Jobs for introverts?

[PoliteSquid]

My DS lost his job after 5 weeks because he wasn’t proactive or outgoing enough. This was NOT a customer facing role - it was an entry level manufacturing job in the sort of factory where you do the same job over and over.

We’re looking at engineering technician and mechanical engineering apprenticeships and every single one talks about wanting a “proactive and outgoing” individual. He has a letter saying he’s none of those things. He is naturally introverted and sometimes shy. I’m just so frustrated about the role descriptions. It puts him off even applying!

Where do all the quiet, shy people work?!

Yes, I have an autistic school-leaver godson who spent his gap year working and also filling in what he thought were skills gaps before he started a demanding university course. One of these was talking to strangers, so he threw himself in at the deep end and took an improv drama class!

Devil is in the detail. I’m guessing it’s very extreme end of shy if they have cut their losses at 5 weeks. If there was a group intake and he’s stood out negatively compared to other new hires.
On a positive he’s clearly got skills as he was selected at interview.
I wonder if it’s just a bad fit of a workplace eg if everyone is louder and banter. Most workplaces make allowances for new people finding feet.
Could there have been any safety type issues. Like if he needed to log on manual handling training and he’s been reminded and not done it as not sure and didn’t ask.

I have a back office job where i I provide technical support and rarely have to interact with others. When I do have to talk to others it involves explaining technical concepts rather than doing small talk and networking, which I find much easier.

However, at the start it wasn’t like that. There are very few entry level positions that allow you to work independently. I would advise your son to put on the mask and fake it for a few years. It will suck, but it will allow how to manoeuvre himself into a role that suits him later.

Disclaimer, my area is finance, not engineering. But I imagine it is similar. Unfortunately the senior staff want to employ junior staff who are friendly and engaged and fun to be around, so you have to pretend to be like that. And then once you become senior yourself, you can do what you want.

How very odd OP!!!

Honestly id put this down to the company rather than your son.

Ive hired people that have taken a good few months to come out their shell and turn out to be absolutely fantastic employees.

The only think i can think of is he couldnt answer his managers/deemed to be ignorning them?

I would tell your son to take this feedback with a pinch of salt and see how he gets on in his next role.

Also OP, proactive and outgoing are different things, I couldnt care less if a candidate is "outgoing".

I do need them to be proactive but i think you can be proactive regardless of your social personality, or lack of.

I'm shy and reserved as are a lot of my colleagues - I'm a data analyst. Not sure if he would have the right background but there's probably training/apprenticeship roles he could apply to. Software development could also be a good option although I believe there are less entry level roles nowadays.

I'm in the civil service, shy with strangers but learnt over the years to get more confident. It does sound like they're letting him go for no real good reason considering its a job in a factory.

They sound like absolute arseholes, I hope the next employee is a Jack the lad who robs them blind and punches the boss (then steals his wife).

It's so annoying when people describe socially anxious, shy, unconfident people as introverted, that's not what it means at all.

I am very introverted and I'm a secondary school teacher. I would say I am also very pro-active.

I am wondering OP, and I only ask as I have a DD16 who is ASD and very shy….is he ready for the workplace? Might it be better for him to stay in education a little longer? Some of these apprenticeships are awful.

I am in Tech, an introvert, BTW.

That’s just a personality clash basically. The boss didn’t like him. Depressing, but probation periods allow this kind of nonsense. My DH is very introverted and autistic the sort of person who gets on with his role to a high level and doesn’t want to be particularly matey with anyone at work (won’t get involved in a tea round for example because he doesn’t want the stress of working out when to offer/who needs to be offered one, and hates any ‘organised fun’ at work events, that sort of thing). However he is in a role that really suits him and has been promoted multiple times because he he’s good at what he does. It’s probably not a specific job worth recommending to your DS as it’s a role requiring a post graduate degree , but the point is there are jobs out there.

I suspect the issue is around proactively. I see it sometimes in very junior roles or people with very little job experience.

An example in my office based job, I ask them to print the papers for the client meeting. Junior says they can’t, I ask why. They say the printer is out of paper. Printer has a box of realms of paper sitting next to it. I ask if they had considered putting paper in printer, they look at me blankly.

Because nobody had expressly said “when the printer is out of paper, put more in so you can print”, the thought hadn’t crossed their mind.

Lots of valuable thoughts here, thank you.

