"Take a Chance on Me"

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Young man with autism moves LinkedIn with candid cover letter: 'Take a chance on me'

It’s a full time job to find a job, but one young man with autism knew just what to say in a candid cover letter that’s struck a chord on LinkedIn.

In an open letter shared to the career site two weeks ago, Ryan Lowry of Virginia explained that he has autism, and a great sense of humor, proclivities for math and technology, and a tireless work ethic. Since the 20-year-old Leesburg man penned the piece last month, his post has gone viral with over six million views and 172,000 likes, WJLA reports.

According to parents Rob and Tracy Lowry, thousands of people from around the globe have contacted their son in the days since his handwritten letter went live. He’s even scheduled to speak with folks from some Fortune 500 companies in the next few weeks, too.

In the note, addressed to a "future employer," the job hunter listed his age, hometown and why he’d make a great hire in animation or IT.

"I realize that someone like you will have to take a chance on me, I don't learn like typical people do," Ryan wrote. "I would need a mentor to teach me, but I learn quickly, [and] once you explain it, I get it."

"I promise that if you hire me and teach me, you'll be glad that you did," he pledged. "I will show up every day, do what you tell me to do and work really hard. Please let me know if you would like to talk about this with me. Thank you."

"It's raw, it's beautiful, they all need a chance," Tracy told WJLA with a tear in her eye. "What every mom wants is for their children to grow up, have a life, support themselves and be independent."

Reminds me of an ABBA song.

Yes, it would be nice if employers would "take a chance" on people with autism. They might be pleasantly surprised.

Not all of us can write cover letters that "go viral." That was a big stroke of luck.

What the rest of us need to do, in my opinion, is to organize into groups by professional/occupational category, e.g. Autistic Techies of the NYC Area (whose meetings I'll be announcing in this thread here). Such groups can start out as small, specialized support groups and then hopefully evolve into full-fledged professional associations, similar to the National Association of Black Accountants or the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, as they grow.

Eventually these groups can become a channel through with prospective employers reach out to us as part of their diversity efforts.

(For some occupations, e.g. for programmers, these groups could also be a means by which some of their members self-organize into teams. For at least some prospective employers/clients, there are many advantages to hiring an already-existing, established team of programmers, rather than putting together their own teams by hiring individual programmers. All the more so would this be a better way of hiring autistic programmers, given our difficulties fitting in with random groups of people.)

For a non-exhaustive list of other professional/occupational categories I have in mind, see Autistic Workers Project. These other groups will need to be started by people other than me.

I was thinking he was going to write it all in ABBA lyric parody form

f**k it, if I ever want to work again I might do that, send that to an art gallery or music shop

I agree. Autistic workers are good workers (unless it's front facing roles tbh) but autistic interviewees aren't good interviewees. A blunt letter explaining that might just be the boot up the backside to employers/stand out from the crowd move that is needed when one is autistic in order to get a job.

Worth a shot anyway.