Job Opportunities for Autistic Individuals

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Hi, We are currently embarking on a school project that aims to increase job opportunities for autistic individuals. Hence, we would like to put forward a discussion here so that we can gain some opinions and feedback and modify our project.

What are some of the jobs you've undertaken?
How did you get these jobs?
Some of the challenges/obstacles you faced during the job?
Did your company train you?
What do you wish to see regarding job opportunities for you in the future?

Share with us some of your experiences. Please include your name, age and state.

1. A. I was a paid intern for the finance department of a major electronic clearinghouse in 2006
B. I worked for UPS seasonally in 2011
C. I was an unpaid intern for a congressional campaign in 2012
D. I was a high level staff of a city council campaign in 2013
E. I now currently am an unpaid intern for a local political party.

2. A. Got recommended by my stepfather
B. Applied online
C. Found info on a flier
D. Get it through a friend from congressional campaign
E. Same as D

3. A. Mainly communicating with others in the office was difficult.
B. I often got lost at some of the residential apartments.
C. Cold Calling and getting verbally attacked was difficult
D. Having no clear structure and no clear guide was difficult
E. Again, same problems in D, but that coupled with lack of transportation from place to place.

4. A. Sort of. My job was mainly to do menial labor and double check to make sure no one made errors in excel spreadsheets.
B. Yes. I was trained to exit and enter the UPS vehicle, and also trained on how to pick up a package correctly
C. Sort of. It was mostly doing cold calls, however, and I learned a lot on the job.
D. Not at all. I was told what to do.
E. Not at all, but experiences from C and D apply to this job.

5. Overall, I would like to have a job that pays. Working in retail and fast food though do not seem like viable options for me though. I feel like, with the experience I have gained from working mainly in the political field, I can tout my experience as a campaigner for winners. Once I get my Bachelors as well, I may choose to become a high level staff for a high profile campaign. My ultimate goal would probably be to become a Poli Sci professor.

For the most part, any job I've gotten were where I was hired on the spot because they pretty much just needed people ASAP. I've interviewed and applied at many places and where they offered structure, good pay, benefits, and training but never got those...

What are some of the jobs you've undertaken?
1. Movie theater box office cashier
2. Assembler (surgical equipment)
3. Retail cashier/customer service
4. Intern for an at risk youth case management/group home organization
5. Call center (just hired, starting training soon)

How did you get these jobs?
1. Saw hiring sign and applied, quick interview, hired on the spot
2. Mom saw flier for open positions and told me about it so I applied, interview, hired on the spot. I went into the assembling lab and they tested to see if I could use a microscope and if I had good coordination
3. Went to store and applied on the computer since they had hiring signs all over, time passed and got no call, my mom asked a girl in the department store if they were still hiring and she took my name down and gave it to the manager and they called me for an interview. I was hired on the spot after a quick interview.
4. Went through list of internship choices for school and called place to ask if they needed interns, got an interview and was sent application/info to fill out (background check, drug test, fingerprinting, DCF questionnaire). Took them about a month to correspond (they didn't) and I had to contact them so they could tell me that I got the internship. Got a reply weeks later (as the term began) that I did.
5. Applied online and got a call for an interview. Went and interviewed with 3 different managers, watched calls in the call center, practiced a call, lots of waiting, hired on the spot. This place is usually always hiring and have a high turnover rate

Some of the challenges/obstacles you faced during the job?
1. Getting to work on time and going every day, dealing with double shifts and reassignments (being an usher or door person), scheduling conflicts, low pay. I liked being in the box office though.
2. Dealing with coworkers chatting all day and socialization, running out of work to do and being bored. This was my favorite job because the pay was decent and I was good (and fast) at what I did. It was just the people and bad management
3. Same as #1, greeting customers and smiling nonstop, building relationships with coworkers, being left out of coworker friendships, making small talk, managing work with school.
4. Incompetent supervisor (tried to put me down for being sharper than him), no pay, lack of notice with a lot of things I was "supposed to do", trouble socializing with coworkers (I learned they thought something was wrong with me, which made me less likely to communicate with them), having to attend home visits where I wasn't comfortable, lack of structure/organization, no training whatsoever but "ok now do this...". It was a place that dealt with kids who had behavioral and mental health issues...and a lot had Asperger's. But no one could spot that I might have had it, I was just weird and quiet >_<
5. As of now, N/A

