Should one reveal being diagnosed with autism / Asperger Syndrome when applying for job? [closed]

Question

Should one reveal being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder / Asperger Syndrome when applying for an IT job?

From the one side this information could help getting the job. Asperger Syndrome is related with high intelligence and very poor social skills, so people with that syndrome are often brilliant programmers, but they find it very difficult to sell their skills and are rejected during recruitment process. They find it especially difficult to answer inconcrete, fuzzy questions such as "what are your strong and weak sides*, "what are your plans/expectations" etc. When the recruiters knows that they are speaking with autistic person, they would take it into account, that failure to answer to such questions doesn't mean, that one has no strong sides or is not ambitious etc.

On the other side, the word Disorder could close the doors. The potential employer could simply reject such person because they would be afraid of possible difficulties in integrating such person to the team or just are disorder-phobic and don't want handicapped people in their company to avoid potential troubles.

So, what must be taken into account? What are the pros and the cons of revealing such fact to the future employer and what is the best to do?

Answer 1

Why would you think that a Neurotypical ( NT ) person would consider Aspergers a benefit?

From the one side this information could help getting the job.

If you think that having Aspergers will help you get a job you really do have a total lack of understanding of how NT peoples thought processes work. They don't care about potential brilliance as much as they care about difficult personality.

The NT tends to play it safe, and would rather have a team of all mediocre NT staff than risk one supposedly brilliant person mucking up the works by having everyone else have to deal with their idiosyncrasies.

Software development in the corporate world is about teamwork, revealing that you don't have innate skills to deal with people isn't going to endear you to anyone that is trying to build a productive team.

It is a misconception that Aspergers correlates to High Cognitive Abilities.

Here is a great discussion on why there is this misconception, and what the reality is. Below is just a snippet of the entire article - Are All Aspies Geniuses?.

The Reality

It's important to remember that aspergers often carries with it comorbid conditions, such as ADD/ADHD, Bi-polar, Schizophrenia, Learning Difficulties & OCD. Many of these conditions interfere with the aspie's ability to learn, particularly in the same conditions as neurotypical children.

NT employees are hard enough to deal with without throwing a wildcard into the mix.

Answer 2

I have never been diagnosed, but it's pretty certain that I have Asperger Syndrome. I have most of the related traits.

I dislike that it is called a disorder or that people relate it to autism. (I used to work with autistic children -- while they may both be related to childhood development, there is very little else to connect the two.) It is, put simply, a set of related personality traits, like being judgemental or extroverted. It does not, unless you allow it to, stop you from functioning like anyone else.

With that in mind, let me put it to you this way: If I interviewed you, I would probably recognise the traits in you pretty quickly, and I would not care one bit. You are not automatically a good developer because we share some personality traits. Nor are you automatically a bad one. I know nothing about your ability to do the job based purely on your AS.

No good will come of your pointing it out to me. No bad will come of it either, but that's not the point.

If, however, I am one of the many people who have heard Asperger Syndrome related to autism, and my only experience of autism is watching Rain Man, what am I going to make of your admission? Think about it, seriously. At best, I'm going to assume you're hard to deal with and prone to tantrums. At worst, I'm going to think you cannot function as part of a team. Or I might, in fact, think that you throw that information around as a preemptive excuse for bad behaviour, like some (not all) people do with ADHD.

If you don't point it out to me then I may be able to notice that you don't have the best social skills and that you're extremely precise and logical. If I'm in a position of managing developers, I have probably seen this before and learned to deal with it. I'm not going to think much of it unless your job requires high social skills (in which case you don't want it anyway).

I cannot think of a single reason why you would want to push this information in an interview. It cannot benefit you. It can cost you. And in the end, it has no bearing on your job; it is not information an interviewer should feel aggrieved that you failed to offer.

That said, I wouldn't lie about it either; lying in an interview is always bad. If asked directly, I'd say that I certainly follow some of the behaviour patterns.

Answer 3

Personally, I don't think this, or any other medical condition should come up, because it just shouldn't matter - unless it will have a significant and obvious impact on the job.

Employers might not want to hear about it, because if they fail to hire you, they might worry that you'll accuse them of discrimination based on your condition.

Answer 4

It's important to let your employer know about your condition and make sure that the appropriate accomodations are made for you. However, as others have pointed out, if they're aware of your condition during the interview, it may affect their judgement.

One option to consider is informing them after the interview (or after you receive an offer) but before accepting it. Depending on where you live, there are legal ramifications to discriminating based on disabilities (for example, in the USA, this is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act). Being forthright about your condition will also help you to get better working conditions as suited to your needs, which is important to both your interests and your employers'.

Everyone has different levels of understanding about autism/Aspergers or any other condition. I wouldn't depend on it to help you or hurt you in a job interview (it could do either), but be deliberate about how you present it to potential employers.

Answer 5

IME, it depends enormously on the position you're interviewing for, and how you deliver it. Both of those trace to your internalization of it.

For one thing, bear in mind: Aspbergers' is a syndrome, not a pathology. The same is true for autism. It's a collection of symptoms, most of which just so happen to compliment tech fields. To the point of cliche.

It's really not a big deal. Discrimination happens when prejudices are triggered, so avoid this by wrapping it in humor. I broach the topic in an interview like, don't you kind of have to be at least a little autistic to do what we do? I mean, what are we doing, really? We're stacking blocks. We put those blocks inside other blocks, and then we stack them again.

We're playing with Legos. For a living.

This makes it amusing, and light-hearted, and firmly frames the topic as being a person with autism, not an autistic with person. The idea that it's a 'disorder' is completely avoided: obviously we're ideally suited for this task, and how does 'disorder' fit into that? The end.

On the occasion coworkers / bosses inquire (always after hire ;) ), the dialogue follows these lines: yeah, I really am autistic. It's whatever. Sarcasm is sometimes lost on me. I default to stone-cold literal, meaning sometimes I will react completely literally to what I couldn't tell was a joke, and I won't even stop to wonder if you were serious until you start looking at me like I'm the weird one. :P Sometimes, you'll ask me a question and I'll deep-dive to no apparent in a quest to provide a complete answer. It's a bit annoying, especially for me - but hey, at least I take you seriously. ^_^

Anyway, that's how I deal with it. HTH :)

--- Edited to add context and clarify strategy for demonstrating this as desirable

So, interviewing, for me, is necessarily for senior dev. I expect to speak with multiple people - often the entire team. The ratio of business-facing (ie, the project manager) to devs is usually ~1:3-4 and at least one will be the lead dev. It's a luxury - being able to safely presuming everyone is well-versed in the culture of software dev, business or dev.

The key is in your thinking: your technical skills are the reason they're interested in you to begin with! Emphasize this and how it translates into, say, the apparently uncanny knack for delivering what they WANT, based on what they SAY. Conversely, play down frustrating traits (ie, deep-diving technical issues unto infinity, etc - you know how we can be, I'm sure ;) ) with humor. This creates the contrast necessary for potential employers to perceive your dx as flattering, instead of prohibitive.

-- hth :)