(given you have a 2.5 years gap in your resume due to a partially unrelated health issue)
Background
A few years ago I (was forced to) left grad school (halfway into it) because of complications related to a set of anxiety disorders (a typical comorbidity in Autism Spectrum Disorders; I now have a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. I'm also planning to return to grad school next year).
I have a family (2 children). Around the same time I left grad school, we received my daughter's diagnosis (she has more of a classical form of autism), followed by my own diagnosis.
With regards to my professional record, after approx. 2.5 years in grad school and 2.5 years completely out of the job market, I finally began to work at a small consulting firm. They are aware of my daughter's autism, but they don't know of my own diagnosis.
NGO
I'm also vice-president of a local, small, autism-related NGO and we're now going to disclose my being on the autism spectrum (for publicity and awareness reasons). We're planning to arrange an interview for me at a TV channel. In fact, I'm effectively coming out of the closet on December 9th, by means of an interview on a local radio station.
I'm enthusiasticaly in favour of such a move (for both egoistic and altruistic reasons), but am also afraid of potential consequences on my future professional prospects. Also consider that it's likely that I will need a new work position very soon.
In summary, I'm only worried with the fact of also having a track record of being out of the job market for quite some time, so that I'm afraid some hiring manager could be tempted to negatively associate the gap in my resume to the fact I'm autistic.
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Gladstone
01 Dec 2014, 6:41 pm
