Job Interviews - a very public torture

It sounds like you did a very good job!! Be proud !! I think with things like interviews and getting a job there are so many factors at play that you never know why they did or did not give the job to you. Even with a perfect interview (does that even exist?), it's no guarantee. I think there are bound to be subconcious biases too and in the end the reasons might be unrelated to interview performance. 

Hope you are not too disappointed!! I wish you a good luck with the next interview!! 

Aw bad luck. But hey you did your best and that's something to be really proud of! 

I'm proud of you. Well done for trying. X

Update: I did not get the job.

They were very kind in their email to me.

Stuff about very hard decision and exeptional candidate got the job. There were 5 of us interviewed.

They complimented me about the result I got in the written knowledge test. (but being a spoecialist in the area, that is not a huge compliment)

Hey ho. Onwards and upwards. 

I'm lucky now, i'm retired now, so no more interviews, at least for jobs. But when i was younger. I worked in offices and stayed in a couple of jobs i didn't like 'cos i knew if ui left it would mean having to start going for interviews. I ended up self-employed driving a taxi, there were times i never liked that, but i could work by myself.

This is great advice!! So true that we tend to focus on the negatives (at least I do that). 

Please don’t feel so bad about yourself for this experience - it’s entirely normal to feel this way after a job interview! I don’t think there are many people - autistic or not autistic - who haven’t felt this way about a job or college interview in their time. They do sometimes go quite badly - and you can learn from any mistakes you might have made and what you’ve learnt can be incredibly useful for the next time. It’s likely though that it wasn’t quite as bad as you imagine - because when we obsessively go over an experience that wasn’t good we do tend to hyper focus on the negatives - and this really magnifies them. I doubt that those interviewing you hardly noticed most of the things you are worrying so much about. 

You’ll probably be able to find it slightly funny eventually when you look back on it. But whatever - don’t beat yourself up about it - it happens to everyone. At least you had the courage to actually GO to the interview! 

If you have a Health care plan as a result of a needs assessment it will allow you to access the employment team of adult social services which can help you find sustainable work and help with interviews. I am saying this from experience that their help actual works unlike the Shawtrust and other insane health and work programmes.  

I relate.

My sense of public humiliation is built on not knowing what others think of me and fearing the worst.

Thus, my feelings are based upon my faith that my fears are what is providing sensory information.  

In this situation memory and imagination powerfully block out real sensory input.  
Right now, anxiety about my dental treatment overwhelms the sounds sights etc of my current reality.  All that is real is within my senses but I am addicted to the unreal ‘head’ version.  That is so malleable as to be threateningly open to any imaginary danger dredged up from past feelings. 

The problem of emotional turmoil for me is at its worst when I am temporarily immune to seeing my truth: my most painful fears are imaginary catastrophes which appear to be overwhelmingly real catastrophes.  I seem to be powerless over these feelings and I have to resist the urge to fight them to get rid of them. 
Maybe that is what is meant by ‘don’t fight the feelings float through them’ but my literalism makes floating in this context hard to accomplish.  
I suppose it should read: ‘don’t fight, imagine you are floating. 

That sounds like a horrible question... I feel like people might just memorise a "good" answer to those kinds of questions... but I think I would struggle to bring myself to do that... I tend to be too honest for my own good... 

Oh and actually, I did have another interview with a huge panel which was a bit of a fiasco, but I laugh about that one now. When asked about whether I was interested in xxx topic I replied that "I had never thought about xxx topic..." and turns out the person I said that to was the head of the department studying that topic... . Then I think I made an inappropriate joke about what I had just said... 

As you can imagine, I did not get offered that position... 

The only formal interviews I ever had were to get into university. I was lucky that I got away with being myself for those. It was all academic, so basically about my special interest which is something I can talk for ages about (also there were pictures and bits of paper to look at and draw on so I didn't have to actually look at the people I was talking to...). But I think I would have a much harder time at more classical interviews ... I just hope that in future interviews people can accept me for who I am... if they cannot see past that in the interview then I think I would worry that working for them would not be right for me.

Sorry, I also have no advice. 

I too hate job interviews. I have failed on a lot as they ask questions like what is your greatest achievement. I can never think of those sort of answers. Then it throws me for the rest. Why can't they ask why you might be good at the job? 

Also like you I go over things. 

No advice, but I hate interviews too.  I feel like a make a total fool of myself.

I just give up on Job Interviews. Too blunt, and too the point. Plus, my experience is in Admin Work; and I'm a Bloke.

Interviews are tough, you can only learn to get better by reviewing what happened and prepare better for the next one.

Practice can help but interviews can vary so much you just need to work on being calm and confident that you can cope, plus confident that you can do the job and be the person they need.  Visualise it going well leading up to it, prepare your brain that it will go well - rather than dreading it or feeling panic.

Nervous is fine, they will expect that, its normal - just work on being as less anxious as possible, and more confident.

I can only say that being on an interview panel, I was a 'technical member' of a panel interviewing people for a senior job in a biotechnology start-up company, is only slightly less unpleasant for an autistic than being interviewed.

I also hate job interviews.

My record for failures is 42 job interviews in one year.

The unspoken truth is that job interviews are a popularity contest. They will give the job to the person they like best.  It has nothing to do with skills, experience and qualifications.