I hate CV's

A CV is a selling document; you are promoting and selling yourself to a potential employer.  

You should never lie on a CV, but neither do you have to tell them the whole truth either.  

For instance, I only put down what qualifications and grades that are either relevant to the job or what I want to tell them.  For instance, I have never told an employer that I have a F grade in GCSE Maths, but I have told them that I have a B grade in GCSE English Language.  I have not lied to them about my maths grade, I have simply not volunteered to give them that information!  

I also put my skills and experience (in terms of what I can actually do) first on a CV, after my name and address and phone number, I then list my work experience, and then my qualifications.  I want them to know what I can actually do now, not what grade I got doing a course over twenty years ago.  

I have been looking for recent guidance on getting jobs but it is all rather dated. which is unfortunate, given we have a Government eager to get people off benefits and "back into work", but not prepared to be realistically helpful, or do any serious investigation of the issues.

I mentioned above Edmonds & Beardon "Asperger Syndrome and Employment....." published in 2008. I quite favour this series which came out of Sheffield Hallam University's centre, but sometimes the 'collected essays' style isn't strong enough. I don't think it was nearly informative enough to meet the challenges five years ago.

Part of the problem of the Adults Speak out about Autism series, when it comes to employment, is if only 20% of people on the spectrum find gainful employment, and many of those get a mix of short term or unsuitable jobs with long gaps, the scope for such essays is going to be small. I felt the book tried hard but was too little too late.

It begins with an introduction which is too heavily Triad of Impairments, diagnostic rather than real everyday perspectives: paragraphs on communication, social understanding, theory of mind, executive functioning and sensory processing (which tries to use an analogy of people in a wheelchair), then a little bit about reasonable adjustments in the workplace - mainly how to give a person on the spectrum instructions and how to lay out a task for them.

Sorry, but can't we progress to ACTUALLY understanding people on the spectrum?

Secondly the essays are mostly by people with a small amount of work experience, doing voluntary or short term, whose insights are shallow, with the result the content is witty but not very helpful. Is it so hard to find people with longer term employment experience? Or are we back to the old cookie, well if they hold down a job for years they haven't got real aspergers, so we don't count them.

One writer tables jobs deemed "High Risk of Failure", "May Suit some people not others" and "Low Risk of Failure", which seems like a good idea, but most jobs end up in the middle column, and I don't think the compiler tried hard enough to identify the low risk/ideal jobs. Out of 23 low risk suggestions compare piano tuner, cleaner, magician, milkman, funeral director/pall bearer and farm labourer with the few highlights - town planner, tourist guide, appliance engineer, navigator/route planner.

I'm trying not to be unfair. They are interesting essays by people who've tried the world of work, and some contributions from employers, but there's nothing there to reassure about how to change things. There are chapters on job hunting and CVs but it is superficial.

What we desperately need is real understanding of the issues and a means of persuading officialdom to be more realistically accommodating about workplace reform for the disabled.

Thanks urspecial, for reminding me I was going to come back with more ideas.

Trouble is it is something I have puzzled over for ages. I have been trying to persuade the Adult Autism Strategy crowd (evidently in vain) of the urgent need to research which aspects of the employment environment are difficult for people on the spectrum, and how can they be resolved.

I did point them to "managing with Asperger Syndrome" by Malcolm Johnson (JKP 2005), with the caveat that the author didn't seem to have anything like as much trouble as I would expect, particularly as the job environment (sales teams) isn't a good one for people on the spectrum. Also it is hard reading, too autobiographical, indeed way too much about Malcolm Johnson. However I can identify with his experiences.

The problem is there aren't many books about the workplace. One other is Genevieve Edmonds and Luke Beardon "Asperger Syndrome & Employment: Adults Speak out about Asperger Syndrome" (JKP 2008).

Whereas, although I have some background, it is far harder for me to convince the decision makers, and I have to say this, because I admit to have been diagnosed, my credibility doesn't go up - it plummets downwards! They, the decision makers, regard anyone on the autistic spectrum as neorotic, bit soft in the head, having no opinions worth listening to.

I've been trying to dig up some job specifications and found one interesting website TotalJobs.com. This is a training and job finding organisation and it provides job role explanations to help applicants. One of these is "Team Leader".

OK so none of you want to be team leader. But, most companies look at someone they employ as a potential future team leader. This is because "doers" get out of touch and are easily replaced by younger, fresher (CHEAPER) team mates. Sadly there's no real career prospect if you don't lean to management, increasingly even in higher skilled sectors where you would think experienced doers would be valued. It is why in the UK we undermine our economic viability by having too many totally rubbish chiefs, and hardly any job experienced indians (metaphor). So the job spec you get will be looking at your management potential, even if the job you are applying for is "slave".

The phrases they use for team leaders are graphic enough: "supervising, guiding and motivating". Team leaders ensure the staff are happy so the business can run well. Teamwork is vital to the success of any business but unfortunately groups of people wont always work well together.  This is where team leaders step in, helping to keep everyone motivated.

Roles are likely to include deputising tasks and ensuring the people they allocate work to do it efficiently, so the outcomes merge effectively. They may be involved in promotional activities and will probably be moved round different teams, and even different sites. And they have to work well with higher management, with a lot of social based activity.

