Microsoft announces pilot program to hire people with autism

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I think my primary interest here is HOW LONG might a majority of industry participants take to learn the same M.O. you describe at your current company? As a self-taught, rather specialized geek I'm concerned quite immediately by the potential impermanence of any work I might find as long as I'm searching; I know that's not a productive mindset whenever I'm working but suffice it to say I have not been so lucky as of yet.

Might I also ask how you found said tolerant firm & what you enjoy working on there?

I landed at Microsoft after a series of life-changing events -- my mother dying, being laid off from a company where I'd worked for 17 years, learning that I'm on the spectrum -- in a way that was very lucky and impossible to repeat. After being out of work I was contacted by a recruiter who was looking for someone with my exact skill set. It took a few months to close the deal, but I was able to start my job before the severance ran out. Like I said, lucky.

I first let on about the aspie thing only to a few people, our HR rep and my boss, and didn't formally "declare" until a couple years later. That was about the same time MS started developing the autism hiring program, and drew on the experiences of some people like me, who were already there.

That said, I'm in a discipline that's very unusual for Microsoft, and I came in right on the cusp of change. Because of what I do (news guy) and how I came in, I had an interview that was very different than the super-stressful interview process that engineers endure. Twenty-eight years of faking NT may have helped, too.

I work for Microsoft at MSN, our news Web site (and related products), and help develop new ways of distributing news to people. I work with publishers, journalists, engineers and product managers, and what I do helps fund great journalism. That gets me pretty jazzed .

And I forgot -- tell me more about your concerns about impermanence. I'm not sure I understood the question but I'd be happy to help.

I think he is asking when most companies will be tolerant of neurodiversity, so that he won't be stuck at one of the few companies that do recognize it and effectively utilize people who aren't "normal."

I think it will take at least another 20 years. Why? Because this is how long it will take management to turn over to the next generation. A similar example is the acceptance of females in the workplace.

It is harder. Like learning to cook with a mystery basket compared to following a recipe when you have all the ingredients on the table.

I don't know how long it will take. Too long, for sure. We're working with other tech companies to get there, but it won't happen fast enough.

One thing I think would help immensely is expansion of remote jobs & rationally paced telecommuting work, as opposed to the disproportionate pressure/demand (what have you) for technology folks to relocate or meet impossible for technological jobs.

Thus while I'd like for this thread to become somewhere we can discuss the full list of tech firms any of us find agreeable, there's more need to stand back and embellish the whole picture of what makes any company a good choice for detail oriented, shy people.

In addition to Microsoft, these companies are working to recruit and retain people on the spectrum:
- SAP (they actually inspired Microsoft's program)
- DXC Technologies
- Ernst and Young
- Ford
- JP Morgan Chase
- DXC Technologies

I hope there are more!

Working remotely isn't a simple issue.

Typically we like to have people in the office because it encourages collaboration. I think what we're trying to do is remove the obstacles that makes working in an office environment hard for people on the spectrum -- the problem isn't us, the problem is how we are expected to interact (either with technology or people).

That said, working remotely works for a lot of the people in my group, and my boss encourages me to WFH when I need to deep-focus on a project. As a manager I've been pretty flexible about it with my teams, having that flexibility can make a tremendous difference in people's attitudes toward work, whether they're Aspie or NT. It helps that as a company, one of our areas of focus is producing collaboration tools that don't require people to be in the same office.

Should we work harder on telecommuting? Probably. I know of at least one person interested in the program who didn't pursue it because they need a more supported environment (like living with parents or other relatives) even though they have the chops. I don't think our program is perfect, but it's evolving and we're learning a lot as we do it.

I agree that working within on site teams is strongly preferable but there's also an entire industry sector built around online collaboration that I've found most of my employers to ignore. I know Microsoft for example never allows WFH (for a contractor) with the partial exception of machines on their VPN-bound domains, which are only now becoming powerful enough to equal or at least approximate big workstations.

I have homework to do on SAP; I may be able to get some informational meetings there; I have some references on this basis but sorting through the beaurocracy (beaurocrazy?) of the EEO hiring processes is quite slow. I'll be sure to keep this thread apprised.

We have many WFH vendors in my group -- things may have changed about that. Probably varies quite a bit group-to-group, the agencies would know best.

Have you tried [email protected]?

You're so incredibly right. When I undergone my tech interview at Microsoft, it was almost like they were trying to do their best to not let me think properly.

Have you looked at the autism hiring program? It might be cool to take another shot with more appropriate interview process.

Unfortunately it looks like Microsoft isn't necessarily hiring right now where I live - I'm not sure what their branch here does at any rate but I'll be sure to check if I do see any job posting nibbles from there.

For now at least these jobs are pretty much all in Redmond, although we're working to grow it. If you're open to relocating, maybe it's still something worth investigating. If not, I wish you the best in Boulder! It's a great city.

The tech and computer companies have a much harder time finding skilled workers than a lot of other industries. Someone on WP mentioned a study that showed that the wordy aspies slightly outnumber the visual and techy ones. So, relevant fields for wordy aspies are journalism and publishing, but these fields are full of NTs with master degrees who would sell their granny for an unpaid internship. The last publishing job I applied for, there were 200 applicants, and the person who got the job in the end was someone whose parent was an editor for another large publishing house. And this was a low level entry job working with low status genre literature!

There are plenty of aspie writers out there, I expect. Probably one of the reasons the publishers manage to pay them so little.

Your aiming a little high their are you not ?