Is there such a thing as an Employment Coach?

NAS87080 said:

He has no idea what he wants to do, or what his skill set is.

At 18 very few of us had skills that could translate into a career, only interests so I would look to this as a way of getting him engaged in the search.

NAS87080 said:

He is unmotivated and lacks initiative and executive function

This will restrict the options he can meaningfully persure (from an employers side) so we need to think what can he do with limited executive function - the motivation will come from finding the right area to stimulate his special interests.

NAS87080 said:

I feel he needs some 1-2-1 sessions in basic skills like completing a CV, filling in application forms,  interview skills etc. We have tried to help with these things, but he won't listen to us.

This is normal - he is becoming an adult, has an accumulation of knowledge and thinks he knows it all - I think most of us went through this stage of thinking we don't need help, that our parents are dinosaurs who are not relevant and that what we do should be plenty good enough to be snaped up for a high paid job testing video games...

I think you need someone outside your immediate sphere who he has respect for - the "cool" uncle for example or someone you know who he looks up to. He is much more likely to listen to them.

This person could be asked to be a mentor for a while in order to make sure your son knows what is needed for the conventional routes to a career and how to get there.

They also need to know about his limitations and tailor recommendations to that end - no point encouraging him to be a fighter pilot if he has vertigo for example.

So my recommendations:

1 - look for a mentor that he respects

2 - make a note of his special interests. Encourage the mentor to look for more as he probably hasn't told you about them all

3 - ask him often if he is doing ok and if you can help. Otherwise give him space rather than intervene.

4 - If he continues to wallow, maybe consider setting a set of chores that will become the basis for his allowance. It will get him off his bum to do something just so he can have the spending money. Consider expanding this to things like mowing the lawn, washing the car etc and if he shows initiative then maybe he can offer his services to the neighbours to improve his income.

There are indeed employment coaches and indeed there are some of them that are even specific to autism. For autism specific ones they’re usually delivered by charities but the charities are usually local. You’ll have to check if there’s one in your local area. I applied for this in my local area and was told there were no spaces.

The unemployment ‘universal credit’ service will force someone to have a work coach in order to get benefits although I haven’t found them to be particularly helpful.

there are charities like connections and the National career service and other, again usually local, charities that offer work coaching. They are generally better than the jobs office.

let me advocate for your son for a moment. Don’t underestimate the mental wall that something being boring or uninteresting can be for an autistic person. I was relatively lucky I not only was very good at maths and science I also really really loved it. Not everybody loves what they’re good at.

I would say that if there is some particular field or study or vocation that he loves, even if he’s not very good at it, even if you don’t think it’s likely to lead to a good career, that would be the study, the career direction, in which you should invest. Because he is very likely to stick with it.