When to disclose: Job Interviews

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Job interviews tend to be the hardest part of getting a job for most ASDers, simply because of social they are. I mean, we can all write up a really attractive resume, and all do pretty well on the job, but when it comes to the social aspect of a job interview, and the anxiety a lot of us tend to have over them, we do worse sociall in them than we normally otherwise would... Because of this we need a way to level the playing field. In countries where there is equal opportunity employment, the way to level the playing field is simple. We disclose our ASD in the interview. Does this threaten our chances of getting the job? No Why not? Because if you are like me, and most other autistic people I have ever met, your job interview skills will be excelent in the literal answers section, but be horrendous in the social aspect. Then, all it takes to not get the job is for someone else who does better in the social aspect (believe it or not, it is the social aspect that gets people the jobs for the most part, the answers to questions don't really matter), but does just so so in the question answers, they will get the job before you.

So, how do we level the playing field? Simple, we have to make up an excuse as to why we do poorly on the social side of the interview. Go ahead, and make up some elaborate reason why you can't ace the social side. I've done it, and my dad, who knew the employer, told me the employer called him and told him how disgusted he was at my poor ability to lie as an excuse to not being socially as well informed as all of his other applicants. Yes, people do small talk, and the phone call wasn't about me, it was about business, but small talk happens everywhere.

So, elaborate excuses are out of the question... What does that leave us with then? Two things: 1) we either lie and claim we are sick, in which case they might reschedule the interview, or they see right through that lie too, and then don't want to hire you because you lied, or we can do the second option...

This best option is a pretty scary thing. We can either perfect our social skills to above NT norms, and learn to manage anxiety better than any NT can, which is impossible, or we can tell them at the end of the interview "Just so you know, I am autistic, and interviews make me nervous, and i dont do as well socially during them..." followed by a bief explanation of what autism is and how it affects you. The bonus of this is that you are no longer expected to be great in the social aspect, and they will look at the answers with more weight, and forget about the bad things in your social skills for the most part. You also will get bonus points for being honest and upfront, which increases your chance of getting a job.

This little bit about disclosing during job interviews is coming from my own experiences, and knowledge I have acquired from speaking with hiring managers at various companies, and my dad's experience from when he has had to hire employees for his business and also from when he used to be a hiring manager. I did not think it was a good idea to tell anyone until after I tried it for a job that I didn't really want, then I got the call saying "You're hired," and that was for a job that is purely social and I definitely failed the social half of the interview.

I should also mention that there is only one way an ASDer can beat an NT in their social games, and that is for us to change the rules in our favour. During job interviews we can do this by making the social game irrelevant by disclosing our autism, and leveling the playing field.

EDIT: also to note, job interviews are the ultimate of NT social games. That is where NTs show off their best social skills, to show how much more capable they are than each other for life in the real world. In a job interview, you are playing a social game, either learn to compete with the best, or change the rules so you don't have to compete with the best. Job interviews are just the ultimate NT proving grounds, where they prove their social worth to the world. A job interview is 90% social 10% question responses. Most of us just cannot compete if all we have on our side is the 10%, so we need to level the playing field by making that 10% worth more.

Are you kidding me? Self-disclosure in an interview where you are not sure you have the job will be the best way to keep from getting the job. If you get to the job interview part of the process, then it is already deemed that you can do the job (otherwise, they would have tossed your resume). The interview is to determine whether you will be able to do the job with the rest of the team they currently have. They can however use your disclosure for selecting someone else.

Now, I know what you are saying, the law says............. Well prove to me and a judge that you were not hired simply because you chose to disclose that you have autism. The burden in on the plaintiff which in this case is you and me.

You will have a better chance by working for a company as a contractor, proving you can do the job with the team, then getting hired on as a regular employee. Do not try to play any games with the interview process. You said it yourself, interviewing managers are the top of the top when it comes to the social games and we do not have the skills to play the game that way.

