Autism and job applications

I’ve written elsewhere about my fears that autistic candidates might get sifted out of job application rounds. I hope I’m wrong about there being prejudice and stigma, but in any case, we autistics can do some things to help ourselves in job applications. Over the course of several years of fairly consistent failure punctuated by occasional success, plus mentoring some absolutely wonderful autistic colleagues, I’ve picked up a few consistent themes of things that autistic people tend to do that don’t help themselves.

• Answering too literally/precisely. We autistics tend to be literal and precise, but that can work against us in job applications. If the application form wants an example of you managing a large team, if you’re like me you’ll probably agonise over whether the team in your best example was big enough, and possibly write about the biggest team you’ve ever managed, regardless of whether that’s the best example. What the question is probably getting at is what skills you used to manage a large team and how you overcame the problems that came up, rather than a statement saying “I managed a team of 95 people!”
• Failing to read between the lines. Compounding the literal/precise answer trap is the difficulty we autistics have in reading between the lines and working out what the recruiter actually wants to hear about. “Why do you want this job?” probably wants an answer about why the role aligns with your skills and values, rather than a simple expression of how keen/passionate you are about the role.
• Stating process steps rather than outcomes. Again compounding the problems is the tendency to be literal about saying “what you did”. If you ask me what I did at work yesterday I’ll probably say “I went to some meetings and wrote some emails”. That’s true, but it’s not going to get me any job interviews. I need not to be afraid to say the slightly-less-literal parts about what the consequences were of what I did. So I should say that I “influenced and persuaded senior colleagues to focus more attention and personal capital on the problems autistic colleagues have in the workplace using verbal and written communication skills to agree a sequence of future actions”.
• Providing too much detail. Job applications often have a strict word limit. The autistic tendency is to need to provide lots of detailed context, but of course that eats up the word allocation leaving you very few words left to say what you did, which is the bit that’ll get you credit. In my example earlier about managing a large team, I probably don’t need to say much about what organisation I was working for, or what subject matter we dealt with, or when it happened, or what the teams’ names were etc. – what the example needs to consist of is the skills you used managing a large team. ANY large team.
• Assuming the reader has more knowledge than they do. The flip side of the “too much detail” issue is expecting too much of the reader. I’ve spent my whole life fighting against the autistic trait of sounding patronising when you don’t mean to be, and I go too far the other way. Also, I tacitly assume other peoples’ brains work like mine does (spoiler alert – unless the other person is autistic, they don’t!) The way I feel confident receiving an overview of a situation is to have lots of context that will enable me to infer the interpersonal stuff that I can’t see by instinct. So the result of those two issues is the recruiter gets a whole load of detail (to allow them to form their own judgement) and no distillation of the key facts (because stating the obvious would be patronising). What the typical time-poor neurotypical recruiter wants is a summary of the facts and as little detail as possible – the total opposite.
• Leaving out what made the situation difficult. Assuming the reader has more knowledge than they do can mean you imagine they can spot what made the task difficult without being told. The recruiter is reading lots of applications – make it easy for them. Also, as autistics, what was hard for us wouldn’t necessarily be the same as for the neurotypical recruiter. What was hard for me about my most recent job move was moving offices, but what a recruiter would want to hear about would be making new networks, mastering new subject matter etc. etc. – the things that would be hard for them.
• Jargon and long words. Many autistics, including me, use long words, jargon and formal language because they feel natural too us. Possibly we also use them a lot at work because we know we need to sound formal and professional and slightly overdo it. The time-poor neurotypical recruiter will find over-formal language harder to read than shorter words and short sentences (and no jargon!) So again, make it easy for them.
• Being self-deprecating. If you’ve lived more than half of your life undiagnosed autistic, you’re probably used to be ostracised and rejected for your social faux pas. You’ve probably been picked on and bullied at school and quite possibly in the workplace as well. As a result your self-belief has taken a lot of knocks and your instinct is probably to try to deflect hostility with humour or self-deprecation. The only way I have found to get people to like me is to be self-deprecating or funny, so trying to win over a recruitment panel, that’s what I’ll do. But it’s the wrong strategy for this situation. Horrible as it may feel, and much as your whole being may cringe at the idea of talking yourself up (which feels like setting yourself up to be knocked down), that’s what you have to do…

I realise that what I’ve just described is effectively a kind of masking – adapting ourselves to the communications style and preferences of the recruiters rather than being our whole selves – but that may be a compromise we have to make until the world gets more used to autistic people, if we want to get those jobs. And us getting those jobs is part of how we’re going to change the world to make it more welcoming and accepting of autistic people. I hope.