Said AS people are OK and we should heare more from them. The HR consultants told me to shut up (they said it's not fine)

[TheQuiet]

Asked advice about disclosing Asperser in employment topic. Got replies that they don't understand and are scared off by Asperger. Said AS people are OK and we should hear more from those with careers. Got a comment from someone on the spectrum that there is discrimination and you can't win.

The HR consultants got irritated and told me to shut up (they said it's not fine)

here

Or am I just being autistic?

This is related to SN children as once our DC finish school they would want jobs.

Nonsense! It's very relevant. I wouldn't hire an aspie to be a union negotiator but would garb with both hands someone with the same condition to be a database administrator, software tester, techincal expert, systems security honcho etc (and have done back in the days I had a career and was hiring - I even asked the recruitment agents specifically to send them for interview as the people are just THAT good in these types of roles).

I'm darn sure there are lots of other suitable careers - I only know those they excelled within my own very limited sphere of knowledge, (IT & Biz).

I would expect someone with an HR or careers advisor type background to have a much more extensive list of potentially successful career options at their finger tips. I'd also expect them to have menta lists for those with ADHD, (make brilliant fighter pilots), Dyslexia, (often very creative minds) etc. The days are long past when the only disability career/HR info available was to tell blind people to become piano tuners. Jobcentre staff should also have this level of awareness as a matter of course now we are in the era of employment support allowance.

Put an aspie/HFA in a role they can excel at & for some reason the much vaunted lack of interpersonal skills and lack empathy is minimised - to the point where you wonder how much is caused by the mental stress of the constant battle to be a square peg in a round hole these people go through? Or at least that's been my experience with those adults I met. (that's admittedly a tiny minority of the millions out there)

The charity I've recc'd to so many as having great knowledge/advice in ths area is called "The Shaw Trust".

The whole point of school/parenting/education is to prepare our kids as best we can for adulthood and the day we are no longer with them I agree.

That's not why they were irritated I think. They (more than one, or are you just talking about the one?) were cross because they thought they were giving advice to someone with AS who was applying for jobs, and then thought that perhaps they were contributing to another kind of discussion unawares.

I think the overall message is that they don't know for sure when the best time is to disclose AS during the job application and offer process.

I wish I knew the answer as I had to get a work experience place for my son and was a bit stumped by when to disclose. Mind you there was a medical form and I reckoned that being a computer firm they might be familiar with AS! It was ok, I just noted it briefly on the form.

I didn't disclose for my younger son when he went to a gaming day and he wasn't able to pace himself. I should have explained carefully at the start to the people in charge, but didn't know how to with my son right there :( I also assumed, wrongly, that he would know to get himself enough to drink.

I am not sure I can agree, Madonna.

I posted a few days earlier and there was a chilling silence, nobody would touch the question.

I think they are irritated because the discussion got out of the box in which THEY wanted to keep it.

They snapped when another AS replied.

They say they don't know enough about AS and snapped at the post that tells about the condition.

They say nothing wrong with the discussion about disabilities in work and object to that in the same sentence.

The bottom line of their advice is to not disclose it if you can. They are saying disclosing would be bad for a higher functioning AS for example.

Surely we need to push them a bit out of this "comfort" zone.

I think, that's how it reads to me...

Your OP sounded like someone with AS asking for advice, your second post doesn't - it comes across more as, lets discuss it then or that possibly you were researching AS, there was a bit of a muddle about who flowery was responding to and she (I assume she) asked whether you were looking for a job or researching, which to be fair affects how you might answer...

and then I'm afraid you are a bit abrupt, I don't think you were meaning to be, but way the questions are phrased and the fact that you thank one poster and not the rest could be read as you being a bit snappy and not thinking the other posts were valuable. Which is why people have then gone a bit snappy back.

I'm guessing that you thought it was pretty obvious that you were asking for yourself but also wanted a bit of discussion? But, you don't actually say that, which I think confused some people...

But that's just how I read it, so feel free to disagree

Responding to a post above, Aspies can make extremely effective negotiators, Union, legal or otherwise. I know of a fair number in my own circle of work (including dh) who are very well respected lawyers and/or expert witnesses for court work, for example. Each person is very much an individual and may be able to bring great strengths to any role if given the chance to do so.

My post was only referring to my own limited experience and where I've ASKED the recruitment agent to send me a certain type of person.

Hopefully I made it clear I'm in no way qualified/knowledgeable about these things in a wider sense. I'm not and never will be an HR bod.

My reference to the Shaw trust is because I know these people have the knowledge I totally lack to advise people with these types of "disabilities". Those I've advised to talk to them have been really impressed at the help and advice they've got from them as they do know their apples from their oranges.

Understood. But, generalising further, it's still something that those of us on the autism spectrum have to battle against in employment - even the best of the agencies still tend to 'pigeon hole' us and truly do believe that we're all highly technical geeks. I can do technical and geek to world-class standards, but I've learned to broaden my skills and now run a company and work with charities where I hire people on the autism spectrum for a wide variety of roles to great effect. I am not at the 'mild' end of the spectrum, either.

Even one of the Big Charities in autism (who shall be nameless) recently sent me an email indicating that they only place autistic people in technical back-room jobs suitable for blokes with no social skills. If we did that to wheelchair users, we'd immediately see that it's wrong, but it doesn't stop them often pigeonholing all of us as male and obsessed with working only on pure data. Half of us are women, for a start

Tabula, :) The second post starts with "Thanks for helpful comments". I did thank everyone. I don't mean to argue with you, just want to draw attention to the dynamic, which is interesting.

Your argument implicitly recognises that I would need authorisation or approval from someone to say what feel like , even when it's perfectly legitimate. So AS people do have to function in the box defined by the NT? (I don?t think you mean this but that would be the implication for me ?)

Why are people focussing on what I "should do"? They could have stayed quiet, but they felt an urge to jump in and say it's not fine for me to speak when the discussion took the direction out of their comfort zone.

I think one of the commenters there is the editor and she would have deleted my second post if I wouldn't say that I am applying for jobs (which I do). Why do I have to apply for jobs for my post to be "fine"?

Nobody would shush at the gays our days.

To be fair those ladies at least answered the question, so they do engage, and I appreciate that.

Bochead, you post is understood and very welcome. Thank you.

To add to the point about pigeon holing made by Amberlight, often the ASD people themselves recycle the stereotypes thrown at them. The comment by Useful in my thread says for example that he AS acquaintance is obsessed and does "boring" technical jobs.

Maybe we should stop pigeon holing ourselves into boring jobs others don't want to do.

My voluntary job was on the radio this morning (I am trying to see if I can get it on iplayer now). I was working whilst they were recording and declined to be interviewed, but they asked if they could mention I was there.

Bullet, what is your voluntary job, if you don't mind me asking?

It's working in a museum, cataloguing and photographing the inventory of artefacts that are being moved from one building in the town to another. It's excellent because I very often work completely on my own and when with other people most of the time everyone is quiet so we can get on with the work. It's only for one morning a week though and of course is unpaid.

"The second post starts with "Thanks for helpful comments""

yep which could be read as some of them weren't, if you're touchy

"Your argument implicitly recognises that I would need authorisation or approval from someone to say what feel like"

Oh god no, that's not what I meant at all

basically I think people were reacting to how you were posting rather than what - wrongly in my opinion, but I think they were inferring things about how you had written that you didn't mean to have there

as for the question about the second post, I don't think it was an attempt at censorship, just someone asking which it was...

(shrugs)

but that's just my opinion, lol

I don't think people with As should do anything, anymore than anyone else should, if you're looking for a job you play to your strengths the same as anyone else does, but they're not automatically the same strengths as someone else with AS anymore than me and any other random person would be suited to the same job

:) Oh, Tabula of course you didn't mean that I need authorisation, but this is the implication if you accept the argument that "oh, if you mean this that's OK, but if you mean that it's not fine".

Whatever they were inferring, either way it was legitimate for me to post. I don't need their authorisation to sound like a researcher even if I am not one.

This sense of entitlement to impose the terms, shut up and patronise autistic people is problematic.

Thanks to everyone, I do appreciate all contributions which are all very helpful.

