Fewer jobs for Introverts than in past?

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Naturalist
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28 Jul 2013, 9:26 pm

In looking at jobs, it seems to me that the kinds of jobs which used to be ideal for Aspies / introverts are beginning to be diminished. Example: my interest lies in working with artifacts and natural history specimens in museums and archaeological sites. It used to be that such jobs were great for people like me: long hours of solitary, sometimes "tedious", detailed work; lots of cataloging and classifying; writing accurate descriptions of items for museum displays. But now, I am seeing that the job descriptions tack on other things which are more suited to extroverts: fundraising, networking / managing social media, handling outreach and education, working on a research team.

Has anyone else found this to be the case with jobs in their special interest? Is there a bias toward extroversion now in jobs which were historically ideal for introverts?



ghoti
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28 Jul 2013, 10:45 pm

In looking for a new job in the engineering field, the job requirements will now always say "excellent or outstanding communicator, management skills required, must perform business development (jargon in the field for "sales and marketing") duties, team building skills required....."



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29 Jul 2013, 2:51 am

Everything reaches a tipping point of complexity at which either more technology or more people are required. As technology is something of a secondary issue (cberg notwithstanding), it becomes a matter of zeroing in on occupations with more agreeable coworkers. For me, this cuts rather close to my dilemma of being 19 y.o.a. - it's hard knowing from one interview if I'll be able to relate to anyone in a workplace. Right now I'm actively seeking more laid-back tech support or software position with less neurotic office mates. Believe you me, autism spectrum is the least of most software developers' worries. Many seek it out! I've walked into some very passive-aggressive dynamics before without quite realizing it for a week. Empirically, there was one truly sane guy at that startup, and he was more than smart enough to keep to himself. Everyone else bickered amongst each other where they had the perfect space to collaborate, and at the end of that week it spilled over onto my desk. I worked another 2 weeks, testing apps leading up to a public beta, then someone had the nerve to fire me by phone over the weekend, after contractually gouging me something like $700. Sometimes I'm too outgoing for my own good.


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zer0netgain
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29 Jul 2013, 9:27 am

My 2 cents is that in bad economies, they want everyone to serve in multiple roles. So, where engineers never dealt with customers, now they want them dealing with customers so they don't need yet another person in the chain. Of course, it's not very fair to people disadvantaged in those areas of life.



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30 Jul 2013, 2:10 am

I absolutely agree. In the nightmarish position I described, I was expected to be working software QA morning to night, and fit customer service tickets into my nonexistent breaks, or answer them at home when my contract explicitly said I wouldn't be compensated. I don't think that company really had the money to hire me in the first place, much less pay their other employees enough to really run with my contributions. Nope, they spent that money on Thunderbolt displays for themselves and those stupid touch mice all around.


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ianorlin
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30 Jul 2013, 6:23 pm

cberg wrote:
I absolutely agree. In the nightmarish position I described, I was expected to be working software QA morning to night, and fit customer service tickets into my nonexistent breaks, or answer them at home when my contract explicitly said I wouldn't be compensated. I don't think that company really had the money to hire me in the first place, much less pay their other employees enough to really run with my contributions. Nope, they spent that money on Thunderbolt displays for themselves and those stupid touch mice all around.
What are thunderbolt displays?



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30 Jul 2013, 7:44 pm

True that, even minimum wage jobs often comes with an extencive job description. Like cleaning work, must handel stock, communicate to a professional level, able to handle finance and keep to a health and safety standard.

With my own field of ICT, many job describtions can sound exciting like handling code, gathering data reportsand devise your own way to communicate in achieving this goal, unfortunately, this is often tacked on with general administration duties like talking on the phone to external sources, arranging meetings, doing presentations within the team. Having experience, excellent communication, writing, numeric and so on, are often musts

Many are often vague and don't detail everything until an interview (which those are extreme few) or not even then and employers often assume everyone can basic NT functions.


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cberg
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30 Jul 2013, 8:07 pm

ianorlin wrote:
cberg wrote:
I absolutely agree. In the nightmarish position I described, I was expected to be working software QA morning to night, and fit customer service tickets into my nonexistent breaks, or answer them at home when my contract explicitly said I wouldn't be compensated. I don't think that company really had the money to hire me in the first place, much less pay their other employees enough to really run with my contributions. Nope, they spent that money on Thunderbolt displays for themselves and those stupid touch mice all around.
What are thunderbolt displays?


Ludicrously expensive Apple computer monitors - not even really the best out there either.


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"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos :mrgreen: