Autism & Employment - A Struggle for Independence

By Matt Knight

My name is Matthew Knight. As of the publication of this article, I am a 28-year-old man with “high-functioning” autism. I am currently working at Amazon as an IT support associate. While I consider myself be lucky to have full-time employment with one of the world’s largest employers now, trust me when I tell you that this wasn’t always the case. As one person with autism among millions of others worldwide, I’m certainly not the only autistic person that has struggled with education, employment, socializing, etc. I think that I can safely say that my experience with finding suitable full-time employment is both familiar and unique.

Brad and Matt Knight – Run a Podcast and YouTube channel

Over the course of five years, it was constantly beaten into me that the interviewing system itself is deeply flawed, with an inherent bias to extroverted and charismatic individuals over those that don’t have such traits. As a result, I became more critical toward the world and less confident in myself and my ability to be a competent working professional equal to and/or above neurotypicals. I also started to just feel even more misunderstood than I ever had before, like I’m some weird alien who immigrated from Mars who will never be understood. accepted. I still feel like this, even today, but I certainly feel more at home working with competent professionals now at a respectable company than searching for jobs and being unemployed.

Originally, I earned my bachelor’s degree in political science with minors in history and information systems from the University of Indianapolis in 2015. I had a plan to enter politics and hopefully serve as a manager in state government, but, needless to say, I was very naïve about the field and what opportunities were available. Shortly

after completing an internship with a small political think tank called Sagamore Institute following graduation from college, I decided to transition to IT because of its growth potential and my previous (albeit limited) experience with coding in both high school and college. Initially, I wanted to become a programmer, but after some lackluster boot camp experiences, I decided to transition again to IT hardware/software support. I have found more success in this field, even earning an A+ certification in 2017 which helped improve my prospects somewhat.

Some of the more notable short-term contracts that I have worked on over the course of the past five years while searching for full-time employment were with large employers like Anthem, Caesars Entertainment, Ardagh Group, Eskenazi Health, and Eli Lilly. I even started my own YouTube channel called Knight Bros Commentary (KBC) with my older brother Brad back in September of 2018. On it, we discuss various topics such as the military, politics, autism, sports, movies/TV, etc. Here is the link to our website if you want to find out more – https://knightbroscommentary.weebly.com/

Unfortunately, even with the second transition and numerous short-term contracts, I was still having trouble finding suitable full-time employment. In order to remedy this, I started doing the following:

· Working with various government agencies and private enterprises specializing in job search and career coaching services.

· Getting more technical training, such as coding certificates and CompTIA certifications.

· Taking various career tests, such as the Predictive Index, Gallup Clifton Strengths, and the Extended DISC.

· Completed an interview with RTV6 to help raise awareness about employment issues for autistic adults back in March of 2019.

· Looking at transitioning to other industries, such as business intelligence, data entry, grant writing, the military, and law enforcement just to name a few.

Sadly, the numbers speak for themselves with regard to my job search over the past five years. As of June 2020, I had applied to 3,060 jobs and here are the results:

· 2,283 (75%) where nothing ever happened

· 574 (19%) just viewed my application

· 187 (6%) had offered me an interview

· 27 (.88%) had offered me the job (but most of them seemed to be terrible fits for me for reasons I will explain below)

· The three binders in the picture hold all of the notes I prepared for every single job that I have interviewed for at least once (on-site, skype/video, phone, etc.).

If am being honest with myself when it comes to my professional career, there are traits that I have developed over the years that have probably hurt me in the long run when it comes to my employment issues. Probably the biggest one that I can think of is getting mentally and somewhat physically exhausted after socializing with people for over an hour due to overanalyzing conversations. For me at the very least, this means taking in what people “say” and figuring out what they truly “mean” in a reasonably short time frame while also dealing with various types of distractions in the background such as loud noises, strong smells, bright lights, etc. As a result, I think that I simply don’t have enough charisma to effectively work within the system and I didn’t know how to improve said charisma, as I failed to really make much improvement in all of my mock interview sessions. During my fiveyear job search, I found that, due to nervousness, I would just end up just rambling when attempting to answer questions. It does take me a little bit longer to gather my thoughts, plan and organize myself in a way that “appears normal” despite what others may see.

