Interview Tomorrow

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I have an interview tomorrow with a large well known autism charity, its part time mostly but its the job of my dreams. I meet the criteria, I have the teaching and autism qualifications I need and its on my door step. I want it so badly it almost hurts. I am so anxious I can hardly think. I am in a panic already and its only 9.30 in the morning the day before. I know my stuff I really do but it feels as if someone has removed my brain. I have no idea what I will do if I don't get it. I have lost 3 jobs this year after 20 years of stability and I swear 2 of them were after I disclosed (one after going off sick from anxiety)

Anyone who thinks being an aspie is in someway "geeky cool" should come and spend a few hours in my head and body and see if they still fancy it.

Time to calm yourself. Forget the past and focus on performing well in the interview and showing your prospective employer how you can be an asset in their organisation.

Easily said but that is the game that needs to be played.

I'm probably too late to offer this advice, but I find scheduling a lot of interview helps with the stress. There's still gonna be the one you REALLY want, but at least you just have to deal with a bit of performance anxiety, as opposed to "how long before I end up living under a highway if I don't get this job". Plus, you can schedule some of those other interviews prior to the important one for practice.

Here's some tips that I hope you'll see before the interview: seems to me like you've had a solid career, you must be good at what you do. Just keep that in mind, sell your skills, and forget the whole social aspect. For me, it really helps to treat it not as a conversation but as a series of very short monologues about me in response to questions. It's the exact opposite tip that you'll get form professional placement firms, but I found it works great for me.

I just sit squarely, but relaxed, in my chair, look at the interviewer only when I'm talking to him (which is not ideal, but it helps me manage the complex art of NT eye contact, the details of which escape me to this day). Try to talk about your proudest works and professional accomplishments, NTs don't always get us but they get passion and they love it.

It may be worth noting I work in IT, so one might argue my social skills are not really relevant to the interviewer and some of my tip may not be relevant to your field, I'll leave it up to you to judge.

Final thought: Sun Tzu is often quoted saying something along the lines of "know your enemy and know yourself", but if you've read any of his translations, you'll note he makes a much bigger deal of the "know yourself" part. Know your weaknesses, and develop strategies to make them irrelevant or exploit them as strengths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNrLI3OBwg

It was canceled this morning, someone is out sick, this is the second time this has happened. 6 weeks now I have been hanging around waiting for this.

They know I am on the spectrum, it's a National autism charity they should know how this kind of thing affects people. It's almost like it's part of interview now "let's test the aspie, see how tough he is, can we push him over the edge" As it happens I am not working now, but I had to take a day off for the first canceled one, this would have been the second. How do they expect people to organise themselves, honestly its like my life is on hold? How do I trust them that the next one will not be canceled too?

Oh no! That sucks. I'm so sorry, Voxish. I've never been to a job interview before, but whenever we are presenting something in class and I get cut off until the next day, I feel your pain. It's like the teacher could have spared me all that anxiety, but no.

2nd time? I think this might say a lot about what you can expect your daily life to look like in there... Unless they're hiring you specifically to help them get organized, you may want to start looking elsewhere. Rescheduling once happens, rescheduling twice demonstrates either they're not really in need of new employees or they suck so bad at basic organization that employees should not consider them for employer

just my 2 cents.

*edit* only way I'd forgive this is if I found out the interviewer was also on the spectrum and has been rescheduling because he's got his own anxiety to deal with, and even then, still second time... Where work is concerned I can be pretty merciless

I hate to say this, but I think I agree. This has happened before, months before they got themselves organised, then they moved me around every 2 months filling in here and there, then they gave me the push the week before Christmas.

I'd still go for it. It's your "dream job." It's at "your doorstep."

If anything, this would give you substance in your CV, a sense of continuity after the previous year you had.

Cancelled twice? They need more people qualified to interview so if one is off they can still proceed with the interviews. Tsk.

Yep....it might not bode well for how well they're organized.

it's still not hopeless, though.

For my library job, everything seemed disorganized. It took them more than a month for them to contact me---and I was their first choice!

Most annoying

As it happens only this afternoon an agency has been in touch, another autism specialist mentor role at a couple of colleges in the area...

Watch this space!

Use of the term Aspie does appear that the person thinks it's cool. Many that use that probably are just awkward NTs....wanting to feel cool.

I have kinda got sucked into using it here, but to be honest I would never dream of using out there. I think some of that has to do with culture. There are some words whioch are still in common usage in the states which would never be used in the UK as the are nasty and discriminatory, ret*d and handicap being prime examples. If you used words like like professionaly you would be taken on to one side for a little chat. Mind you you almost certainly not a professional job in the first place using language like that...nasty.

Finally got a new interview date, Sept 5th at 12 noon. It turn's out I know some who has done the same role for the same charity at the same university so I am now well armed, takes a little of the anxiety out of it.

Good news!!

Yeah it really is. And like waiting for a bus another has come along the day before that one. It's only supply teaching (SEN) but I will earn considerably more money than I would sat at home