You have an open position. You're receiving applications and screening candidates. You're worried you won't choose the right person. Maybe a candidate you chose in the past turned out to not be a good fit, or you learned more about one of the weeeded out candidates that led you to realize they were the right one after all. You value diversity and want your workforce to reflect that, but no neurodivergent candidate has ever been hired. You wonder if all those traditional methods like job interviews and personality tests really work as well as they claim.
For many neurodivergent people, they don't. 85% of autistic individuals are unemployed. I am autistic myself, and I have never been hired for a position where the employer required a job interview as part of the process. My strengths lie in written communication and technical skills like web site design. Traditional job interviews, with their emphasis on spoken communication and confidence, do not play to my strengths and I don't showcase well when interviewed. That's why I created this site. This site is my way of showcasing who I am and what I can do in a way that plays to my strengths.
Even though I have never had a job, I believe that I have a lot to offer.
I am very good at noticing details, and have used this ability to avoid costly mistakes. One time, while pursuing my Master's degree, I was paired with a person who did not know programming on an assignment that involved programming. I found and fixed several errors in her code that were later revealed by the teacher as common mistakes. These errors would have led to a lower grade for our assignment if I had not corrected them in my classmate's code. Other times, while volunteering or during my practicum, I would correct errors I found in the library's catalog, improving the catalog's accuracy and increasing the liklihood that a patron can find the resource they want.
I am good at collaboration and problem solving. As an autistic person, I do not naturally see social power gradients, and I do not play social power games. This means that my way of collaborating does not look the same as what most people see as collaborating. I believe that everybody's perspective has value, and the best solutions honor everybody's needs and perspective. I believe everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and I always do my best to help others who struggle in my areas of strength. When others join me in using my methods of collaboration and freely share their needs and perspective, the result is new, unique, creative solutions that work better for everyone. Sometimes my solutions push social norms, but I believe that when we know better, we do better.
I am not going to leave your organization just because another organization offers me a higher salary. As long as there is nothing that causes me stress, I will stay with your organization until I am no longer able to work. Befotre the pandemic, I had volunteer positions at two different libraries where I worked on cataloging projects. One library ran out of projects for me to work on after a little over a year, but I would have kept volunteering with them if they had not. The other I kept volunteering with until the pandemic shut down caused the library I was volunteering at to close.
I am, as I said above, an information addict. I believe the goal of communication is to share information. I both gather information well and share it freely. I do my best to be consistent and reliable in how I present my information. I value honesty and care more about sharing information than I do about taking advantage of other people.
I enjoy my work, I work hard due to my passion, and I want to do a good job. In the beginning of one of my volunteer positions, when they told me about a cataloging project they had, I responded with "Ooh!" They laughed and said it was a good thing I wasn't running away screaming. When I am working on a cataloging or programming project, I become very focused and quiet, and I tend to lose track of time. In autistic culture, this is called hyperfocus, and it's a form of autistic joy. Because of this, I do my best work when doing independent work in a quiet workplace. While I know there are tools and languages I don't know, I enjoy learning things that I can then apply.
Being autistic, I automatically will contribute to the diversity of your organization. Not only that, but I accept others' differences, have a lot of sympathy for other marginalized groups, and have a strong sense of social justice. While I have less personal experience with other minority groups than people who live in other places, I do what I can to learn about issues other groups face so I can be as effective an ally as possible.
But you don't have to take my word for it. My former professors, site supervisors, volunteer supervisors, and people I've helped have said the following about me:
- Rachel always came to work on time, prepared, and ready to learn something new. She approached all of her work with enthusiasm and a positive attitude, and she clearly communicated what she needed to perform well--Practicum Site Supervisor
- She was an intelligent and extremely hard working student.--Former Computer Science Professor
- I've found that she works best with well-structured projects that are computer based. She is reliable and hard working, and I look forward to our next project.--Web Site Design Client
- Rachel showed a natural aptitude for the topic. Her assignments demonstrated that she understood and could apply the concepts we were covering in class while still showing some personal creativity!--Former Computer Science Professor who taught User Interfaces
Sound good? Click on one of the buttons below. If you would like to...