Is it hard to find a job for aspies?

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Hopetobe
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10 Sep 2012, 7:13 am

For me is. :(



hanyo
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10 Sep 2012, 8:31 am

For me it is but it's made even harder by my only having a ged, no past work history or experience, and no car or driver's license. Most jobs I see require education, experience, a driver's license, and/or a car, none of which I have. Being very socially phobic makes the "easy" lower leveled jobs like working a register in a fast food place or store difficult to impossible.



lostgirl1986
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10 Sep 2012, 8:38 am

I think for most aspies it probably is from what I've heard on this website. I know that I have a hard time finding a job.



GiantHockeyFan
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10 Sep 2012, 8:39 am

The problem is that most jobs today require you to know somebody, a skill we aren't exactly famous for. I used to think how unfair that is but think of it this way: if were looking for a boy/girlfriend, would you not ask around to someone you knew first before going online? Bottom line is putting an ad out is costly and very time consuming thanks to the fact that nearly every person sounds the same on paper and lying is commonplace as well as the fact people put out resumes when they knew they are not qualified in any way. I stopped selling used stuff on Kijiji because I was tired of dealing with people who wasted my time and would have taken any ridiculous offer in person just to avoid the headache.

I have a undergraduate degree but where I live it's worse than worthless in terms of getting that first job. It comes in handy later but not right away because you are seen as overqualified for entry level jobs but that's the only way most Aspies can prove themselves. Looking for work other than my first job was an absolute nightmare than I'm never planning on repeating. I'll stick with the slightly lower pay to avoid a job search at all costs.

It also doesn't help that, like with women, Aspies can be totally oblivious to social cues and can easily miss oppourtunities that are literally right in front of them. I know I have countless times.



Alvin31
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12 Sep 2012, 1:15 pm

Find a job for aspies is really hard because most of employer hiring some valuable employee with superior interpersonal skill and vast work relations as well.but the truth is female aspies are tend to get a job easier than male aspies.



Sweetleaf
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12 Sep 2012, 1:18 pm

Alvin31 wrote:
the truth is female aspies are tend to get a job easier than male aspies.


I doubt that is always the case.


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Appleisbetter
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13 Sep 2012, 1:03 am

I agree with sweetleaf it's the individual not the gender



spaghedeity
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13 Sep 2012, 1:02 pm

heh, can't speak for anyone else, but it's hard as hell for me to find a job. I'm exceptionally intelligent, well educated, have experience in MANY different fields, and yet...

For me, I think a lot of it has to do with how MANY different temporary / short term positions I have had. I have this horrible habit of doing jobs I am able to do well but am not 'naturally' good at, and for some period of time I actually am successful. Then I have a rough patch inside my head, and find some way to screw it up or quit. I either take another job that I inevitably fail at, or live off my savings until I'm 'better' or (this time) am so broken I have nowhere to turn.

I mean, I HATE phones, but I seriously spent several months working as a tech support representative from home for my last job. I convinced myself it was better than having to leave the house, and that the flexibility meant I could build a schedule that would work around my broken. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the possibility of my getting worse and worse, eventually quitting - or rather, when something went wrong I stuck my head in the sand and didn't do what was necessary to keep the job. Then I convinced myself I'd be able to turn a project I used to distract myself into an actual job, and didn't realize until I was almost broke that I just didn't have the funds or social skills left to make it work. In retrospect, this isn't the first time I've done this, I just never got so bad I couldn't slowly claw my way out.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, in a pit so deep I'm not even sure which way is up. I've got a couple last ditch efforts in the works, but... As people noted above, employment is all about networking these days, and THAT has always been my worst failing. I'm starting to think disability is a legitimate option, if only because they supposedly help you find a job that works around your limitations. It makes my 'soul' sick to consider, but at the end of the day the bills need to be paid, and I might not have any other options....


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ChekaMan
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13 Sep 2012, 9:08 pm

Heck yes, when I advertised myself all that happened was that someone tried to trick me into money laundering for them.



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13 Sep 2012, 9:53 pm

It certainly is for me too, I've been unemployed for over a year and a half now.

I have reasonable work experience however not as good as it should be at my age because like many on the spectrum I can't play office politics so don't advance as well as my NT peers...even if I'm good at the job. As I wasn't able to go to university due to poor health, lack of money and of course being autistic it means I have no qualifications and after going on a part-time course last year I found there is still not enough support for autistic students so higher education would still be a real challenge for me - although I'd still go if it was possible. If it wasn't for the mess of the UK benefits system and unemployment I'd be able to be more pro-active about finding work, go to higher-education and voluntary work, be more creative about my job search...but as it is these things just don't work.

I struggle to use a phone so that rules out half the jobs I could do (call centre and administration) and it means I can't phone to apply for jobs or to arrange interviews. I struggle in interviews so even if I know exactly what they want I can't communicate it at the time, of course things like body language, eye contact and small talk during interviews is bad for me/us. What I also find is that interviewers rarely know anything about interviewing - I've had two jobs teaching interview and work skills to people, I have it down (in theory), but often interviewers hire based on how much they like someone not on that person giving the best answers to the questions etc. Also it seems very little worth is put on doing the job well, more often than not I see people without skills, qualifications or experience getting jobs ahead of those who have all these things, or people who are lazy and bad at the job keeping their jobs when skilled hard-workers are looked over.

We're just not suited to the current jobs market - it's very NT-centred, and frankly hard-working quality workers are not appreciated at all.


