I will be getting interviewed very soon (tomorrow). I have ADD¹.
Without going into a whole lot of detail about what that is/isn't, it's enough to say that it's difficult for me to concentrate/focus, among other things. This causes mid-interview anxiety and frustration.
Because of this, technical job interviews have the potential to cause, and have caused, enough anxiety to actually become dizzy/lightheaded and nauseous mid-interview, which, needless to say, can make it nigh impossible to answer even simple questions, write code on a shared board/document, and, overall, have a reasonably successful interview.
Please note that I perform well while at the job, even when the conditions are somewhat stressful; it's not a job performance issue.
I've been through interviews where I've performed poorly simply because I couldn't think clearly enough to answer (sometimes simple) questions during the the process and the anxiety it brings² -questions that I can reason about and answer just fine a few minutes later after I'm more relaxed and can think more clearly, such as writing a function to generate prime numbers...
While I've been preparing for this upcoming interview for the past week, I'm still very concerned that I'll just make a fool out of myself again in the process -which, yes, can be sort of a vicious circle.
OTOH, I don't want to go into an interview and give the impression that I'm just trying to "make excuses" for (potentially) not doing so well, and so on. So, I don't think it'd be a good idea to inform my interviewer(s) about my condition and I'd prefer to avoid it if at all possible.
I've read this question and believe the accepted answer is very good, but the recommendations (e.g. having the pocket card) seem to be more practical for in-person interviews³.
I've also gone through this other question and think the accepted answer makes several good points, but it also seems an "easier said than done"-type of situation. (Obviously, if I could easily do those things, I wouldn't have a problem in the first place.)
This other question about anxiety during coding interviews is very likely to be applicable, but appears to be general, whereas I was looking for something more specific to my ADHD context, if at all.
My recent interview was on the phone (one-way video), and this next one will also be on the phone (no video), which makes this impractical IMHO. In addition, given that the initial phone interview is scheduled for 1 hour, having to excuse myself for an extended period of time on the phone (or even in-person) seems unprofessional/undesirable and just less likely to have a successful interview as a whole -much less a 2nd/3rd interview, etc.
My questions are:
- Is it really a bad idea to communicate this? If not, how can it be communicated in a way that does not give the wrong impression or place the interviewers in a position where they might feel "compelled" to give me a "thumbs up" regardless of how they felt?
- If you've been an interviewer, what do you suggest I should do to better handle the situation?
- If you have personal experience with ADD/ADHD, what, based on your experience, can be done to have better control of the situation, given the special considerations the condition has?
I'm open to additional recommendations, especially if you're experienced in the area in some way (e.g. you also have ADD/ADHD, are an interviewer, etc.) since I'm not necessarily sure I've even asked the "right" question(s).
For context, both me and the company are in the USA.
Thanks in advance.
Footnotes
¹ I was diagnosed in 3 separate occasions; I'm not a person who claims to have ADHD without having been evaluated or any sort of evidence as I've sometimes seen other people do, but I digress.
² During a recent interview, I started to feel lightheaded and nauseous while writing code on a "whiteboard" to solve a problem during an online video interview. I didn't say I was feeling that way and tried not to show it, which likely gave the impression I was simply less-than-competent for the task. It's similar to when people don't have the "stomach" to see blood and their body just reacts involuntarily to it, causing them to feel dizzy, nauseous, and so on.
³ Something I think I've noticed is that I tend to do better if the interview is more similar to a conversation/discussion, rather than a "You have 5 minutes to write code to find the shortest path between two nodes in a graph", but this is outside my control as an interviewee.