Did your company train you?
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes, but I was not register trained which made no sense since I was hired as a cashier lol. I was paired with another cashier to learn everything and learned quickly.
4. No. I was told I would be trained or prepped on everything but wasn't.
5. Yes, two week training

What do you wish to see regarding job opportunities for you in the future?
I'd like to have jobs that pay a bit better for the work done/hours put in and better training and management that understands differing personalities. I'd also like to be hired due to my talents and what I can offer the company versus being hired because I can become everyone's best friend. I feel like a lot for the times companies have terrible employees and high turnover rates because HR hires the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

phone solicitor [I was TERRIBLE at this!] - army "servicemember" [I had no business being in any army] - central material supply technician [I was reasonably proficient at this job] - operating room [surgical] technician [another job I absolutely sucked at] - HVAC parts tech/gofer [I struggled at this job and was no great shakes at it] - audio restoration technician [very good at this job, if I might say so myself]

applied [except for the parts clerk job which Washington state DSHS placed me at].

the army was too alpha for me to properly belong [me being an omega male who could not even pretend to be alpha]; the parts clerk job had me surrounded by very truculent alpha males who made no secret of their contempt for me, plus I was slow and clumsy and weak [lots of heavy HVAC parts to drag around]; central material supply and surgical scrub tech [OR tech] was what I had to do in the army, and as a civil servant [after army discharge] was my longest-held job at just over 2 decades- it was a snake pit of surly people I could barely tolerate, they kept the hospital area I worked in very hot [85 degrees and high humidity] and I was often overheated and sick- I barely avoided getting fired for incompetence [too slow and clumsy], later due to back injury had to be retrained as a ward clerk/billing coder, and president shrub laid me and bunch of other civil servants off back in '06, unemployed since then.

only the army trained me. every thing else I had to learn on my own, for the most part.

none whatsoever. nobody wants to hire me for anything. I can't even give my services away.

What are some of the jobs you've undertaken?
I am a nurse in a nursing home.

How did you get these jobs?
I walked in and applied then lied as to why I would make a great addition to their team.

Some of the challenges/obstacles you faced during the job?
Demanding patients, demanding bosses, extremely high work load, sensory over-stimulation from sounds and lights, no time for breaks.

Did your company train you?
After 3 days of orientation I was thrown to the wolves.

What do you wish to see regarding job opportunities for you in the future?
Realistically, they cannot make nursing an aspie-friendly job. It'd be nice if they could lessen the ridiculous workload. (Yeah. Probably when hell freezes over). Only foreigners do this job, though, because they're more desperate than Americans.

What are some of the jobs you've undertaken?

A.program instructor at a museum
B.assistant at two libraries
C.children's librarian at two libraries
D.phone researcher
E.community center receptionist
F.project leader for city economic development department
G.course instructor for online class
H.data entry individual



FYI, many of these jobs were part time and were done at the same time as other jobs to get an ok salary.

How did you get these jobs?
A. Through an internal application through having already been an E. Which i quit after staring being a program instructor.
B. A friend got me an interview at one library, but i applied to the second for an interview.
C. Applied online, interviewed.
D. Employment agency
E. I became one of these first, then moved to A. And then took on another reception job when i needed work, and was recommended by A.
F. And G. Applied online.
H. Interviewed at career fair.


Some of the challenges/obstacles you faced during the job?
A. Learning to work with kids. Was totally worth it.
B. Not many that i was aware of at the time. The key word is aware. I did not find out about them 'til after.
C. My first library, the challenge was the social milieu and multitasking. My second, the fact that there are so many parts to the job, but for this, i am seeking out my own help.
D. It was el boring.
E. Cash handling and multitasking.
F. Learning software. But i ended up doing teamwork to compensate for my weakness,
G. Emotional fallout from my first children's librarian job, because i was doing this job on the side and it was hard to do this after a day of bad news.
H. Boring.

Did your company train you?
A. There was training, not much practical.
B. Informally and formally at both locations.
C. There is/was staff training in both places, but more so on my second job as children's librarian.
D. Training as both staff and on my own,
E. And F. Yes.
G. And h. No.


What do you wish to see regarding job opportunities for you in the future?

That people continue to see and use my strengths. That i get a job using my brain, and not my telephone skills. That i don't have to be in management always. That i won't be seen as weird, when the word weird is negative.