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GiantHockeyFan
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14 Sep 2012, 3:14 pm

Bloodheart wrote:
What I also find is that interviewers rarely know anything about interviewing - I've had two jobs teaching interview and work skills to people, I have it down (in theory), but often interviewers hire based on how much they like someone not on that person giving the best answers to the questions etc. Also it seems very little worth is put on doing the job well, more often than not I see people without skills, qualifications or experience getting jobs ahead of those who have all these things, or people who are lazy and bad at the job keeping their jobs when skilled hard-workers are looked over.


I once was part of an interview panel at work (public sector). There were three applicants: one internal, one semi-internal and one external. Even though all three were qualified and there you couldn't have gone wrong with either I thought the external was slightly better. Wanna take a guess at who 3 of the other 4 interviewers picked?

The biggest problem (being a university city) is that far too many people have the necessary qualifications from every job so it falls back on the familiar and the socially competent. Hence, I got left out many, many, times. The only reason I beat out an internal candidate for my job was that he told my boss off in a drunken rage a couple weeks prior.



Larsen80
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15 Sep 2012, 7:16 pm

I struggled to find - and keep - jobs back when ASD was the only thing I had to deal with. I have always been aware of my poor social skills and always been willing to do something about it, but so far haven't managed to turn things around. After I got fired from my last real job I acquired an autoimmune disease in addiction to my mental conditions, that severely impared my ability to work. That really pushed me on the brink of the labor market and I only got back into employment by means of some government program and lots of support from nice and dedicated social workers. I may have lost some professional pride in the process, but there really wasn't much choice for me. My time in unemployment got the best of me.



corvuscorax
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15 Sep 2012, 7:44 pm

It was really hard for me to get a job. I didn't get a job until two years after most people get their first job. I'm very bad at interviews - I didn't know how to dress, how to talk, how to act... I bet I looked very strange on my first interview. I'm very stubborn though so I stuck with it, and I managed to find a place desperate enough to take me in - Chuck E. Cheese's. How did I survive? I don't know, but I think part of it is because I can detach myself in stressful environments. Thanks to my stubbornness and ability to detach, I stayed there a lot longer than most people (most people drop out after 6 months, I've been there for longer than twice that), and I might be getting a job at a bank soon - an aspie's heaven - so I'm excited about that. I strongly feel that even in the worst of tempests that the ship has a possibility to get through, so I never give up.

Man, if I get that job, that's gonna open a ton of possibilities for me.


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15 Sep 2012, 8:54 pm

Female can help an applicant in terms of maintaining gender balance in the work force. I've seen it happen.

I would say that a lot of aspies, but not all, have trouble.



SolitaryOutsider
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15 Sep 2012, 9:56 pm

I haven't been without work for more than three months since I started working when I was 15. Even though I was not diagnosed yet, I was careful to chose jobs with limited customer interaction and did pretty well, although I'm paid crap because of it.



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16 Sep 2012, 1:20 pm

spaghedeity wrote:
heh, can't speak for anyone else, but it's hard as hell for me to find a job. I'm exceptionally intelligent, well educated, have experience in MANY different fields, and yet...

For me, I think a lot of it has to do with how MANY different temporary / short term positions I have had. I have this horrible habit of doing jobs I am able to do well but am not 'naturally' good at, and for some period of time I actually am successful. Then I have a rough patch inside my head, and find some way to screw it up or quit. I either take another job that I inevitably fail at, or live off my savings until I'm 'better' or (this time) am so broken I have nowhere to turn.

I mean, I HATE phones, but I seriously spent several months working as a tech support representative from home for my last job. I convinced myself it was better than having to leave the house, and that the flexibility meant I could build a schedule that would work around my broken. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the possibility of my getting worse and worse, eventually quitting - or rather, when something went wrong I stuck my head in the sand and didn't do what was necessary to keep the job. Then I convinced myself I'd be able to turn a project I used to distract myself into an actual job, and didn't realize until I was almost broke that I just didn't have the funds or social skills left to make it work. In retrospect, this isn't the first time I've done this, I just never got so bad I couldn't slowly claw my way out.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, in a pit so deep I'm not even sure which way is up. I've got a couple last ditch efforts in the works, but... As people noted above, employment is all about networking these days, and THAT has always been my worst failing. I'm starting to think disability is a legitimate option, if only because they supposedly help you find a job that works around your limitations. It makes my 'soul' sick to consider, but at the end of the day the bills need to be paid, and I might not have any other options....


This is parallel to my story too. I've applied and am on the waiting list for SSDI, with SSI pending (3-4 month wait for approval). I had no where else to turn. I thought I could finish my bachelor's but I'm so far in debt I can't borrow much more and my parents who could pay for some have lost faith in me-- especially after my diagnosis.

I truly wish I could work but have gotten so ... ugh I don't even have a word, but I haven't recovered from my nervous breakdown in 2008 and haven't finished anything I've started since then, even my associate's degree which required a work component I fubared over the summer.

So now I really can't work, at all. It's a tough place to be ... so defeated.

I agree with the social aspect of networking, it's always been said, "it's not what you know, it's WHO you know" and for older Aspies, our diminishing social circle and inability to maintain network connections makes further employment past entry-level nigh impossible. Especially in my field, I work as a chef, well, I did... and I can't call a single person that still knows me and every job I ever got in this industry was through a connection or a walk-in/let me show you what I can do (and pray you notice).