Is getting a job a real struggle for ASD folk

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I have Asperger's too. I too never had a job, and I haven't even gotten anything at all from our employment agency. (And that includes emails I should have received.) I too have no real talent. The only thing I am interested in that could lead to work, I can't do due to my GD allergies and asthma. It sucks because I'm good with animals, that is the one thing I have always wanted.

And let's face it with the above and me being 41, it's way too late to think that will change.

I'm not sure how uncommon/ common that is for an aspie, but I have read several times that we as a group have an unemployment rate of 80 % at any given time. Those who do get jobs often have a hard time keeping it.

It does seem to me that many on the spectrum struggle to find jobs, even to the point of early retirement - me included.

I have had a few jobs, but I mostly got them through my parents - my first real employer was a former colleague of my father's, and the one I had last summer my parents met while vacationing. If I didn't have a job for any given summer already, I'd send applications to every place I possibly could. Alas, no luck.

In all honesty, my future in the job world scares me. With my lack of success up until now, I doubt it'll get any better. It's starting to look like the only chance I have of getting any sort of employment is by becoming self-employed.

Yes!




Finally! People are getting it! To h*** with the employment system! If it will not respect us we should not respect it!

I really would be afraid to freelance or manage own business. To look for new customers and communicate with current customers, with my social skills would be really hard.

Hmmmm. I think the key is to sell to people who share your interest, so talking with them is easier. My dad wasn't a people person by any means, (even if he insisted he was), but because he was constantly talking with his customers about something he loved, he was able to create and run a successful machine tool company. There's never any guarantees with starting a business, but if you start one the way he did would be just to pursue your interest, and the people who share it.

Having a skill is useful too.

Yes, finding a job is hard. Finding a job as an aspie is harder.

The only way to offset the difficulty is to acquire skills that are in great demand by employers.

STEM skills, specifically.

perhaps, she could work on her presentation by wearing clothes that the employer is more likely to expect and practice interview questions? Also, networking is important, as you say. If she muster the courage to ask her friends to help it would be better. there is no shame in asking for help good luck!

I was in the National Guards for 6 years. It was good supplemental income. It required 6 weeks of boot camp and then a few months of technical school. After that it was one weekend per month. If she has a high school diploma, she might apply. It is regimented so if she is good at following orders, she might find this a useful option and it also might provide her training that could carry over.

She liked networks, trigonometry, statistics and algebra but she was not fantastic at it. In high school she wanted to teach math to secondary students. She would have needed to excel at the top level in math methods. She is 21 currently.

With baking and cooking she tends to wash her hands excessively and wouldnt do the stress of a commercial kitchen.

Daughter has savings from disability pension. Please explain 'day trading'

thanks

i have problems with the whole job/work thing. i find it very hard to deal with the interview process, telephone interviews are usually ok-ish. it is the face to face interviews that i find problematic, but it depends on which "me" turns up. the nervous/anxious version tends to do poorly whereas the "i don't care or want to be here but am so i may as well see what they have to say" version does way better (both before, during and afterwards).

keeping the job is where i really struggle. a lot of the way offices/teams/companies function is alien to me and it becomes increasingly difficult for me to function as people tend to take issue with how i interact and approach things. this has led to me hardly ever being at a company for more than a year maybe two at the most. it is super stressful and alienating, i'm not sure how to deal with it. i'm wondering if, now that i have a diagnosis, i could potentially be able to get help to try to learn how to navigate this minefield a bit better and potentially be better equipped to choose roles/companies that may be more suited to me.

I think Elaine said her sister's friends were not helpful in the least.....

Employers can be choosy and are.

She did ask her friends and like I said in my first post, her friends were not of any help. She has dress pants and a dress shirt.

Before I say anything else, I want you to know there are "games" that let you try out day trading without risking any money. Also she won't need a financial education. The autism helps plenty.

Day trading is when you buy an equity (like a stock) and sell it on the same day. In the US you are legally required to have $25,000 in your trading account to engage in the practice with stocks, however, even if you don't have that amount it is still possible to make a living trading equities by waiting more than a day. When I day trade I tend not to leverage more than $10,000, and sometimes leverage as "little" as $5000 or less. However it's risky, so it's wise to have some cushion in case something goes wrong.

Honestly equities trading sounds out of her price range, but if you or her are interested in learning about it, hit me up with a PM and I can teach her the basics, and we can test out if day trading is right for her without risking money.

I mostly made my own work. My specialty was "extra-odd jobs" - the ones that the regular workmen would often have to do twice, if they'd try at all. Sometimes, I did short production runs. If I wasn't prone to boredom, I could easily have done long production runs, churning things out as a one-man factory. These days, one could offer products that are hand-made enough to show individual variations on a web site, so everybody could pick their favourite from the current stock, and do pretty well.

I've struggled so badly with bullying on various jobs, and got fired from jobs where i couldn't learn fast enough too much information at once, and some where I couldn't do two things at the same time.

Now I found a job doing surveys over the phone, and my supervisor like me a lot and compliments me constantly. The other workers are crazy about me.

An autistic person just has to find the job that's right for him, like not too much interactions or noise. It's a struggle, but in the end one can win.