Is there such a thing as a finishing school or business etiquette school for young women between university and first job?

[Moonriver987]

Do these places still exist nowadays?

I know this sounds incredibly old-fashioned but one of my young adult daughters is autistic and isn't very self aware when it comes to table manners, and when to speak, and when to not speak, and I think she would benefit from being given a set of rules concerning the "correct" way to behave in different situations.

I haven't guided her as much as I should have done on this as she found school so hard, that when it came to dinner time, I couldn't bear to add any more pressure.

Also, she finds being the centre of attention very difficult and I think she will need help with this when it comes to professional settings.

Also, she' s older now and navigating university reasonably well, so will be more receptive I think.

Does anyone have any ideas please? We are not particularly affluent and we aren't based in UK but my DD could travel to London, or thereabouts, and we have relatives in various parts of uk. And I suppose she could travel to anywhere in France, The Netherlands, Germany Switzerland etc.

Thank you in advance for any tips or recommendations.

Thank you so much. Really helpful insights.

Dd has a student job in retail this summer which she started yesterday and is part of her master plan. It is her second summer working on her social skills.

We are definitely going to pursue help from her university careers service thanks to this thread. And we will try and access information early on. My dd is good at planning.

Excellent point about pragmatics v semantics.
Noted! Thank you.

Thank you. Please see my earlier replies.

No idea if it’s any good but I think this is a rebranded finishing school. www.questprofessional.co.uk/our-programmes/

V interesting! Thank you.

Gulp! 😮

We are prepared to pay a fair chunk but that is way above anything we could afford.

Thank you.

The only other thing I’d suggest is a part time job for a few months in a high-ish end restaurant. It doesn’t have to be Michelin starred but there’s nothing like working somehwere where the chef is bawling you out for forgetting to order the broccoli and then having to smooth over the clientele and open their wine at the table. Hospitality work is extremely useful in giving skills at manageing people and presenting an unruffled appearance even when stressed. I say that as a senior lawyer in the city. 4 mo the working in the Hamptons in a restaurant was the best work experience I ever did!

Hi op. Can’t help with recommendations but I was your daughter. The best thing I did was getting a job! I messed up my actual “career” in research and had to get “a job” fora bit to pay the bills but working in an office environment was great experience. It was quite formal and then when I went into a more professional role I had the basics like what to wear and what to say down already. I’d recommend your daughter just gets a job tbh preferably one before she graduates so when she wants her good job she has already learnt some rules.

Sorry and just to add the people watching opportunities are unrivalled in good restaurants- you may not like the people but you do learn from them - even if it’s not what to do. It’s exposure training to a degree which does over time help in a way that just being told sometimes doesn’t achieve. Appreciate you’ve said she’s doing retail work - which is also good - have also done my time in Next- but I still think restaurants have an edge in that regard.

That’s very true. They don’t like our bluntness. They get irritated when we stim. They really don’t like honesty. They can’t cope with the face blindness. They don’t like they way we interact socially.

following this thread now for ideas for DD1!

I see it’s already been mentioned here but Quest Professional used to be Lucie Clayton.

I did an Executive PA course with them & they did teach us office etiquette, public speaking and how to present yourself. This was a quite a few years ago now but worth checking. Theyre very well connected in London and helped me get my first job too

Yes, all of the above. And somehow it’s more acceptable for a man to be very focused on his work screen and ignore people speaking around them, or to them.

There are more expectations on women to be responsive and smooth over social interactions.

Starting work now but thank you again for all of these replies.

Mumsnet is great for information like this!

I really appreciate everyone’s suggestions.

would she get into a master’s degree at oxbridge where she could live in a college? Daily formal eating experience - how I learnt table manners.

I commend you for looking for an answer outside of your family. The prices for some of the professionals are a shock.
Random thoughts:
Could a woman who is well educated help? A newly retired Teacher of adults or Academic help?
Someone who uses the skills naturally.
Perhaps at the Coaching for GCSE or A level standard of costs.