Which is why we have to avoid playing the game, meaning find a way around the job interview, or change the rules of the game by disclosing... You miss quoted me. Hiring managers know the game inside and out, they know all the tricks, and can read you better than you can cover your social inadequacies, so either vainly cover up, or make the effort to show them your social game doesn't matter because you can rationalize at a higher level than the social game (which disclosure actually shows). you have to be able to recognize your weaknesses, and not let you opponent strike them as Sun Tzu would says in The Art of War. Disclosure in this way is not creating a weakness, but rather defending your weakness, and making it an area of strength. Laws protecting just mean that they cannot discard it strictly because you are disabled, if they would discard it for that reason in a country where that is illegal, and not give you a job because of it, it means that you are unfit for the job because it is strictly a social job, where only social skills are needed, in which case you were never fit for the job in the first place.

I think what you said is both true and not true. (ok, how's that for ambiguous??)
What I mean is that it's true that most employers would be hesitant about hiring an autistic person, but not as many as just wouldn't want to hire someone with no social skills/nasty. So if you're likely to fail most interviews anyways, there might not be much to lose in entering the diagnosis into the equation. There are also a fair number of people, NTs included, who are appreciative of some autistic characteristics, like the ridiculous straight-forward-ness. It's the kind of thing you have to know about a person to accept it, though, because if you think of someone as a normal person who uses subtle cues, then saying something flat-out has subtle cues around it as well, and becomes more extreme. If that makes sense..

Sadly, disclosure of a disability can easily cost you the job....and the interviewer/employer could probably find a laundry list of reasons for why they chose someone else over you.

In a job that needs to hire handicapped people (government jobs), it might help you, but if you disclose, you need to immediately point out how your disability has no negative impact on the ability to do the job you're being hired for.

Ultimately, though, most jobs want someone who fits into the office culture, so social priorities are in place. The person with a disability has the best chance in a hiring process where the person selecting who gets hired picks from a list of pre-qualified applicants and personal connection isn't much of the equation. Then, if you can win over the person who gets you on that list, you have a good shot.

See this is the benefit of government work. Those doing interviews in government are frequently taught not to read body language, especially for technical jobs, and to ask a series of technical questions related to the job. It was the first interview I felt comfortable in because instead of stilted questions that had little to do with the job, I was barraged with questions relating to the job.

The very fact is the entire interview process here in the US is problematic because it does lead to discriminatory effects.

I would never disclose AS in an interview. I think most people do not know enough about it and whilst friends and family have the motivation to research the issue, an employer does not and would dismiss someone most of the time who disclosed it. I work in a technical field and my social skills are largely irrelevant and I plan to stick to jobs where this is the case to get around the social issues.

I did good on interviews so far and never disclosed my ASD in them.

Interviews are a 1:1 environment. Can't get much better than that.

Interviews are okay for me. There are lots of non-autistic people who fail interviews.

Autism is just a small piece of the puzzle. You fail interviews even if you're 'perfectly normal'.

That is why if you disclose in an interview, you must immediatly inform them of what it is, which is why autism is a better word to use than AS, as AS has a relatively bad rep as being the diagnosis of attention seekers amoung those who are aware of what it sortof is. If you don't educate them, it gives them room to assume. Make it relavent to the interview, make it relavent to them, give them the mould of who you are, and don't let them make the mould to fit you to. That is why I disclose, so they can't mould me as easily, and I mould myself in ways that is good for them. It is not whether or not you are disabled as to whether or not you get the job if you disclose, it is whether or not you appear weak. The interview process is to cull the weak, weed out those who are unfit... Unless you can keep autistic tendancies in check, you have to find other ways to come across as not being weak, which can include disclosure, but then you have to do it right, don't say it in passing, and be strong in yourself when doing it, they won't discriminate against someone who clearly can overcome a disability, and that is what disclosure is about, an extra opportunity to assert yourself. People who lose a job opportunity due to disclosure lose it because they were showing weakness in their disclosure,rather than using it to assert yourself. When you disclose, one of two things happens, you either assert yourself, or you show it to be a weakness. Asser youself, and it compensates for interview flaws, show it as a weakness, and it becomes an interview flaw.

