Do Aspies have a hard time finding jobs?

Post Reply New Topic

It depends in my case a lot on the selection process: If this process was mostly run by technical stuff (my colleagues in prospect) I did normally quite well, if some of the HR people were around or even a psychologist, I failed always in getting the job or to be asked for a second interview.

I think this can be explained easily: The human resource or even the psychologist do not care about my answers in respect of the technical aspects of the position but in respect of my behaviour, gesture, etc. - and here I am odd; especially when I talk about achievements of my job of which I am proud of, the hardy maintained facade of pretending to act almost normal crumbles very quickly. Technical stuff do not realize this, the HR and the psychologist do.

I can't get a job. I don't interview well, I get nervous and don't make eye contact and get weird mannerisms. I never get hired. I have no job experience, so nobody will even look at my resume. I would rather work for myself anyway.

I tried working as a temp teacher's aide in the 06-07 school year for the school district where my mom worked in HR, but all the teachers hated me. The students hated me too. I finally couldn't handle it anymore. Other than that, I talked my way into an internship at the California governor's office at 17, only to get fired for accidentally ticking off some reporter. I then worked for a family friend, but got sunk by my ADHD. After that, I just gave up.

I tried Voc Rehab, but they dumped me on a private nonprofit company, which evaluated me and then said I was too high functioning for their warehouse where severely ret*d people make boxes and clean plastic containers, so they gave me a job search website url and wished me luck. I went to a technical school and passed with flying colors, only to find there were no jobs except at general call centers that had nothing to do with computers, like for insurance companies. I just can't catch a break.

Most jobs want you to be very social and a "team player" and care more about whether you can party with the rest of the employees after hours and fit into their clique than whether you can do the job. There was recently a discussion about this on Craigslist, and people want to do the least amount of work and the most amount of socializing and get a gold plated salary for it.

That's no longer possible, given that the US has lost its competitive edge due to too much socializing and not enough working. The NTs, as usual, don't want the party to end. The thing is, when China wants to take their share of that $11 trillion debt out of America's hide, the guys who warned them will be the sacrificial lambs, until the NTs realize that the gig is up.

Its so hard to get a job here its just about not worth it.

Against getting nervous a simple advice: Go into the interview thinking that it does really matter to get the job. If you you got the job: fine - if not, it does not change anything.

It sounds paradox, but sometime you can only win, if you accepted that you already lost.



I today's job-advertisements the term "team player" can be found almost every time. In same cases they mean it, in other cases ir just a matter of <ctrl>+<C> and <ctrl>+<P>.

You need to look deeper: Do they explicit ask for someone how can work responsible for him self or does the job really involve a lot of team work? How the team will be composed? I was sometime in team which only contacted each other via the internet, because we were on three different continents. Such a kind of team is for an Aspie mostly easy to handle.

It has been famine or feast a far as getting jobs is concerned for me.

When I was 18 in 1990 I left college just as the recession was starting. I did get a few interviews but no jobs. I was out of work for 5 years until I started university studies.

I graduated in 1999 with a BA in Modern Languages. I did toy with becoming a trainee librarian, applied for nearly 50 positions (got to see the inner workings of the Bodlean library, that wa neat!) but no jobs.

I eventually got a temporary job typing. I had had a few interviews with no success, so went for broke and basically played up my visual impairment, which isn't all that bad really. That job lasted a year, then I found it so easy to find work after that, being in work while applying obviously helps.

Now I'm living in the States, left my job in England in December 2007 to come here and marry, and have been out of work ever since. My wife is tolerant and supportive, but I can't rely on that for ever. Doesn't help that there's a really bad recession, the State of California is virtually bankrupt (I wanted a public-sector job) and I'm English (don't know how to be brash and sell myself in interviews). Also employers here are so slow, it usually takes them 6-8 weeks to get back to you (if at all) after you apply.

To sum up this novel, if you're in work, fine, it's easy. If not, you're unemployable scum.

There is here a thread about escaping NT-exceptions by moving into an other country. You may have a look.

Being a stranger (or a bit outside the cultural mainline) can help here a lot. If you emphasize our "being different" with an English background you may can turn this into something positive or at least neutralize the negative effects of being an Aspie in such situations.

I never say I have AS at a job interview. It's not worth the risk.

I am trying so hard to find a job....I NEED one IMMEDIATELY because I have a massive amount of college debt to pay off. I had an interview three days ago and a second interview yesterday, but I'm 99.99% convinced that I totally blew it. I didn't ask a lot of questions about the job--most of them were already answered by the interviewer by the time I got a chance and everything seemed simple; plus, I need to work weekends so I have enough time to do my schoolwork (I'm a college student) properly: my classes are French conversation and a two-part required public speaking class, so I need to do A TON of outside preparation because those are hard for me. I know I was very, very, very nervous despite drinking 3 cups of this anxiety-relieving tea and taking a ton of rescue remedy (homeopathic stress reliever) and I just HATE myself for this. I want to do well, not be a screw-up, and have a job so I can buy myself things that I need, pay off my debts, and eventually save up to immigrate to the country that I want to live in. This really sucks! I'm trying very hard but not a lot of places are even taking applications right now, much less hiring....I just feel like such a failure and I don't know what to do anymore.....

I am finding it incredibly difficult to find a job. There are two reasons for this. One is my field, Hardware Design, which has still not recovered from the tech slide. The other reason is my poor interview skills.

When I do manage to get an interview, I put forth effort to obtain the position. Often times, I have a feeling that I have done something wrong in the interview, yet have no idea what it might be. Other times, I have been certain that I did well in the interview, only to find out that the interviewer's opinion differed.

My closest chance (discounting the one I am currently working on) was when with a firm in Victoria. I had conducted three phone interviews, and was flown out to Victoria for an in person interview. My rapport with the engineers I would be working with was good. However, the HR girl I had an interview with right after decided in a ten minute interview that my social skills were too poor to be an engineer (her words). I had committed no great social gaffes, and still to this day, have no idea what she is referring to. The part that I find ridiculous is that I would never see her again, and that my would-be colleagues enjoyed my company.

However, I have come to the viewpoint that each interview is a chance to learn. I also am of the opinion that my interview skills are improving. Thus, logically, there will reach a point where my interview skills will cross the threshold of acceptable interview, and I will obtain my goal.

I concur. You could always play the reserved Englishman part, and use it to mask aspie tendencies for the interview.

This is one of the big problems, your application is screened by HR people, not the people you will actually be working for and with. I'm surprised they had an HR person actually interviewing and making the decision. In my experience HR personnel always seem to be young women who do everything by the book, and don't seem to make any allowances for amything out of the ordinary.

Say 'Aspie' to them and they probably think of a cheap Italian sparkling wine!

If you apply for sh***y jobs that most NT people don't want it's much easier to get hired. Also, if you know someone who works at the company and will talk to HR that really helps too.

Also I think getting promoted would be harder than getting the initial job. Promotions eventually lead to management and I would be very surprised if many AS end up there.

And there is an other factor: A promotion is the result of performance and politics (aka networking). For my part I had mostly the impression that politics are more important.

Yes. There are 2 ways to get promoted: either far outperform everybody, or have connections and be in with the right people. Most people do the latter. That's why I don't think corporate/bureaucratic jobs are good for AS people UNLESS you are content to work at an entry level position your whole life, which may happen. In trades jobs, you will probably never be a foreman or run a company if you have AS, but you will make more money in the initial tiers and have better job security.

I think it would depend on the extent one has AS, and the level of education.