Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi today I had a telephone interview to work in a special school for children with autism. They were impressed with me as an adult with autism I feel I could really connect with the pupils. The good news is I have made it through to the second stage which is a face to face interview at the school itself. I’m worried about the questions they might ask for example a nasty question I was asked at a previous interview is why should we hire you? Has anyone got any advice on this? Thanks
Rach91 said:I don’t mention my autism on my cv but I do disclose it when applying for work.
This is a tricky one. It seems very relevant to the role you are applying to so the interviewers may take it as a sign that you are not very honest when you didn't disclose it up front.
Personally I would say that if there is a reasonable chance of anxiety becoming an issue then disclose it - it should get you a much more sympathetic interview rather than you dropping it like a bomb during the session.
How would you drop it into the conversation anyway? It would need to be in a way that makes it out to be a strength rather than a weakness so the timeing needs to be right.
Through experience, I would say that being entirely honest in a job interview is counterproductive. If you can divine the answer the interviewers want, give them it, rather than the absolute truth.
Thanks for the advice I don’t mention my autism on my cv but I do disclose it when applying for work.
Rach91 said: I was asked at a previous interview is why should we hire you?
It is a perfectly reasonable question and one I often asked as an interviewer. What would you answer now?
Effectively they are asking you to give a summaried version of what you can offer and how it relates to this role.
Let us know what you think this would be (removing specific details of course) and I'll suggest a re-working of it for you.
Other questions they may ask will be:
It is not practical to memorise responses to these but to think about what they mean and what things you can talk about - reading from memory will seem like you are reading from a script (i.e. bad) whereas assembling an answer from your pre-thought out answers is likely to come across as more genuine.
I'm happy to work you though some of this if you are up for it. I've spent over 10 years as a manager with regular recruiting requirements in a wide range of companies in case you were wondering about my credentials and have been on numerous in-house recruitment training courses in the civil service amongst others.