"This sense of entitlement to impose the terms, shut up and patronise autistic people is problematic."

People with other disabilities, ethnc minorities, older women (in my Mum's day you stopped work when you married), travellers, foreigners, gays, single Mums, the poor etc all have this issue with a certain type of person. It's not a unique experience to being autistic trust me {wink]

OP, I am really sorry, but I am struggling to understand what is going on here.
I have read both threads and my mind is just whizzing with not being able to grasp the ... problem, really.
I am a total Flowery fan, myself. thinkijng she is fab and having seen her fab posts for many many years. And having had her help me personally.
And ds1 is a posibel AS.
So I am interested. But I am struggling to understand what you are cross about.

It's not a unique experience, as Bochead understands, and probably you need to experience it to start understanding. Oblomov, maybe your DS is too young to convey to you what the problem is. You obviously are entitled to your opinion.

I didn't mention anyone personally in OP. The issue is general. But I agree that Flowery is a very competent HR consultant. Her postings in employment topic are very sharp and incisive, surgically precise. I am sure she is very helpful to hundreds of posters and to her private clients. There are dozens HR consultants in Employment topic and very few of them even answered my thread, so as I said above, I appreciate and welcome the comments from Flowery and all others. The issue for autistic people in employment is that you face this competence at the sharp end. It?s interesting to discover that something is not fine. I still don?t understand what made them uncomfortable to be in a thread where two AS people started talking about discrimination.

As a few posters said you can't win if you disclose. Your CV either goes directly in the bin, or "assumptions are made" about your strengths and weaknesses, at best you get pigeon holed into "boring" jobs the others don't want. Not all AS are male IT geeks, what for them? NAS official figures is something like only 15% of ASD people are in employment and frightening number live with their parents in adulthood. AS people are expected to prove that they are able to do the job at all. I wonder how many are in long term unemployment. Bullet said above that she volunteers unpaid but the employer wants to boast about her on the radio.

The Quiet, I have read the thread and tbh I am not quite clear about what you are seeing in it. (Not saying you are wrong, just that it looks different from my perspective).

Here's what I thought happened:

You posted asking about whether AS people should disclose their condition when applying for jobs.
You also asked if the offer could be rescinded at the questionnaire stage if AS is then disclosed.

flowery answered the second question by saying that it was not legal to ask medical questions before hiring and that medical questionnaires were in order to see if any adjustments need to be made to allow the person to do their job. An offer can only be pulled if there is severe impairment that means the person can't do their job.

I found that quite reassuring as it means that not disclosing won't mean you lose the job when they find out!

There was then a little bit of misunderstanding as flowery asks for clarification as to your purpose in posting as your first and second posts sound as if they have a different purpose. She is not criticising your second post, but she does want to check her assumption about the the first to ensure she is pitching her reply to you accurately and helpfully. So she says it isn't clear...can you tell me.

You say that your first post makes it clear and your wording possibly strikes flowery as implying that she shouldn't have been confused as it was obvious, and so she replies with a slight hint of defensiveness that the second post made things less clear (i.e. I'm not being foolish to be confused).

You are anxious to find out what people think is wrong with your second post, so you persist, you get told not to be so defensive (ie. nobody is saying anything is wrong with your second post, it was just a clarification, can we move on now as this is risking making a big deal out of something very minor)

Some positive comments are made about people with AS and their ability to do certain jobs. Nobody knows for sure if you should disclose as there could be advantages or disadvantages either way, but the consensus appears to be that some individuals and organisations may have stereotypes about people with AS, so the way to get round that is to not disclose until the offer is made and then they will have already formed a favourable opinion and be much more inclined to take you as an individual with individual needs and strengths.

On the other hand you might want to disclose your condition if it affects the way you perform at interview, and that gives you a chance to explain why it will not influence your job and to emphasise your particular strengths.

See, I actually felt quite heartened by the responses as I have a young son who appears to have AS (no official diagnosis yet) and this made me feel quite positive about his employment prospects.

Is this really different to the way you understood the thread? I would really love to know how different people understood the posts as I find puzzling out the undercurrents and implications of internet communication quite challenging myself.