How honest should one be on a Skills Inventory at work?
So work is making everyone do a Skills Inventory at work. A lot of the skills listed are core skills related to doing my job, and I'm fine with that. They also have skills listed about how good I am at things like word and excel, and I'm fine with that.
But they also have a "Soft Skills" section, and some of the skills listed are things that ASD tends to make more difficult. Things like:
-Assertiveness
-Prioritizing multiple tasks
-Leading and working in a team
-Collaboration with Clients
I have to rate myself on how good I am at each skill.
I don't think anyone is actually going to look at this list as far as my present role goes, so there's no immediate concern. But I think it is essentially a résumé within the company, so if my position were ever eliminated, they might use this information to determine whether they can find another position for me.
There isn't anything on this that says I have ASD; it's just a straight out rating for the skills. So if I were to say that I'm not very good at prioritising multiple tasks (I do know that I very quickly feel overwhelmed when given too many tasks at once), that's all they would see - someone who isn't good at prioritising multiple tasks. No explanation as to why.
But I don't exactly want to be dishonest, and it wouldn't be good if I found myself in a position where I have to juggle a lot of tasks at the same time.
Any suggestions?
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Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder
DocteurDEVO7
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 15 May 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 56
Location: Rural East
Hi! Personally I think you're on the right track of not being too dishonest but you also don't want to outwardly admit you're horrible at something.
Let's say I'm horrible at assertiveness.. which isn't far from the truth. If the scale was 1-10 1 being horrible I'd probably put down a 3 or 4 even if the truth was closer to a 0 or 1. Hopefully that makes sense. Best of luck to you ![]()
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Duty now for the future!
Lie! Lie like there was no tomorrow.
If you would rate yourself (privately) a 1 on one of those soft skills, rate yourself a 6. On the skills you know you are quite good at, rate yourself a 9 or 10. So you are saying you have a relative weakness on the soft skill, but are still better than average.
This is just one of many HR manipulations that they think will make the place run better. But I am convinced that things like this just stir up defensiveness.
Besides, an NT is going to lie to make themselves look good, so you should feel right at home.
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A finger in every pie.
In my experience from multiple jobs, every colleague who ever spoke about it also just plucked some numbers out of thin air for these inventories. It's well known in psychology that most people are inaccurate in assessing their own ability at such things, and the majority have a cognitive bias to overestimate, so aim around the high middle somewhere just like everyone else will. So far as I can tell, these exercises in pop-psychology are used for very little besides shamming the appearance that career progression is in some way fair and not just based on who greases their way up the social hierarchy.
If they do pick you up on scoring yourself too highly, and you dare to be a bit cheeky, just point them at the Dunning-Kruger effect! ![]()
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When you are fighting an invisible monster, first throw a bucket of paint over it.
But they also have a "Soft Skills" section, and some of the skills listed are things that ASD tends to make more difficult. Things like:
-Assertiveness
-Prioritizing multiple tasks
-Leading and working in a team
-Collaboration with Clients
I have to rate myself on how good I am at each skill.
I don't think anyone is actually going to look at this list as far as my present role goes, so there's no immediate concern. But I think it is essentially a résumé within the company, so if my position were ever eliminated, they might use this information to determine whether they can find another position for me.
There isn't anything on this that says I have ASD; it's just a straight out rating for the skills. So if I were to say that I'm not very good at prioritising multiple tasks (I do know that I very quickly feel overwhelmed when given too many tasks at once), that's all they would see - someone who isn't good at prioritising multiple tasks. No explanation as to why.
But I don't exactly want to be dishonest, and it wouldn't be good if I found myself in a position where I have to juggle a lot of tasks at the same time.
Any suggestions?
Just be honest.
