Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with autism, something I wasn't surprised at and actually feel relieved at knowing.
I work in the civil service, always been office based, never worked from home but over the last few years I've been really struggling with the work and the environment I was in.
Currently on sick leave and spoken to manager about what I'd like going forward. I've said full time home working due to the issues I faced in the workplace (crowded, noisy, temperature too hot, no routine). I've been told that I'd have to put in a flexible working request first to leave the department then put in a reasonable adjustment request on my new team for home working.
I've explained my issue with this is if I get moved teams on the first request its to operations which is a big open plan floor with hundreds of people, I've sat there briefly last year and had to leave the building as it was too overwhelming (at this point not knowing I was autistic). If this was to happen and then my reasonable adjustment request for home working was rejected I'd be stuck in an environment far worse than the one I'm requesting to leave.
Does anyone have any pointers on what the best course of action is to request full time home working? I've read up on so many pages but again when I mention it to my manager I keep getting told 'the expectation is to be in the office 2-3 days a week as a minimum' which goes against the law which states each reasonable request should be treated on a case by case basis and not compared to other requests.
Hello,
I have had multiple (Video) interviews for the DWP for the role of Work Coach but I have always been unsuccessful. Can you give me any advice as to why this may be?
CaliforniaDreamer95 said:I have had multiple (Video) interviews for the DWP for the role of Work Coach but I have always been unsuccessful.
I performed quite a lot of recruiting for the civil service in my time so can share some insights into the process.
Getting to interview stage is quite an achievement in itself as each position typically gets hundreds of applicants and only applicants whose CVs tick all the boxes of "essential" skills and experience will be considered.
From this list they have to select a number for interview so chose this number (typically about 10-20) and go through every CV and score it on how much they meet the "must have" and "good to have" skills. From this list the top 10-20 are then selected.
Note that the scoring is done on redacted CVs so the selection panel cannot see the race, ethnicity or any other identifying or prejudicial characteristics, so it is a very fair process.
Interviews typically take 2 or 3 stages - the first ones are to assess if you lied in your CV (sometimes an online technical test is used to filter) and to assess your communication skills, how you solve problems and whether you seem to be a good fit for the team.
This is where most autists fall out of the mix because our "team fit" rating will not be good.
Throughout the interview the panel will score you on a range of pre-agreed aspects and all the panelists need to agree on the scores. Differences in scoring are discussed to see if bias is present and this is eliminated where possible.
If needed a further filtering down of the list is used and a 3rd round of interviews used where a different task is given to the candidates and scores taken with the best rating being offered the job first.
I had to go on 3 training courses for recruitment to make sure I understood the company line on how they must be performed and recorded so that any claims of bias can be assessed and will stand up in a tribunal if needed.
I can't say specifically why you were not successful but the communication and interaction parts are where most autists let themselves down compared to neurotypicals. We tend to feel "off" compared to the others and this is anticipated to translate into poor team interaction (actually it probably will).
With so many applicants to choose from there is no incentive to take an autist over a neurotypical of similar scoring when there is so much potential for problems further down the line. We have to excel at some things to be able to stand out - this is pretty much your only chance to get a role like this.
Don't let it put you off though - if you keep building your skills then one day you will stand out enough to overcome whatever is holding you back from being chosen.