Employability and ASD/ADHD (Rant)

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So I haven't been employed for over a year now and it's not for lack of trying. I have been very proactive in my job search and I've even taken classes and volunteered in order to bolster my CV and keep my skills up to date. I've also been proactive in my therapy and have been fairly good at managing my appointments. I've done loads of interviews as well, and I mean LOADS. I think it's safe to say that I've had a lot of practice in that regard, though it seems that a lot of employers just aren't quite impressed enough by my performance.

I respect that employers get literally hundreds of applicants now. The job market is a disgrace and under Tory rule it doesn't seem like it's getting any better. So I'm not bitter about not getting a job. What frustrates me is that I know I'm not cut out for most of these jobs and it's not because I lack the technical skills required but rather my deficits make me a terrible candidate for many of these jobs. They look for people that are "Highly organised" who "Have a strong eye for detail" and "Can manage working in a fast paced environment". Pretty much everything my ADHD and Aspergers doesn't like.

I'm not saying that there aren't ways around my deficits. It's just that I can't ask my employer for any help for this as they can and likely will reject me the moment they know I have a mental disorder. I was even asked in a few interviews if I had a disability (which I don't think should be legal, btw). In order to even get an interview I have to lie and say I don't have a disability. So I'm under loads of pressure to pass as "normal" and not let my kitsune tail show. This very problem was what led to my burnout and inevitable termination at my last job and it's taken a long time to build myself back up to a mostly functional state.

I don't know how to prevent this from happening again, though. I'm terrified of pushing myself too far and spiralling down to the depths I was at last year. I want a job badly but I don't how much longer I can keep lying about how reliable and awesome I am. I know what I'm good at and what I'm bad at and as it stands I am not very employable to most employers for that reason. I am sick of trying to find the right character to play just to convince some company to hire me. Being myself doesn't work and pretending to be someone else doesn't work either.

I've wondered if self employment might be a better option for me but even that requires good organisation and consistency. It's very disheartening to think that I have bunch of technical skills that are effectively useless without good command of the "soft skills" required to survive in the workplace. I don't mean to have a pity party or anything - it's just very frustrating to be doing all "the right things" and finding that it doesn't work. Maybe I should be doing the "wrong" things for a change? I just feel like a lot of employment advice is full of BS, especially since I have been given wildly contradicting careers advice from these so called "professionals". Seems like nobody knows how the job market works these days.

I'm sorry you're going through all this. In the U.S. the economy is in a similarly crappy situation. Ironically, I'm the one who is consistently employed as I can mask pretty well, and just be a stereotypical polite cute female, and my NT husband is the one who had issues with being laid off, with long periods of unemployment. I know there are not that many jobs, but have you tried narrowing down which types you would be good at, or would be not that stressful? Not that demanding jobs would be entering data for research studies, or other kinds of data entry, filing, test grading, proctoring exams, lightweight warehouse work, assistant in a small speciality medical office (not many patients would come), and so on.

Best of luck to you!

What I've come to figure out is this: job interviews are a social test. If you can't naturally socialize, it puts you at a disadvantage. My brother is an extrovert and 90% of the time if he gets an interview, he has the job. U.S. society caters to extroverts in everything. I'm not mad but that's how it is.

It took me about a year of looking for a job to realize that I needed to make eye contact. If you don't, people assume you lack confidence, you're dishonest or you're not paying attention. Fidgeting is also a no no. So is honesty. And none of these things are explained.

I would recommend narrowing your search like icechai suggested, if possible. I'd like to do something using my special interests. I don't think I can handle the structure of working for someone else but I'm not sure I can manage myself either.

It's all way more complicated than it should be.

Well I'm mad personally because I've been looking way too long for a job and I can never seem to get it right. I do make eye contact though apparently (I had a practice interviewer tell me I did even)
I understand what you mean about the honesty. It really sucks because as I said before I don't know how to lie (well). Actually I even had an interviewer tell me to be honest. I was like "are you sure?" so then he started telling me about how interviewers like you to tell them what they want to hear and he wants me to forget that so I did. I don't know if it's the fact that I disclosed (he said I stuttered) but I still did not get the job. I also see a lot of times in the online application tests "be honest. this will not affect your score..." It seems to me even then it's a no no because it's a trap.

I agree. I don't know why they say "be honest" and they don't really want that. That's how many of my interviews went wrong, being honest.

Online applications are the same. Actually being honest (like saying "no" to the question 'do you love people?') just gets your application filtered out. I don't understand why it's assumed that if you don't have certain traits, you can't do your job successfully. I'm the type that I just want to do my job and go home.

I don't know because it's retail? But even then it's like well being introverted and a loner doesn't mean I can't talk with customers. They assume far too much. It's like having speech issues or keeping more to yourself makes you a mute. Actually introversion is a good thing in retail because it means I'm not going to be a chatty Cathy to my co-workers and are more likely to focus on just doing my job. I wish they wouldn't see things in black and white.

