Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Notes on How to Get Employment During the Great Frustration with High Functioning Autism

There is good news and bad news in the job market. The bad news- with between 30 and 60 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, it's harder than ever to find a job, especially for autistics whose social skills are mere coping skills. But here's the good news- for the professional specialist, search engines like Dice, Monster, and Craigslist have become excellent places to find jobs to apply to. Initial application is now almost entirely electronic- no paper, no "putting yourself out there" in person.

One huge new behavior from HR departments is the electronic pre-screening, by either e-mail or website. Be prepared to actually spend MORE hours on a job search- I saw questionnaires ranging from 30 to 400 questions, covering technical skills, personality profiling, even a little bit of classic IQ testing.

Naturally, the more questions they ask you, the more likely even High Functioning Autism will be uncovered- so it's wise to self-disclose if you should get an interview after such screening.

Be prepared for long periods of unemployment, and be flexible when you get employment. My new job is a 1099 contract (self-employment) with invoicing my hours fo the first 3 months- with an option to become W2 FTE.
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Oustside The Asylum by Ted Seeber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://outsidetheaustisticasylum.blogspot.com.