Most people here seem to view it as a weakness to hide from the world. If that is how you feel, you will never learn how to use it to assert yourself as something more than a label, and people will read you as being socially weak regardless of how you try to mask it. Few os us can mask it well enough that we do not show signs of social weakness readable from a great distance. Heck that's why we get bullied at school, because we come off as socially weak. You need a way to show that despite this obvious and readable weakness that you can still perform, and can compensate for your weakness. How will you assert yourself and compensate for that weakness? How are you going to show that you can overcome that aura of weakness you cast out?

While that may be fine for you, all of my peculiarities show strongest when I am put on the spot, and an interview is that kind of situation. They throw so much as one thing at me that slightly throws me off my game I prepared for, and I get read as weak. So, my response is to compensate by reading them, and figure out when to pop the disclosure, and what aspects of autism I must explain to show that despite poor social skills, I can overcome my disability and be a good fit for the team.

Also, once you are hired, you have a legal obligation to inform your employer of your disability anyways, especially if it is going to affect you at work in any way, including if you have an appointment regarding autism that will cause you to miss a single day, you are obligated, might as well get it out in the interview and educate them on you to make the mould rather than have them force you into one you don't belong.

I supposed so. I was just confused about you saying that there's just one way to level the field when there are several depending on someone's autism. I suppose you might have meant that though although you wrote something else?

I do however think what you say sounds surprisingly close to what so many non-autistic people say. If it's 1:1 half of people +/-5 years your age range totally embarrass themselves and fail. It's just others thinking they are sympathetic despite making a fool of themselves that tends to get them in nevertheless. Hard to come by when you're autistic usually I think?

I disagree.

I don't think there is any legal foundation to "self-publish" your disability to an employer, and your perception of it "affecting you at work" can be stricter than what most workplaces would accept as normal.

Employers know everyone they hire comes with baggage. Most are happy if you show up when scheduled and do your job. What hurts people with AS is that they get in problems at work over "non work-related" issues like how well they fit in with their peers.

How many times did I loose a job or have to move on because my AS kept me from getting along well with my peers even though I could do the job as well as any of them could?

One piece of advice on that then: Read Sun Tzu's The Art of War, it covers all you need to know to get around that... Simply put, you are there to do a job, socialization is not necessary for any job except jobs focusing on business networking. Do your job, and make it clear to your coworkers that you are there to do a job, and nothing else, at that point, you don't need to socialize, because that is not what you are there to do. The primary function of socialization in many fields is to kill time, as it can be done easily, and can be made to look as if you are working. There other uses of speech in work, but they are not necessarily socialization. Then if it gets slow, bring a book so you don't need to socialize beyond the requirements of duty. Make it clear to them that all you want to do at work is work, and anything else is for outside the job. There is your answer, and employers see that dedication as a good thing, and those are the people who go places in a company.

When I am at work, I am there to do a job, and the people around me know that that is what I am there to do, and that keeps the odds AS will play a factor in my end game down. The end game in a job is everything that happens once that job is secured (you are hired and/or have passed the probationary period), and where you plan to take that job.

Its confidence, disclosure can show that confidence, or it can show desperation. What it shows if you choose to do so will determine how your disclosure will be viewed. If it comes out with confidence, lack of eye contact can be forgiven, stims don't seem so bad, etc. Why? Because you know who you are, and you made that apparent to the employer, if you have confidence, it will show, but as an autist, there are things that will inhibit the natural radience of an aura of confidence. This has to be made up for somehow. Practice a good disclosure, get comfortable with it, and learn how to be very confident in it. Why? Because this will be the only thing that all interviews have in common, whether or not you disclose, so you can easily and rationally perfect that act, and make it work to your advantage. But a poorly done disclosure will seal your fate, as it will show desperation. And it is insecurity most people have in their disabilities that make people only see disclosure as an act of desperation sure to seal your fate. if that is how you view it, that is how you will perform disclosure every time. It will not seal your fate if you learn how to make it an act of confidence, it is probably the only stable leverage we have in every interview because it is the only thing that is gaurenteed to be the same with every interview. Take advantage of this, and make it work, and it will do more good than harm is possible.