He absolutely hated school every day from the age of 4. He went to college instead of staying in 6th form to try a different environment. It was in a classroom despite being a L3 mechanical engineering course and he hated that too. He finished college early in Y13 to take up this job which was described as a traineeship but clearly not the supportive environment it was claiming to be.

Outside of work/college he has a great social life and has done a few work experience placements/voluntary work. He is academically able and learns incredibly quickly. I totally see why he came across badly on the factory floor and he said himself he didn’t have much in common with any of his colleagues!! It has been a tough learning curve for sure.

I’d definitely encourage him to see as a learning experience. Hopefully next workplace will be more supportive. My friend works in a male dominated industry and they seem to take the apprentices under their wing. Did he have any previous work history?
It’s fine to not have anything in common but rubbing a long with people at work is important. @C152 had some good suggestions for basics that may not occur to a yp.

I can recommend my job. I’m a train signaller and work in a single manned box. Apart from the odd engineer or technician visit, i can be left to my own devices all day. Lots of scope for movement within network rail too

Sorry OP I dont have an answer but this sort of bollox infuriates me, as if every person has to be the same and (no offence to the job your son was doing) but who cares or needs a 'outgoing' manufacturing worker

All this 'be your true self' - its nonsense isnt it, only be your true self if its outgoing and proactive. And in anycase, I dont want someones 'personality' at work, I just want them to come in and do their bloody job!

Being a train driver is a reasonably solitary job, he might find his vocation there.

We ( the introverted ones ) work with animals, back of house jobs, work from home
jobs, being self employed jobs and also IT jobs :) I’m not a people oriented person as well and avoid people as much as I can. However I put my happy mask and go through each day even though it’s exhausting. He will find his place with his people or will create one, I promise you :)

Its really hard. A lot of shy/autistic people I know are either self employed or found their route into a job via volunteering first!

It is possible. But tough.

I'm incredibly sensitive to criticism, and terrible at holding a conversation unless the other person asks all the questions - I've really tried to improve but I think of a question to ask and then forget to think of a follow up question so the conversation just trails off. I mostly keep myself to myself and have minimal conversations with others unless it's straightforward work logistics or a quick superficial "how are you" "good, you?"
I never feel I belong anywhere, and am always slightly on the edge of any group, watching other people chatting away with apparent ease whilst I'm on the outside looking in.

These answers so far speaking as thought it's just a knowledge/skills gap seem to underestimate how difficult social skills genuinely are for some people.

You can learn to fake it to an extent but it's utterly exhausting and still often ends up with people giving you a wide berth anyway.

The job market is very strongly geared towards individuals who come across as confident and outgoing and it's really hard if youre not.

I’m an introvert in a job in which interaction with people is central to the job- social care. Because despite the fact it is so interactive it mainly requires listening, advocating, thinking deeply, being resourceful, respectful challenge, being analytical, teamwork. So in that sense I feel it suits me. It doesn’t drain me in the same way that social interactions do. I would actually go as far as to say I’m quite socially anxious/ awkward, but not in my job.

Sounds like he had a lucky escape to be honest, places like that will completely ruin his self-esteem. Good work places will help new members of staff by being inclusive and welcoming. It just sounds like a shitty work place to be honest, letting him go after 5 weeks, sounds like they weren’t good managers. In another place he will have a whole different experience.

The job market is very strongly geared towards individuals who come across as confident and outgoing and it's really hard if youre not.

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to express. I can imagine DS really struggling at an assessment day or group interview, maybe marginally better as an individual, because of these expectations. The recruitment for the job he got involved a practical task and a very informal chat!

Unless the job is at the very lowest of low-skill it would be pretty unusual not to have any questions at all after induction. It might be interpreted by colleagues as arrogance or disinterest, neither of which is great.
He needs to practice "being interested" in people. I don't mean being fake, I mean, the conscious exercise of generating a real question to ask another person about their work, their expertise or themselves, and then listening to the answer even if he thinks he can guess what the answer is going to be. He might get a surprise. People like people who show an interest.

That’s a really horrible way to feed back, especially to someone so young. It could have been done in a much nicer and more constructive way and they should have put some effort into helping him come out of his shell a bit instead of just letting him go.

I wonder if there is a bit of a “banter” type culture that he doesn’t fit in with. It doesn’t sound like the best employer so maybe he’s better out of it.

I did struggle a bit when I was the youngest in the workplace.. I felt like everyone was my parents generation rather than equal colleagues so I found it really hard to chat, I felt really awkward. It just comes with time and age in my experience.