The next trait I have “developed” is poor verbal communication skills in comparison to written ones. Even to this day, I wonder if my autism affects the way I interpret how someone physically speaks more so than neurotypicals as I do have a hard time communicating over the phone with someone. This is especially true if they have an accent, talk too fast, speak very softly, or any combination of those. As a result, I am far more likely to understand whatever message someone wants to send me if they send me digital text rather than trying to listen to them speak and spending a few seconds organizing my thoughts and decipher what it is that is said and what they actually mean via their tone.

Another potential hindrance is that I have a bad habit of occasionally just focusing my attention so deeply that the rest of the world just disappears until something happens to jar me out of it. Whenever I get into such a state of mind, it is just like the rest of the world simply doesn’t matter and the only thing that does is every task that has been assigned to me. While it may be true that many others on the spectrum are like me in this regard, I think that being detail-oriented isn’t that great of a trait to have in the long run. This is because, based on my observations at the very least, employers are not necessarily looking for “task-oriented” individuals but rather for “people-oriented” individuals or “culture fit.” This puts people on the spectrum at a disadvantage because many of us (myself included) tend to be more like the former than the latter.

Finally, I don’t suck up to authority figures or engage in office politics. I always try to treat people equally and hold everyone to the same ethical standards regardless of one’s social status because I think that is the right thing to do. Understandably, this mindset probably hasn’t helped me over the years, as many people who play the so-called game do tend to have relatively more success than what I have enjoyed so far based on what I have seen. However, maybe this doesn’t hurt me as much as I think that it does as some people might see me, and others like me, as honest, authentic, and virtuous.

To this day, I still struggle with perfectionism that originated from my own insecurities. It is also very important to keep in mind that autistic people such as myself (and many others throughout history) have always struggled because we do not have the same communication skills (or perhaps more accurately, “style”), as the rest of the population. Oftentimes, we are perceived to be arrogant or stuck-up when we are really just confused and don’t know what to say because we haven’t finished our analysis of what others have said to us, so we either say nothing out of a fear that we get a negative response or say something “politically incorrect.”

Now, the real question is how can we modify the current system to be more “tolerant” of “neurodivergent” people, not just those on the spectrum. Anyone who is neurodivergent or is a family member of someone who is neurodivergent knows how much of a challenge living with the disorder can be. In addition, this is often magnified by a potential lack of employment for people on the spectrum as many of us may tend to define ourselves by how we compare to neurotypicals. To this end, I do have some ideas:

· Implement a more practical structure where job applicant(s) actually do the “job” under the supervision of the interviewers, especially for higher-level and/or more technically difficult positions (i.e. replace “traditional interviews” with technical “auditions”). Examples of this could be having applicants doing any of the following:

· Create charts and make presentations from “mock” data

· Create a presentation for selling a “mock” product

· Design a “mock” landing page for a website

· Write code for a “mock” app.

· Troubleshoot and/or fix broken IT equipment

· Launch a “mock” social media campaign

· Answer a phone call from a “mock” enduser with a tech problem or wanting to return a defective product

· Take a multiple-choice test regarding possible scenarios that might occur within the job

· Perform in a role-play incident where someone deals with a distraught customer or a person behaving erratically in a “mock” crime scene

· Adopt portfolios across more industries where possible, such as programming, photography, website design, etc.

· Having interviewers avoid the following types of questions:

· Questions of a “personal nature” except when necessary (i.e. asking someone if they have a disability or if they have children so that they can be more accommodating if they were to be hired).

· Questions of a vague and/or psychological nature that have no discernable connection to job tasks and responsibilities. An example of this would be “if you could be any animal/ athlete/etc., what would you be and why?”

· Having interviewers use better “phrasing” of “behavioral” questions. An example of this would be “can you please tell me about a time when you experienced a massive disagreement with a boss or coworker and how you handled it.”

· Having job applicants “work” alongside current employees on tasks during the interview/audition if possible. Jobs that require a government security clearance probably should be exempt from this.

Overall, I, among many others, think that the system must change if people of all backgrounds and circumstances are to have a truly equal opportunity to make something of themselves. Thankfully, many employers are starting to see that the current/traditional system for interviewing candidates for jobs is flawed and are changing their process to fit an increasingly “diverse” population. This must continue if the economy is to survive, as employers will struggle to find effective employees if they base their decisions based on old customs and not technical aptitude. The time to start effecting meaningful change is now. Everyone, both neurodivergent and neurotypical, must come together in order to make this happen.

Matt Knight