Those questions are terrible for me as a deep thinker most of all. Define "love people". Sure I love some people but not all people. Also when they ask about whether people should be trusted. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt but at the same time you have to keep your distance.

I never knew how to answer the question about whether people should be trusted. To me, it's too broad. There isn't enough information to give an answer. Do they mean all people? Statistically, no. You can't trust all people. Do they mean people you will encounter at your job? That's probably also a no considering the amount of shrink (theft) reported from each company, almost half or more of which is internal. Then there's the type of trust. What am I trusting these people with or to do? I find it difficult to trust people to act like they're adults because they often don't, especially in a retail workplace.

Yeah, I think too much. I still don't know the right answer to that question.

This is why I voted Labour!! !! !

Anyway, yes work is difficult for me too. I have a job, but it's just part-time cleaning. But it is very hard work and I think the amount of work in the 18-hour week I do is almost equavalent to full-time work, and I'm not exaggerating.

But I was on the dole nearly 5 years before I found this job. And, like the OP, I was doing volunteering at 2 different shops, and attending temporary courses organised by the job centre, and brushing up on my skills I might need for work, as well as actively looking for work and willingly attending interviews. But I had no such luck. Also I did struggle with filling out applications and updating my CV. I tried getting an unemployment benefit specifically for people with special needs - but I didn't meet the criteria for it. So they sent me to a stupid thing called Seetec every week, which was a waste of time because they didn't help.

I didn't want the job I'm in now but I took it anyway because I just wanted to be working and earning my own money, and not dole money.

Yeah I've gotten better with it because I can get an auto email that said I passed the test when I did not before on my own. Plus they are usually degrees not just yes or no but even having a level of how much you agree/disagree is still vague.
However it still feels moreso just guessing and hoping for the best when pushing the buttons. The only thing saving is that there are more questions to get wrong and on a few places I would probably still get it wrong since again I'm just making a somewhat educated guess as I don't really know for sure what they are looking for.

I also wonder if sometimes when you pass the test and you get an interview are they looking for signs that your answer correlated with what you are saying in the interview. I don't know if they're that slick to ask a question that wasn't on the test and make it an indicator related to what was actually on the test but you have to wonder why they make you take those tests in the first place so would it be any surprise that despite passing the test I still don't get the job offer?
I'm not sure but I do know that if they're asking questions like that in an interview I would not be able to do what I have been doing with the test because telling people certain answers in an interview that don't feel like me is always going to be lying. Even spinning the truth positively is just hard for me if I feel like in the process I've omitted something out that was important.

I recently done some interview training which I got feedback saying my eye contact and body language were fine, I just had to compose myself more, speak more clearly and obviously do my research beforehand. 3 years i've been unemployed so unless there is some programme or job that pays minimum wage for 30+ hours a week that caters for chronic unemployed, I dont see myself gettin a job anytime soon regardless how good I am at the interview.

Employers don't want liabilities they want assets. Shame they will never see how good I am in work, as they will always fail me at the interview.

Agreed. I don't understand why socializing is a mandatory part of work to the point that it governs the entire interview process. I understand having to interact with other people but in my experience, it's the people that are great at social interaction that tend to suck at their job. They avoid work or do the bare minimum.

Socialization seems to be a liability imo. I just want to do my job and go home. I only ever had one job where I could actually do that.

Well there are temp jobs but you have to have the body for it usually because a lot of it is manual labor.

Agreed. I don't understand why socializing is a mandatory part of work to the point that it governs the entire interview process. I understand having to interact with other people but in my experience, it's the people that are great at social interaction that tend to suck at their job. They avoid work or do the bare minimum.

Socialization seems to be a liability imo. I just want to do my job and go home. I only ever had one job where I could actually do that.
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yeah, the whole concept of a job interview is kind of peculiar. yes, all jobs have some sort of interpersonal interaction inherent to it. some jobs have more interaction than others. having to deal with more people. some jobs have more in depth interaction than others. (ex. psychologist versus mailman). yes, i get it.

but, not all jobs revolve around sitting down and flapping someone's trap nonstop. like a licensed clinical social worker.

yeah plenty of precious lil "people" are so great at talking. they got the whole job interview process thing down. it's like they are selling themselves. marketing. not only that, but that's also how they present themselves to the world. like they are so awesome, innocent, precious, and perfect. oh, and why would yo not hire them.

those precious lil "people" have big egoes and do not deserve to live. in my stupid opinion that nobody cares about.

as someone with autism, i find it hard to phrase some things that are relatively simple and easy for someone else to phrase. sometimes the way i think and feel is so different from NTs there's just no expressing it in words.

but whatever anyways.

why not, make the talking part of the job interview smaller. and then add a larger portion, that involves demonstrating doing the job.

that way there's more emphasis on what you do and less emphasis on what you say.

b/c some preicous lil "people" are so great at talking. but that is all they know how to do. and they can't stop.