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One of the best things you can do to prep is to find someone you can relate to at least a little bit who’s already been through it, ideally someone with a few years under their belt, and do mock interviews with them. Interviewing sucks, it’s not an easy skill and you hopefully won’t need it very much. The first ones are always the hardest.
This kinda depends on the job though. An office job, there’s always going to be a social side because unless you’re just a flunky, collaboration is a necessary skill for a skilled job in most office settings.
The extent of needed skill at the kind of social interaction you can estimate via interview varies, and a lot of people get stuck and screwed over when they don’t actually need that skill set for the job, but we can’t just pretend that even a minority of office work allows for a person to be an island. You at least have to be able to interact with project managers that keep otherwise unconnected workers synced up.
It helps if you can say that you suck at interviews, but can execute on the job, and can both say it in a useful way, then back up that claim. Not every hiring person will deal with that, which is bullshit imo, but even that is not outside of the range of bare minimum social skills.
When it comes right down to it, we as workers in a capitalist system have to make hard choices unless we want to start a revolution. You either work on the people skills, reject the kind of work that takes interviews and interaction, or you ask for accommodations and hope that works out.
The system as-is sucks for anyone not built for capitalist dreck like cookie cutter interviews, and it needs change.
I work in an office and I’m sure an autistic person could do my job just fine. The degree of socialization in my office is fairly low unless you initiate conversations with everyone intentionally. The real joke is needing to sit in a cubicle when your job can be done entirely remotely.
jobs are designed specifically to torment autistic people
Jobs are designed specifically to keep large portions of the population too busy to organize and overthrow exploitative systems of control.
I got insanely lucky wit my job. I responded to an email that came through my college CS department about a potential job and got an in-person interview with the CEO of a tiny company nobody has heard of. The guy’s personality made it easier to talk to him despite of my anxiety.
Instead of the bullshit riddles that every other tech job interview has, he sent me home with a simple assignment to make a simple webpage where a user could log in.
After submitting that, I kinda forgot about it until several month later when I randomly decide to check my school email account and found an email from him that was almost a month old (my PC wasn’t working before that, and I didn’t need to use it much at the time).
I replied just in time. 12 years later I’m the most senior developer.
Where you really lucked out here was that the project is still going after 12 years and you haven’t been through some bullshit outsourcing/insourcing cycle that clears out everyone who knows what they are doing
Am I the only one with adhd who’s good at and enjoys networking? Most of it is just asking specific questions based on prior information you’ve been given by the other person.
Really important is identifying a topic the other is passionate about, maybe it’s not even work related, but a hobby or a travel experience they’ve had. Then you get them to “teach” you about it by asking them to elaborate and maybe even explain specific parts of their hobby, and voila you’ve succeeded in networking.
People are passionate about their skills and hobbies, and most love to elaborate and explain the specifics of it, especially when they usually don’t get to do it.
Remember those “Joe is forcing us to see his travel pictures” joke? This is basically that but you’re actually interested in the pictures. Listening to someone being passionate about something is a lot more fun than others lead you to believe, give it a try, it’s basically nt infodumping.
Really important is identifying a topic the other is passionate about, maybe it’s not even work related, but a hobby or a travel experience they’ve had. Then you get them to “teach” you about it by asking them to elaborate and maybe even explain specific parts of their hobby, and voila you’ve succeeded in networking.
This works until you try it in DC and suddenly everyone is an analyst at the State Department and when you ask what they analyze they say “data.”
They also don’t have hobbies they’re willing to talk about, and tend not to have strong feelings about music or TV or books or, really, anything.
I do not like networking in DC.
Networking in DC is an extreme sport
I’m really great at networking. It’s the only way I’ve found to find new jons. I still suck at interviewing though
“What’s you’re biggest weakness?”
“I’m going to say my honesty”
“Not sure I think honesty is really a weakness…”
“I don’t give fuck what you think.”.
Had more or less this exact conversation with the manager during an interview for a promotion I really wanted years ago.
I did not get it.
“you’re hired”
My most talented coworker was a contractor that was hired on full time. He has repeatedly said he would never have made it through the hiring process. I think about that a lot.
