If your workplace wants to successfully recruit autistic and neurodivergent job candidates, consider these insider tips on how to make the hiring process easier.
Category: Disability
There are dangers to assuming autistic people need routines, without understanding why. Routines imposed by other people are likely to do more harm than good.
I have trouble orienting myself in space, and simply telling me where something is isn’t particularly helpful. I would be able to find things and understand complex concepts easier if people used illustrations.
If I don’t have the right information, I risk doing the task incorrectly and having to redo something in a different way and/or having someone get angry with me, angrier than when I was just asking questions.
If I tell you I need something, listen. I might not have the energy to communicate your way, can we please communicate my way for a little bit?
We talked with epidemiologist Dr. Rene Najera about the state of COVID vaccines, masks, and trusted sources for pandemic information—as well as why he doesn’t like to use the word “booster.”
Listen to me. Please. I went to therapy for countless hours over countless years to be able to identify and express my needs and now that I finally can, it seems like it doesn’t matter.
A huge way to accommodate me is to just ask instead of assuming, or assume good intentions first. It shows you are trying to come from a place of understanding, which is the first step in building trust for me.
Something that would make my life easier would be accessible virtual health care; in other
words, NOT by phone.
Those who would deny people access to their most effective method of communication because of concerns about the potential for false accusations should, as Rua Williams recently wrote, “ask [themselves] why a false accusation is more harmful than the ability to accuse.”