I Give Up

Akendolfr said:

I'll never be able to get a job I'll be happy with because the system is designed to keep me from having any level of satisfaction in my life

I have done a lot of hiring for medium to large organisations in my life - recruiting service desk staff, IT technicians and other IT managers so have plenty of experience of this in different places.

There is no "system" or conspiracy to keep you or even people like you from gettting it.

It is simply the fact that autists have problems with social cues and rules so tend to come across as "something is off with this person" during the interview and as a recruiter you have to consider if this will impact the rest of the team and/or the customers we support.

We won't normally get to see if the candidate is disabled unless they bring it up - this has been a concious decision by HR departments that do the initial filters of candidates so that we cannot be seen to discriminate against disabled people.

At interview stage it will depend a lot on the training and predisposition of those hiring, but if it is an NT involved (we normally have at least one other person in on the interview panel unless if it for a fixed term contract position) then undisclosed autists will often feel odd and are quite likely to be overlooked in favour of an NT who seems like a great cultural fit for the team.

I used to take different members of my team to the interviews and use it to train them in detecting concious bias so they could become better themselves in future - deciding what characteristics would work well in a team environment is something that needs to be trained so it is as inclusive as it can be.

As a candidate for these roles you have a key choice to make.

1 - Mask. Be that team member that they want to see who is engaging, social and enthusiastic. This will quite possibly get you the role but chances of burnout are very high.

OR

2 - Be authentic to yourself. Tell the truth, show your positive sides and explain how this will work to the advantage of the team. If you don't have these qualities then chances are this sort of role is not going to ever make you happy either.

At the end of the day it is just the fact that autists are the oddballs in the world where 90% are neurotypical so we will stand out, have problems doing things the way they do and will always have struggles to fit into the working environment on equal terms.

There are plenty of roles that work very well with our traits however (programmer / developer, database admin, server admin, engineer, gardener, photographer, forrester etc etc - maybe try to find something you really enjoy, get really, really good at it and you can have a career in that area which makes you happy.

Akendolfr said:

I'll never be able to get a job I'll be happy with because the system is designed to keep me from having any level of satisfaction in my life

I have done a lot of hiring for medium to large organisations in my life - recruiting service desk staff, IT technicians and other IT managers so have plenty of experience of this in different places.

There is no "system" or conspiracy to keep you or even people like you from gettting it.

It is simply the fact that autists have problems with social cues and rules so tend to come across as "something is off with this person" during the interview and as a recruiter you have to consider if this will impact the rest of the team and/or the customers we support.

We won't normally get to see if the candidate is disabled unless they bring it up - this has been a concious decision by HR departments that do the initial filters of candidates so that we cannot be seen to discriminate against disabled people.

At interview stage it will depend a lot on the training and predisposition of those hiring, but if it is an NT involved (we normally have at least one other person in on the interview panel unless if it for a fixed term contract position) then undisclosed autists will often feel odd and are quite likely to be overlooked in favour of an NT who seems like a great cultural fit for the team.

I used to take different members of my team to the interviews and use it to train them in detecting concious bias so they could become better themselves in future - deciding what characteristics would work well in a team environment is something that needs to be trained so it is as inclusive as it can be.

As a candidate for these roles you have a key choice to make.

1 - Mask. Be that team member that they want to see who is engaging, social and enthusiastic. This will quite possibly get you the role but chances of burnout are very high.

OR

2 - Be authentic to yourself. Tell the truth, show your positive sides and explain how this will work to the advantage of the team. If you don't have these qualities then chances are this sort of role is not going to ever make you happy either.

At the end of the day it is just the fact that autists are the oddballs in the world where 90% are neurotypical so we will stand out, have problems doing things the way they do and will always have struggles to fit into the working environment on equal terms.

There are plenty of roles that work very well with our traits however (programmer / developer, database admin, server admin, engineer, gardener, photographer, forrester etc etc - maybe try to find something you really enjoy, get really, really good at it and you can have a career in that area which makes you happy.