As many people already know, autism is a developmental disorder that can affect how the brain processes information and people with autism have a broad range of abilities and challenges. No matter where they land on the spectrum, from being unable to talk or care for themselves to being able to live on their own and having unique skills (like a great memory, with which this writer is blessed), many adults with autism have a very difficult time finding a job. Making it past the first interview can be a challenge anyone, but it’s much harder if you have an ASD.
That may be starting to change for the better. In October of 2020, 60 Minutes on CBS reported that more companies are discovering the potential of people with ASD, and some of them are even actively recruiting people on the spectrum to come work for them. Sounds like a great idea if I say so myself (which of course I just did).
Being interviewed on television can be nerve-wracking for anybody (I honestly wouldn’t know because I don’t watch a lot of talk shows) but it’s potentially overwhelming for the ASD applicant. Cameras; bright lights; microphones; and shaking hands with a complete stranger, which can be incredibly uncomfortable. In early 2020, before the pandemic was officially declared, Anderson Cooper interviewed five adults with autism, Brennen Novak; Phillip Mitchell; Erik Rolan; Brian Evans; and Sarah Klaich, and talked to them about their respective struggles finding work. Erik Rolan, who has a bachelor’s degree in sociology, was unemployed for three years and lost count of the rejections. This made him feel useless. Brian and Phillip were diagnosed when they were young children while Sarah and Brennen were diagnosed when they were in high school. Phillip says he does see the differences between him and people without autism, including his skill with numbers and mathematics; Sarah admits differences in communication are common with what she’s seen and would like people to understand that lack of or the ability to communicate doesn’t equal their intelligence level. [Congratulations on that Sarah.]
Dave Friedman hired these five individuals at Autonomy Works, a tech firm he started back in 2012 to proofread digital content and manage data for dozens of companies including Nike and Nissan. There are over 30 adults with autism working here, including his 26-year-old son Matt. He says they clearly have talents and skills and this job has given Matt a whole other purpose in life. Matt likes having a quiet office environment and even remembers when he got his first paycheck. His parents at first weren’t worried about when Matt became an adult because he’s really good with numbers and detail, but unfortunately a lot of adults with autism have very few prospects when they transition out of a structured school setting. Friedman got the idea for Autonomy Works while working as head of marketing at Sears and oversaw hundreds of employees checking the accuracy of newspaper advertisements and thought that Matt could do the same thing as it appeals to exactly the kind of way he thinks and processes information.
Employees at Autonomy Works monitor over 2300 websites a month for accuracy and quality. Friedman says their extreme attention to detail has made product and pricing errors decrease by 90 percent and productivity has increased by 30 percent because they’re so good at remaining focused. Brennen Novak says he has a great memory and so when he does a task once he can usually produce it exactly the same way as before. Sarah says part of the work is heavy on repetition and she can get into a rhythm with certain tasks. If the job was constantly changing, it wouldn’t fit her very well because her mind would be all over the place. Not all people with autism would be able to work in an office environment like this however-the CDC estimates about a third of people with autism have significant intellectual disabilities too. I don’t have a significant intellectual disability but I can imagine how hard it must be for people who do have them and their struggles in school or in the workforce.
Friedman says that autism is a spectrum that impacts people in a number of different ways, from being unable to feed or care for yourself all the way up to people you’d never know having it. At Autonomy Works, employees can wear noise-cancelling headphones and take breaks in a deemed quiet room with dimmer lights to reduce sensory overload. He adds that the most important accommodation companies can make is to change how they interview people with autism as the first 15 or 30 seconds of interacting with somebody are their worst by far. There’s high anxiety about meeting someone new, interpreting interpersonal cues, and trying to plan out how the conversation with the other person is going to go. To make it worse, those first 15 seconds are when the job interviewer is making their first and lasting impressions on that individual and aren’t taking the time to go beyond those first few seconds and understand those individuals skills, talents, or capabilities. I think for any job it’s important to go beyond first impressions and see what the individual you’re interviewing can really do to contribute to the company.
In fact, at the global accounting firm Ernst & Young, they don’t interview applicants with autism in the traditional sense, replacing it with a series of problem-solving challenges, testing their aptitude, creativity, and teamwork skills. In a demonstration in Chicago in early 2020 before the pandemic was declared, four current employees with autism were given millions of lines of data to analyze quickly and explain how they’d present it to a client. The firm has used this technique to hire dozens of autistic employees who work around the world in fields like artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and cybersecurity. Kelly Grier, the U.S. chairwoman of Ernst and Young, says that by doing this they’ve actually saved millions of dollars by looking at problems in a different way and creating algorithms to shortcut and automate processes. One thing every one of their clients is focused on now is how these employees use data differently to create competitive advantages or not feel vulnerable. This is a very rare skill set to have that’s in high demand now. There are still so many people with autism who are either underemployed or unemployed and they have a lot of incredible unused talent. I feel more people with autism need to be recognized for what they can do to better companies instead of being seen as dead weight and liabilities.
In 2019, Vanderbilt University opened the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, a groundbreaking research center where scientists and others are developing tools and technology to transform the workplace for people with autism. Some of their projects include computer-simulated job interviews, specially designed driving challenges and a block design test to help companies assess the visual problem-solving abilities of potential employees. Dan Burger, a data scientist at the center who has autism himself, took a block design test to compare his visual problem-solving abilities with those of Anderson Cooper, assembling a series of increasingly complex block patterns for 10 minutes. After Anderson Cooper completed his, his head started hurting but Dan made it look easy. Anderson completed his puzzles but Dan did them faster and was more efficient, placing the blocks methodically and usually only had to look at the sample pattern once before placing the first block. Anderson, however, wasn’t organized at all and placed blocks randomly and had to look back at the sample pattern repeatedly, commenting that his own mind is like a sieve. I tend to think my mind functions both ways and at different times.
Maithilee Kunda, a computer scientist at the Center who even showed 60 Minutes a wearable eye tracker they had developed, hopes employers will use similar tests to more accurately assess the capabilities of people with autism. She says this is especially relevant for jobs that are super visual like TSA baggage screening and inspecting batteries for quality control. I think quality control in general can be added to this like if you’re working in a restaurant.
Dan’s abilities also caught the attention of Keivan Stassun, an astrophysics professor at Vanderbilt who helped start the Frist Center and who has an autistic son. Stassun brought Dan on board originally because his research group was dealing with massive amounts of data from space telescopes and needed someone to look for patterns in all that data. His challenge was to make sense of data from NASA’s Kepler Telescope and he built an interactive software program called Filtergraph to do it. By using it, they managed to slice and dice the data and spin it around in different ways until something popped visually, and in this case, it was a breakthrough in astrophysics. Filtergraph produced a new way of judging the age and size of stars based on how vigorously they flicker in the night sky. NASA itself is even using the software now. Way to go Dan.
For advice to people with autism who are unemployed, Dan says there are a lot of strengths to having autism and thinks imagination is a huge key trait and for him, it’s being able to see things differently than other people do. A number of large companies are looking for people with autism as potential employees but the numbers are still growing. Back at Autonomy Works, the four people mentioned at the beginning of this post said they hope more companies will start recognizing the potential of people with autism. Brian says that having a job provides him with some much needed structure in his life and Phillip says it helps him be less financially dependent on his parents. Brennen says it’s nice to be able to talk to his parents about what he did during the day.
So people with autism may actually bring more to the table than most people realize. For anyone reading this who has their own large company, consider hiring some people with autism to come work for you. I guarantee you will not regret it. They can prove themselves to you and to the world at large that they contribute a lot.
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