Job interviews

Ghostranch said:

The thing is, while I am very good at writing applications, I am terrible at interviews. As well as autism, I have bad anxiety and this is triggered by the interview process, which then exacerbates my difficulties associated with my autism.

This is very much like me.   I could not say that I am 'good' at writing applications, it is just I take a considerable time in doing it, going over and over the application and altering bits, reading again, rephrasing, deleting, adding more details.  It takes a considerable time.  And I could at one time get an interview in most cases.  Anxiety is linked to autism as a co-morbidity and one of the places this shows up will be in an interview.

Ghostranch said:

I have asked for adjustments before, but these do not seem to help me much. Extra time does not help as it just prolongs difficult moments and does not help me to think more clearly as I just get more anxious about not being able to come up with an answer. I've found it helpful to receive prompts to give further information, but interviewers rarely do this.

A problem with the interview process is it doesn't cater for autism in any way.  And an employer wants the easy way out.  It is easy for the employer to think that someone needs to cope well 'under stress' and your failure to do well in an interview reflects your inability to cope.  However there is a difference.  In an interview situation, you are put on the spot.  You have not, in a lot of cases, been doing the job and there is a failure (perhaps due to literalism) to see the point the interviewer is trying to make.  Questions can be, or seem to be, completely random, and you are trying to find a 'match' from your experiences based on the question. 

As you say, this involves a great deal of time and time is lacking in the interview.  And even 'extra time' for the question would always be insufficient, your mind has gone blank, your head is filled with other thoughts, you are thinking of the past questions, and wondering what will come up next.  You may have noticed something distracting in the office or which is not quite right, you may have noticed a smell or heard a sound that you can't place, the interviewer may have reminded you of someone else and you are thinking about how you coped before with a similar question.

All this turns me into appearing a gibbering idiot, interviewers do not like silence so they then ask another question while you are thinking of the answer to the previous one, and then another and another. Then sometimes I will fly off on a tangent, saying something that I think the interviewer would like to hear but not answer the question being asked, or even say something which is seen to be totally irrelevant.

What is needed is not 'open' questions but  leading questions and the ability of an interviewer to clearly express in the question the type of answer they are expecting, with prompting if necessary.  Not a question such as 'tell me something about yourself' (which I always wonder what they want to know, I have already put it on the application form so where do I start?).

I am a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records for failing job interviews.  I was out of work for well over twenty years, not for want of trying, and each interview made me feel worse about myself.  I could plan for the interview but without prior experience of the job I would always be 'thrown' by a question.  If I was one of two candidates and the other candidate was a chimpanzee I am sure the interviewer would have chosen the chimpanzee ahead of me. 

And where the only candidate was me (it happened on several occasions) I still was second choice failing the interview to 'no suitable candidate'.  Feedback if I received any came back to 'lack of eye contact', 'not answering questions correctly', fidgeting, or being hesitant.  I must also say that I was not diagnosed at the time I was going for jobs, and this has also applied to internal vacancies and trying for promotion.  And now being less than two years from my retirement I do not wish to apply for any other jobs and I am very unlikely to do so.

All this has the effect of making one feel bad about oneself, wondering what one has done to deserve this.  Jobs I applied for were before autism was understood or even known about, and mostly when an employer could discriminate and was unlikely to make any adjustments in an interview.  So it all gives me a lot to mull over all the time, although I have now been in employment for over twenty years but not I may add, without its autism related problems. 

The reason I got any job was that I was sent by an agency.  An interview by an agency can be the same as for an employer, but several agencies are more interested in how well you could do the job than how well you can answer interview questions and as such will test you on the job skills (written) rather than inappropriate oral questions.  And this is then very similar to a 'job trial' if the employer is looking for someone permanent and you do well in the post. 

I have had 'job placements' over twenty years ago as part of college courses I went on to improve my employability.  Each employer was very impressed with my work although they did not directly lead to employment they gave a reference.

The other thing I would say is that often I found a 'small' employer is better at seeing your strengths and less likely to exploit your weaknesses than a big employer like a government department, local authority, or NHS.  These bigger employers are very bogged-down in interview procedures and although they are supposedly au fait with legislation in my experience they just use this to their advantage in exploiting the loopholes to avoid employing someone who may be perceived to present a problem.  A smaller private employer may not be so bogged down in protocols and will make the decisions for themselves, not to have to justify it to anyone higher up.

I must also say that my success in interviews has been no better during the last twenty years,  I have failed all job interviews in the last sixteen, my only consolation is that I have a job. 

And as I rapidly approach retirement, I can only think of what might have been. Although I receive more than the minimum wage my money has only given me very little spare cash after paying my bills and I am far below the earnings of the starting wage of, for example, a nurse.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It helps to know that others have similar difficulties, though of course I am sad that is the case.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It helps to know that others have similar difficulties, though of course I am sad that is the case.