Because it is bullshit. HR have no clue how to find good candidates, and whoever hired them to get a new hire had no idea what the new hire should be able to do and so just gave HR a few buzzwords to work with. But even if they had been given a good job description, they are basically muppets.
For the brief period when I was a manger, I tried to make interviews more work-related. I was told I couldn’t ask for a writing sample during the interview for a job that required writing clear, concise communications under pressure. This is one of many reasons why I am voluntarily no long supervisory in my field.
I don’t disagree but the way they describe it sounds more like an autistic nightmare. I don’t know ADHD to be commonly associated with sensory issues and social cues and that hasn’t been my direct experience with it. I’ve had issues with social cues but I’ve found it easier to pick up on them when I had peers to practice with that weren’t put off by my adhd.
Also I don’t know that I would be focused if they just gave me a job because of the whole adhd thing. I’m certainly not significantly better than anyone else in the building at my current job…
It even says autistic in the post. This is not an ADHD thing, even though it’s common to have both.
Oh lmao I didn’t even catch that. Thanks adhd
There is a huge overlap between the two conditions. Probably far more behaviours in common than exclusive. We think of them as separate as a matter of convenience e.g. to administer healthcare, etc, but there is no precise scientifically reliable definition for either. It’s like saying someone is white or black, superficially the difference is obvious but when we look closely we cannot define what we mean by those words with universally repeatable measurements.
How do stimulants work on autists?
Sure, but what’s described in the post is very much in line with very common descriptions of things autistic people struggle with - so much so that it’s basically in the definition of the diagnose - and it’s not something that is typically (or ever) being ascribed to ADHD.
Just because these spectrums are related and interwoven (together with other ones as well) in mysterious ways we don’t yet understand, we don’t need to treat them as one. Especially as laymen. They are separate diagnoses with different definitions. By, as laymen in a social forum where people often times go before even considering going to get evaluated, cross-ascribing symptoms between diagnoses we risk steering people in the wrong direction and they could potentially waste years thinking they have a diagnosis they don’t have (according to our current health care systems).
I’m actually really good at these soft skills. But I can only maintain it for the duration of the interview. I fall apart as soon as I get the jib and thats when the trouble starts.
I met a guy like this. He just changed jobs every year. His past employers said they never got any work out of him, but he just kept leapfrogging, getting better and better jobs at each company advancing his career.
Wow, that sounds suspeciously like me, except for the many periods of unemployment, which mostly come after my burnouts, which happen after half a year in a new job.
Gosh, same. I can do the charisma thing and chameleon whatever I’m supposed to say, and heck, even be good at the damn job…
…too good.
Once it stops being interesting, I start trying to find ways to make it fun, or squeeze in creative projects during downtime, and uptight types don’t like discovering that I’ve still got the spark they sacrificed right out of business school.
Disclaimer: Not claiming to be a genius or anything.
Tip in case you haven’t discovered it yet:
Don’t tell them about your efficiency improvements. They won’t appreciate it. You’ve made their job harder by requiring them to think about something. To them it was already automated and that automation was you.
Instead, just keep producing the same outputs and say nothing. You’ll only get a raise or promotion when you get a new job, so spend the extra time on that. When you do get a new job, give the automation to one coworker, preferably your replacement.
Source: am experienced engineer
I was that more focused and productive person at two jobs. I answered customer emails at a bank and they actually had a meeting about me because my numbers were like 30-50% better than everyone else’s. They thought maybe I wasn’t actually DOING my work. I was, I was just good at it and quick at typing and copying and pasting and using templates. I streamlined all sorts of stuff to make my job easier. “How are you doing so many emails?!” “CTRL C and CTRL V and templates” “oh”
Reminds me of a friend of mine. He was promoted to some sort of engineering metrics analyst. His job it turned out, was to take a bunch of different reporting products and then create a presentation once a week to go over all of the metrics and have them in easy to understand graphs on a specific template.
So of course a month into the job he automates the entire thing and his job now takes a total of 5 minutes because he waits on the actual numbers to be crunched and spit out into the new template.
He’s super bored and asks me if he should tell his boss what he’s done and possibly get another promotion out of it. I said “Sure, if you want to be promoted to the layoff line.”
