Job Interview Venting!

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Ok, I just had a interview with a major IT company that starts with a "G" for a good position near where I want to live and was pretty excited (and nervous) about it. Anyway,the interview consisted mainly of technical "quiz" questions. Now at any company I've worked for I've always been the goto guy for technical knowledge and IT problem solving, even with some pretty high level work. However I'm a very visually oriented thinker (ie. not so good with verbal input/output), so I really flubbed up many of the questions, even ones I really new, mainly because I'm just terrible on the phone. If I can have something in front of me, no problem, but when it's presented verbally I get flustered and can't remember things. Needless to say I didn't get the job. Yet another example of the NT world just assuming everyones exactly the same.

Yes, it's such a bummer! We all have different learning styles and communication preferences but much of the business world is geared towards just one: being good orally. This marginalises a whole lot of people who would be good workers if only given a fair chance.

1. Different companies, and likely different departments within larger companies, have different interviewing techniques, and will emphasize different things. Some focus on verbal aspects, others will look at sample code, or your ability to generate pseudo-code on the fly to solve a common problem or implement a common algorithm. Some companies are notorious for long, intensive, multi-day interviews, others don't ask much more than when you can start. One thing that's for sure, there is no standard for interviews.

2. Different strengths and weaknesses like verbal or visual learning styles are found across all people. It's not an NT vs. AS thing, it's just different styles of information processing.

You're honestly going to have to figure a way to work around your deficiencies. The world isn't going to make exceptions for you. I don' t mean to be rude or brash, but it's up to each of us whether we sink or swim or not.