Or maybe you hear through the grapevine that Janine is about to go off on maternity leave. If their process isn’t time-bound, can you make it time-bound? ‘We aren’t hiring right now’ might mean they’ve run out of headcount in the January to June period and may have a new budget in July. What can you learn that helps you both? If you have radio silence, why not try again in a month or three months? Think about how you buy. If you don’t need something how likely are you to respond to a message no matter how well crafted? If you do need something you might think first of someone who keeps in regular touch. Right Offer You have more opportunity for career creativity in being unemployed than someone entrenched in a 9 to 5 permanent job. What problems can you fix for a company in a non-traditional employment capacity? Let’s say an employer has a problem that needs fixing. They don’t have capacity to do it right now. It isn’t burning enough to seek professional help and there isn’t sufficient work in view to make it a job. What if you caught them at the right time? An out-of-work TA Manager who offered to revamp an onboarding process. A web designer who notes lots of issues with their website. A strategic operational issue that is their unknown unknown identified by your expertise. A swamped team that could benefit from their admin burden being reduced. An orchard that needs pickers at harvest time. What starts out as a short-term, project, or part-time piece of work can become proof of concept. While rare, I know a few people whose permanent full-time jobs have come about this way, including at a senior level. Right message This is both specific and crude. It’s specific because nailing the message CAN create an opportunity a poorly written message may miss. It’s crude because sometimes you can catch people at the right time, no matter how cruddy your message is. This is the case in recruitment - I’ve picked up several senior appointments by calling at the right time. ‘I’m glad you called Greg, I’m starting to think about my maternity cover in June.’ Had I not called, that HR Director may well have gone to the specialist HR recruiters she is also in touch with. If you have a strong hook in your message - such as a key area of rare expertise or a clear issue you’ve identified which companies may have - go in with that. If you don’t - done is better than procrastinating: ‘Hi Greg, I live locally to Bircham Wyatt Recruitment. Love what you do. I wondered if you might be recruiting for an apple picker at any point. If you can’t help, could you point me in the right direction?’ Right price I’ve left this until the end because much of this is variable and subjective. What are your needs? What can they afford? What does the market say? How flexible can you be? Research will help if you can get a sense of what they generally pay through Indeed, Glassdoor or others. Or maybe what comparable companies that are advertising will pay. One approach might be to pro-rate your salary over the period you’ll work there. Doorknocking can sometimes give you access to jobs that are being actively recruited. It’s a happy byproduct of your work, if you find yourself in this situation. It’s worth persevering. Otherwise, it’s too easy to think after 10, 20, or 100 unsuccessful efforts that the approach itself is at fault. There is always an element of luck in any activity. This may be out of your comfort zone, in which case it’s an opportunity to grow. The only certain thing is that if you don’t try you definitely won’t benefit.

Root Canal - No problem, pt 2

By Greg Wyatt • June 4, 2026
Listening to the consequences of your recruitment process is an opportunity. I do find it interesting go through my older articles. How has my thinking changed? Has it improved? How was I so cringy? Looking at this article in its August 2023 form, I hadn't yet focused on Candidate Resentment as an opportunity to improve how we recruit. Not because it's decent to treat people better, but because that is a happy byproduct of strategically assessing our work as it supports our goals. Whether that's filling vacancies or finding people that meet our goals long-term and flourish doing so. Root canal If you recognise that speaking to the potential problems of the people you want to engage is a good idea, you may also recognise why you shouldn't create any problems that push them away. Engagement is an ongoing process that carries through every stage of recruitment, even into employment. Yes, bring your candidates forward, in part by showing how you solve their career problems. But, don’t throw up unnecessary issues that undo your good work. Listening to the consequences of your recruitment process is an opportunity. Why did that candidate proceed? Why did another withdraw? What raised concern? What about the potential candidates we don’t even know about? What influenced their decisions? I’ve spoken to tens of thousands of candidates, prospects, applicants, and everything else, during my career. Out of curiosity, I’m always interested in what influences their decisions in their pursuit of a new career. What fascinates me is that these are the Gemba , the unknown unknowns that we can extrapolate into our own recruitment processes. What problems do they encounter elsewhere, that discourage them from applying, that encourage them to withdraw, and why? And how might we be guilty of the same? While if we are guilty, how can we fix these problems, so that the objection never comes up? Imagine that - the reader that might have walked away, who instead chooses to engage. This may seem an unknowable unknown, but one of the benefits of my job seeker work is hearing about the issues they encounter on their side of recruitment and how that may influence their decisions. Considering these are people that are very problem aware, their appetite for bullshit is in some ways higher than the problem unaware (passive in old speak). While in others, what you may consider normal behaviour, they consider red flags. While we can’t control the behaviour of candidates, we can learn what influences their behaviour and form a process that nudges, draws forward or mitigates when needed. What are we accountable for that might present a problem for a candidate we want to employ? Especially when, in normal life, moving jobs is one of the biggest stresses? How might we unnecessarily cause scepticism or anxiety? Auditing your own recruitment process as a mystery candidate is one opportunity. As is surveying your staff for their experience - with the caveat they are happy to be working for you, skewing their perception. Or perhaps they're terrified of losing their jobs. Do they really want to rock the boat with criticism? But it’s the candidates who withdraw, who hesitate, who object that can be the source of the biggest improvements. What would you say their common complaints are? You can look to LinkedIn for the answer, in their high-engagement posts. Salary on the job description (they mean the advert) ATS data duplication Responsiveness and transparency Tardy, bloated and unnecessary recruitment stages A robotic process that forgot they are human Which becomes your choice. Do you look within and challenge yourself with 5 Whys to see how you can improve? Do you take away problems before they can occur? Saving your candidates unnecessary toothache? Or do you lay blame on the areas you can’t control? Those are the questions. Regards, Greg p.s. I’m available for interesting work - UK key hires, fractional talent acquisition and recruitment writing. Maybe we can talk. p.p.s. A Recruitment AiDE is out now - the discipline for UK key hire recruitment