OK you wouldn't deliberately apply for "team leader". But the employer will look at your CV/application form thinking is this person useful to us in the long term? They often ask "where do you see yourself in five years time?". If you say invaluable grovelling filing clerk, these days they pay that job small money for young faces, as the computer provides the skill element. If you say "rubbing shoulders with the likes of Alan Sugar" you'll be in like a shot.

Have a think about the team leader skills: people management, deputising the right tasks to the right people, mixing with the bosses - to be a "people person". Its a prime social skills role. How many people with aspergers are going to feel comfortable doing it?

But the jobs that people with aspergers might try for - using specialist highly focussed skills, niche contributions - shorn of management prospects these are all short term jobs these days.

It is useless clever dicks in Government and Autism advisory bodies talking up a few flash computer programming jobs in scandinavian countries, in the majoriyty of cases in the UK there are no such jobs around. The UK workforce is streamed towards management. Jobs are for team leaders, even if the job itself is someone to clean the bosses' executive toilet!

Very, very interesting post longman.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Can't really add more to what you and others have said.

But maybe NAS should work with the incompetent   cough * DWP  cough *  as they are doing some pro-disability and employment promo.

Currently posters etc, not the tv ads they did back in mid 00s.

Take Care,

urspecial

I think prosecution or dismissal would only arise if you wittheld something important. To be honest firms see loads of lies on CVs because they expect them and are suitably wary. But I worry that people are unneccessarily wary because of scare stories about the consequences of lying.

The main consequence of lying is being found out. I am pretty sure it is done deliberately by the programme makers for The Apprentice, but there is always one candidate who reaches the penultimate stage but is then found to have fibbed all the way through. Yet he/she got to the penultimate interviews - so what does that say about CVs/application forms.

As a lecturer I was involved in job search guidance modules for final year undergraduates: we put them through mock interviews, with them taking turns on the interview panels, and we assessed their various attempts at CVs and application forms. I was one of the team that observed interviews and fed back notes on each student's performance, both interviewee and panel members.

Basically with your CV, you need to think about how to get your CV on the pile for interviews, as most jobs are inundated with applications, and many candidates are binned early on because of flaws in their CVs or application forms. Your CV has to make an impact, and that generally does mean a lot of bluffing, telling the prospective employer you are the ideal person for the job. So most employers know there will be lies in there, its the type of lies that are important.

First of all have several CV templates, and adapt your CV to every job. Research that job, not just the job particulars. Look up the employer on the internet and look to see what they want you to say. Obviously you don't fake a qualification or blatently lie, but to get your CV in the front of the queue you need to show you have a particular interest in working for them, and have taken the trouble to find out about them.

Do look closely at the job criteria, and if it is not detailed, look up similar job specifications on the internet. You need to make sure your CV meets their criteria. With a standard CV you are going to miss a lot of the criteria. It might be a bit of a lie, but to get interviewed your CV needs to meet their job spec.

Don't write negatives about yourself. Try to give everything a positive swing. OK so that may be a bit of a lie too. Watch out for the "tell us your weaknesses", "tell us your strengths" questions in an application form.

Employers are looking for a lot of things not easy for someone with aspergers or autism to deliver. Even if you don't disclose that, it would be inadvisable to give the impression that you are a great team player if you clearly are not. Or anything else that they would then spot very quickly wasn't true. I'm afraid being on the spectrum means people spot you are odd or different, even if they cannot be certain. But the metaphor "there's no smoke without fire" applies here - if they see oddity, they'll focus on it, give you tasks to see if their suspicions are right.

Although references are a formality, and often don't get scrutinised (the legal caveats mean they are often useless), for people on the spectrum this may make it difficult for your referee. Some employers will tell the referee particular information they want, and it can be really hard for a referee, knowing you, to answer these questions. Again is the candidate a good team player?  Answering no would probably lose the candidate a chance for an interview. It really is hard doing references for people on the spectrum, because so many jobs require social based skills.

So how do you get round this being on the spectrum? I think it sad that very little has been done to provide helpful guidance. I got diagnosed during my last job, so I didn't know my autism status when I previously applied for jobs. I must have asserted I had abilities that people quickly found I didn't have - I was just liucky that in certain areas I have unique skills and that has usually kept me in work.

I think NAS needs to address this. How do you respond in CVs and application forms to the limitations of autism?  I think this is a key issue. Though I had a disability role alongside being a lecturer, and addressed disability as an issue in the job application preparation, I couldn't see a way round this. I'll give it some more thought and respond again.

I have never lied on a CV and I wouldn't.

If you are intelligent, you can easily fill in the "about you" section with things like "studying/researching [insert interest]".  It might even be something very different to the average, boring CV entry and make you stand out.

You just have to hone the craft of making what you really did achieve sound as impressive as possible.  Use clever language.  You don't need to lie.

If you got a job based on lies, you may find yourself unable to fulfill the role because you never really had the skills or experience you made out you had and then where would you be?

It would always be on your head that you were there because of lies too.

If you are really stuck and have the cash, there are places that write your CV out for you for a fee.