So his boss gave him some extra tasks and he just keeps blazing through them. His boss wants to know how he’s able to be the most productive person they’ve ever seen in that position. He asks me again, if he should tell the boss and his boss’ boss because they are super impressed. I said “No. Absolutely not. Just shrug and tell them you just do your best every day. They’ll eat that right up.” He does. He gets a promotion a couple of months later to a middle manager of some type. Probably due the Peter Principle.
Don’t ever give out your templates or show your process. If they can hire someone less experienced at a much cheaper rate, they eventually will.
Don’t ever give out your templates or show your process. If they can hire someone less experienced at a much cheaper rate, they eventually will.
I think you’re usually legally obligated to. I mean, crappy boss never ask is one thing, but if they inquire how you do your job, which templates you use etc, the employer owns the templates you created during your paid work time on probably the computer which is also the employers property. You don’t have to throw every detail about how you do your job on the table yourself if no-one asks, but if they do you should or they’ld win any legal dispute and you could be fired on bad (financial) terms. Likely whatever you show and explain is still to “complicated” anyhow.
I’m sure laws on this differ everywhere in the world but I assume you’re talking US. It is doubtful an employer could win a law suit against you for not showing your specific methodology unless you have a contract and that was part of it.
As far as firing goes, there aren’t very many situations that an employer can’t fire you over for cause but obviously also can fire you without cause.
Would they own the templates? Yeah but they’d also have to know to look for them unless you told them. Otherwise they’d probably already have created some templates and expect you to use and perhaps improve them.
Ive done pretty well with being honest and I think I end up with happier positions ultimately than I might otherwise have had. The crap jobs weed themselves out.
“Well-paying”
Yes, there are well paying jobs in the world, specially for things autistic people are stereotypically good at, like programming.
DON’T YOU DARE ARGUE WITH ME
You just have to figure out the ways your autism makes you a good worker and explain it to them. Honestly chatgpt could probably help with the wording if you just explain your autism to it lol
Just wear comfortable clothes. The old guard is dying off.
Comfortable sure, but not, like, pajamas.
As a man I’ve interviewed in a button down shirt, a skirt and open toe sandals and gotten a job offer. Only assholes and IBM require a suit and tie these days.
Open-toed sandals with a skirt and button down shirt? If you can’t take fashion seriously, how can I expect you to do your job? Business, business, calves, and then exposed toes? How am I supposed to focus on my job when you do things like that?!
Unpopular opinion: I think jeans are honestly more comfortable than pajamas. Pajamas feel a bit too loose and airy somehow, jeans and a t shirt or something feel a bit closer and thicker and give a reminder that something is between your skin and the outside while still being soft.
More unpopular opinion, jeans are the worst type of pants that I’ve ever had the displeasure of wearing.
Stretchy jeans are infinitely better than classic denim, give them a try before writing off jeans forever.
Formal pajamas
Those silk pajamas you see rich people wear in movies from the 80s and prior.
Business casualest.
To some of us, no clothes are comfortable.
Sensory issues are a sonofabitch and literally no neurotypical will ever have sympathy.
Guess I’ll start interviewing candidates in the nude.
haha another neurotypical mocking me for something I have zero control over that makes my life miserable lemmy is so supportive and inclusive.
And all of you ask why I am so angry all the time.
Sorry about your reading comprehension.
Your reply was sarcastic and unrealistic, that is mockery, a textbook definition.
The issue here isn’t my reading comprehension
You know this is literally harassment but the mods won’t see it that way, and if I respond to you like I REALLY want to, I’ll be the one with the ban.
I think you know this and are doing it on purpose.
I think you’re angry because you are very confused.
No, I’m angry because I was born with EDS and am medically angry nearly all of the time and it’s largely untreatable.
I’m angry at you SPECIFICALLY in the MOMENT for your mockery.
The only confusion is why people like you are so magnificently dedicated to being such assholes to the mentally different and pretending its no big deal.
This is a choice you’re making.
It’s things like this why I do my best to never go out in public because if I had met you in person I would be in jail shortly after.
And I’m sure you find that idea funny and will respond with some neurotypical witticism that seems oh so clever to you but is just a way to punch down with no consequences.
Do you normally go out of your way to harass everyone with disabilities, or only those of us with invisible ones?