Yeah I get that. And it is a balance. My "yuck" was for some of the suggestions, not your desire to support your daughter. I hope it goes well and she finds the balance she wants.

I'm not suggesting she not "be respectable".
But many ND people can't "suck up" constantly monitoring eye contact/how loud their voice is/what that other person really meant/are they standing too close/is now the time for a suggestion or agreement/what "that's fine" means today etc without burning out. So all the suggestions about non-ND specialist people being paid fortunes to teach someone how to act neurotypical for most hours they are awake are worthy of challenge. There is no evidence base that teaching these sort of skills actually works long term anyway.

She also has ambitions to work in quite a demanding profession as an actuary. She needs the social skills to accompany that

This is one of the funniest things I have read. I have one and at uni the course was >90%ND. I highly suspect the <10% were just undiagnosed🤣. The reason I know this was at their uni the ND kids got special provisions to sit exams in small ND groups rather than in halls but for their degree they just did it altogether in a smaller area that still fitted them all under exam conditions as they were all in the same position. They had to check with each they were okay with this, which is where the >90% came from.

As for work, they are known for being ‘odd’. People employing them expect them to be odd as the people themselves employing them are generally odd if it’s another actuary and to them all the candidates are ‘typical’ even though they wouldn’t be to anyone else, and everyone else with experience of actuaries in companies that have them expects ‘odd’. Why on earth you think she needs a social skills course to accompany her actuarial job is baffling. I’d just leave her be. Surely at this point you can just teach her ‘normal’ social skills given there are none she specifically requires for her actuarial work. They are not exactly known as being the social butterflies that are sent to wine/dine clients or execs🤣. This is the exact reason I proposed it to my ND child initially as it’s a perfect fit for them just the way they are and employers are happy and they are happy. Mine is with a big name company too.

Just typed a long post which seems to have disappeared but the gist of it

As a high functioning ASD I sympathise with her feeling that she doesn't get the rules of social interaction.

I think a business communication course might be helpful. City Lit in Holborn have some weekend in person courses (and I think in person rather on line would be more useful) at the end of September. They are a good institution that is pretty well up on EDI so would be worth you or DD having a chat with the learning support team as they could flag to the tutor in advance that DD is ASD and might need support for some areas. https://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/technology-science-and-business/business-and-marketing/public-speaking-communication-skills

It might also be worth looking at the online customer service course in the free courses flagged by a PP - maybe your DD could do it with a friend so they can work/role play together?

I think it also helps to be "seen" - this is a great blog by a very senior civil servant demonstrating that you can make it despite the disability but is quite frank about the challenges - I've linked to a relevant page https://helenjeffries.wordpress.com/home/i-want-to-communicate-and-be-understood-but-its-a-struggle/

OPs daughter indicated she would like a course like this. Would you just ignore her wishes and needs?

One tip I have for her is to strive for roles with no true peers. I’ve done this inadvertently and it reduces the situations where others make comparisons between me and themselves or others.

I understand the concerns people have about masking but knowing the rules doesn’t mean they need to be followed 100% of the time. It just means that you know what is going on and don’t feel constantly confused.

I am in IT and there is a more atypical behavior than typical. Having more training around social and communication skills can really give you and edge.

@AliceOlive OPs daughter indicated she would like a course like this. Would you just ignore her wishes and needs

Depends on why she has these wishes and needs. If it’s because she independently wants them irrespective of that particular job, or a parent telling them they need it to get along in their job then, yes. If it’s because she is following the suggestion of a parent who believes they need this to get along in that job then no. If it’s because she believes it’s necessary to get along in that particular job but without anything to base that on, I’d suggest talking to people in the job (pretty likely to be ND in the same way), and getting their opinion and then deciding herself either way whilst fully equipped with relevant info, then I’d support her with whatever conclusion she’s come to.

Thank you 😊

Thank you very much indeed AliceOlive 💐

This is all incredibly useful information, thank you so much.