Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm absolutely hopping mad today.
My son is on the autistic spectrum, he's 21 years old. He is the smartest, most compassionate, non-judgemental person I know. He works as a special educational needs teaching assistant, he volunteers for a mental health charity, and as a cadet leader. He has his issues but he's worked so hard to manage them, in fact many people are surprised when they learn he is autistic - most just think he's a bit quirky.
So why am I hopping mad? Well he had an interview today for PCSO. He spent weeks preparing for it, put together a presentation, had to complete online psychometric tests, and then today he was interviewed.........he was interviewed on his disability, not on his ability. He was asked "as a PCSO you can be subject to a lot of name calling. How would you cope with that, being on the autistic spectrum?" "can you tell me a time when you have been criticised? How did you deal with that, being on the autistic spectrum?" So much for protected characteristic! Imagine asking someone how they would deal with something 'being a woman, being gay, being black'. They'd be sacked, and rightly so. It was a very negative experience and like they'd already made up their minds, but interviewing him ticked a box.
I shouldn't be surprised though. He went for an interview with a so called charity about a year ago. They were Disability Confident. He attended for an interview taking with him his presentation that he had spent a long time preparing and that was a required part of the interview. When he got there they said "oh, you don't have to bother with the presentation, we'll just do the interview" about 20 minutes later he was done. They had obviously just invited him for interview because they had to under Disability Confident.
Why do employers think that disabled people are just for them to use to tick boxes or get pointless little accolades like 'Disability Confident' that they can plaster all over their corporate material. Who do they think they are to waste my sons time and put him through the stress of interview knowing they have no intention of even considering him for the job?
Does anyone else have experiences like this. My son has always been open about his diagnosis, perhaps naively believing everyone is non judgemental like him. I'm thinking of advising my son to withhold this information from any future employer.
People don't seem to have a realistic image of the capacities of a person with autism. I had a similar experience, I told them at the hospital that I had autism and they should consider this because my mother had an epileptic attack and that seems to be closely related to autism, so they could consider that for medication they might give her. After this announcement, I noticed a clear difference in how they would always make sure somebody else was around when they needed to ask something, like I was considered 'a child'...
They might also have the following prejudices:
- people with autism are not able to work with other people
- they would not be able to keep company information confidential, for being too honest
For that reason I'd rather just be quirky, differently social,...
I would even say this: if the autistic traits are not visible during an interview, and he gets hired,
nobody is ever going to tell him afterwards that they notice he has autism.
Take a look at this, just for info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxKB6XUU4uk
This is a video about reasonable adjustments at interview.
Unfortunately I think most autistic adults have had similar experiences.
Totally. I am sorry to hear your son had this experience. My daughter struggles to get interviews at all so for her it would be a step forward.
But it is a good practice to prepare and come to an interview so it is not a complete waste of time. It could be a stepping stone for better experiences with more ethical employers in the future,
Unfortunately I think most autistic adults have had similar experiences. For me it's been particularly bad with charitable organisations who want to look inclusive but aren't, so they do the bare minimum making a show out of 'trying' before claiming they're not equipped to help me, when my needs were far less than their physically infirm service users. Sadly we do not have the advocacy of other minority groups and it's much easier for companies and charities to say our autism prevents us from doing the job or that the charity isn't equipped to serve us than to say the same thing about being black or female or queer or physically disabled/infirm. For some reason discriminating on autism and mental health is OK but not on anything else. There is no logic at all in the NT brain. It would be funny if it weren't frustrating and tragic. 'Disability Confident' is just another silly NT badge like 'Inclusive Church' - it's all about PR and image-marketing, not at all about their actual beliefs and practices. I've learnt that whenever they use words like 'disability' and 'inclusive', they mean them selectively. Their inclusiveness extends only to whom they want to include, not to whom the law says they must include. And since the Equality Act is tort not criminal law, they know that neurodiverse and mentally ill people, with our non-confrontational traits, will not initiate a legal complaint on our own and likely do not have the money to do so either. The Act is in the end just another toothless and useless NT 'badge' for the country, written by people with the loophole in mind and with no intention of enforcing it and changing the status quo. Personally I find it darkly hilarious that public drunkenness, being a crime, will bring you a swifter punishment than discriminating against the least of these our fellow human beings. I really don't know what we can do about this. It seems to me more so every day that there's nothing we can do. There seems to be not much point hoping that there's any good and justice left in this world that would scatter the proud and exalt the meek. It's just not going to happen, in this life at least.
Disclosing the diagnosis is also a Catch-22. If you do you'll face this discrimination. If you don't you won't be able to report it as discrimination to the EHRC/EASS.
A few years ago I applied for a job with a Council in Scotland that claimed that it had a Guaranteed Interview Scheme and in the application form I answered the question "If you are a disabled applicant, do you wish to be interviewed under the Guaranteed Interview Scheme?" with a yes, I didn't get an interview although my qualifications more than covered what they were asking for and that I had several years of experience doing similar jobs. I am not sure why I didn't get an interview, I considered making a complaint but in the end I decided that I wouldn't as I didn't want to get a reputation for being a trouble maker.
Interviews are about point-scoring. If you score enough on the pre-interview criteria the company has to treat your son fairly and interview him like everyone else. Your son might have been out very quickly as the interview team had other commitments and wanted to streamline the processes as much as possible. I was ill yesterday thereofore my husband had to quickly shut down a meeting as I needed him for childcare. I understand you're anger but from your post, it sounds like you are acting in the way that you are accusing the interviewers of and are making sweeping statements based on pre-existing prejudices.
Some people do discriminate based on neurotype but as you've mentioned this is against the law. If you and your son sit back and let people treat him like this these people won't change. What are you/your son doing now to advocate for his rights? e.g his he now taking the police to an employment tribunal?
How is the attitude you are taking helping your son with his self-esteem, happiness, coping skills etc. I try and drop in that I am autistic in interviews so that I can wheedle out the ones who are discriminatory as those won't be places where I want to work. Yes, it unjust and inappropriate for people to discriminate but that is life and we all have our personal biases. Your better off finding out your not the right fit at the interview stage so you can quickly move on, rather than being stuck in a job you don't like, with people you can't stand.