Wladimir, Bavaria.
#1 I have only had one job, turner (manual lathe) and programming and operating CNC lathes.
#2 Dumb luck. Walked in when they needed employees and my specific skills were needed.
#3 I have very limited verbal communication capability, so communicating nonverbally to normal people is the biggest challenge.
#4To an extent, more on procedural doctrine.
#5 I am unsure of this question, I am content with where I am and what I do.
NS, I don't know if this is open internationally, or if by state you mean USA.

you should not be asking people for their names. if this truly is a 'school project' then you should get your questionnaire approved by your instructor. im not sure how you expect to have a significant response rate while, to use an adjective, seeming so creepy.

Agreed. And also one thread on the subject is enough. Three is two too many.

What are some of the jobs you've undertaken?
My first job was at Goodwill Industries I was a cashier my uncle helped me get that job for a work program at school.
My second job was a cashier at a consignment shop.
My third job was as a nurses aid at a nursing home my mother was a nurse there and she helped me to get it.
My fourth job was as a nurses aid at a local hospital while I was in nursing school.
My fifth job was as a nurse in a nursing home
My sixth was as a nurse at a local hospital
My seventh job was as a weekend nurse supervisor at a nursing home
My eighth and current job is as a nurse in a home health care setting.

How did you get these jobs?
I applied to ones that I didn't give an explanation in the above answer.

Some of the challenges/obstacles you faced during the job?
No one was helpful at most of the nursing jobs; on the nursing supervisor job I asked for my instructions to be in writing but it was never provided. I ended up getting fired over the phone.

Did your company train you?
They provided what they thought was training but the information wasn't given to me in the correct format for me to understand it.

What do you wish to see regarding job opportunities for you in the future?
I don't know being a nurse with suspected AS I dont know what all would help me.

Share with us some of your experiences. Please include your name, age and state.
26 Texas

I was diagnosed at age 21 and was told by a doctor that I was unable to work and may have a chance for low level training in the future. I did not work for a few years, and then applied to Home Depot online and on the application it asked if I was disabled so I put yes, two days later they phoned me. I didn't list any job experience on my resume (before I was diagnosed I worked almost a year at a call centre and was fired for inappropriate behaviour they called it, I was so stressed I was starting to pee my pants, swearing, things that were not 'normal' for me and was regressing, brain tumor was even one of the things that had to be ruled out. I worked at McDonald's, a used clothing place--both for only a couple weeks before being fired.)

So I've been at Home Depot as a cashier for nearly 3 years and recently have been experiencing a lot of rude customers and stress, I am on reduced hours, my hours were probably cut in half, if not more. I also enjoy things like picking blueberries, but it's very hard to make enough money doing that. I also like to do petsitting for some people, I will stay at their house while they're gone or do daily visits.

I'm 27 from Nova Scotia, Canada.

Name: Meaghan Age: 32 State: North Carolina
Is it tough to get jobs? YES. It is also tough to KEEP jobs.
Jobs I have had: -Customer Service at a privately owned furniture store (fail, 6 months)
-Waitress (TOTAL fail, 1 month)
-Customer Service and operations at a dry cleaner (Better; this job forced me to learn to be more social, period, even if I
hated it. Almost 2 years, fired by the District Manager because "I don't smile enough" or something.)
-Lab Assistant at technical college I was attending (This was fun but only lasted 2 semesters. I got this job because the
department head personally liked me.)
-Customer Service/Receiver at Barnes & Noble. Going on 6 years. I will never advance there due to my Asperger's syndrome
no matter how hard I work, how much I contribute, or how dedicated I am.
Challenges in jobs: The biggest challenge for me is this game I have discovered at basically every job. It involves being fake and knowing all these different things you're supposed to do and say or not do or say that make no sense. Examples: You're not allowed to tell the manager he/she is wrong even when he/she is. You can't tell the District Manager that the manager he/she hired is an idiot, even if you have hard evidence to prove it, because the District Manager picked that manager and this would be like criticism. You can't point out double-standards, this is being insubordinate. If you don't respond enthusiastically to meaningless empty praise, you have bad morale. Telling the truth is being a smartass/insubordinate/bad morale. Always tell a manager what you think they want to hear, anything else will just get you in trouble.

I would like to see help for people with High Functioning Autism figuring out what kind of jobs would be good for them. This goes beyond just "What I like to do", and includes things like "Will I have to wear pantyhose for 8 hours" (terrible!!). I know I could excel at something because I am driven and intelligent, but I don't know what that something is. Right now I am wasting my skills. I could be an asset to someone, but I don't know who or how and I don't know how to figure it out and I fear that I will never figure it out. I will continue wasting my skills and being miserable for a really long time until I die.