Not all Spectrum folks want jobs related to computer technology!

There seems to be a school of thought these days that folks with Asperger's/ADHD/NLD can just go be "computer workers" and that's it, no problems, end of struggle with employment, see you in 40 years at retirement, etc.  While it may be true that some (many?) computer engineers have a bit of spectrum behavior to them, I'm not sure that it can be said that just because working with computers means less interaction with other humans that it absolutely follows that this is the career path for folks on the spectrum.

In fact, while being thought to be able to do well with a good job is not a negative thing, when people get shoehorned into positions that they are not interested in and unsuited for, it becomes a sort of prejudice that can do more harm than good.  Working on social needs and interpersonal skills is a task that never ends, and one that people on the spectrum MUST keep working on and practicing, with feedback from helpful folks in the moment ("in vivo", as it is happening so the connection between what just happened and how witnessing people might evaluate their behavior is clearly made) rather than much later.

When trying to find a job or choose a career path, going naturally with what the person likes, has pleasurable experience with, or already understands is a reasonable place to start.  "Interest-based assessments" can help narrow the field.  How can one monetize or make a career out of things they already have a affinity for?  That's both an art and a science, but brainstorming jobs that are connected to affinities with some sort of career coach or knowledgeable person is a worthwhile first start, and it might open up connections that the person had not considered...after all, doing a job search for the first time has a lot of unknowns involved and the help of people who have been through this process is invaluable. 

Once a list of potential jobs is written, working on targeted, personalized cover letters/messages and resumes that play up related experiences is another task that needs efficient time management, and something that a career coach or other helpful person can demonstrate and help with.  Hey, it may be that computers and technology are the perfect fit for a job hunter, and if so, more power to her/him.  But it's also possible that other interests and abilities might take precedence when brainstorming jobs, and if that's the case, I hope these items are also considered and followed up on. 

"Multiple Use, Sustained Yield" for job seekers and students and organizationally challenged

"Multiple Use-Sustained Yield" ("MUSY")  is a term used in a 1960 federal law that is meant to guide the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture on how to use the renewable resources in national forests.  Applied to organization and career-searching, it's also a very useful shorthand for thinking about how to perform certain tasks in a way that will be immediately useful to people in more than one way AS WELL as having ongoing, varied benefits that can be later reaped from this original effort. 

For instance, let us say you want to make a list of places to apply for a job.  You could write these possible places down on a piece of paper, crossing them off as you sent emails to a general address or the HR department, and that would certainly be better than not having a list at all.   Or, you could put together a document or a spread-sheet with company names, individuals at those companies that you have had interaction with, links to online articles about the company (in order to personalize emails or letters with obvious knowledge of the company), email and other contact information, space to record when outreach was made and what the result was, a date to reach out to them again if the first effort was not fully fruitful, and other useful information.  This latter option would serve you well right away and allow you to efficiently reach out with targeted letters to various people in the company (this would be an example of "multiple use"), and it would also be something that serves you well when you reapply to a place that really interests you if the time was not right for a fit when you applied the first time (here is the "sustained yield").

Sure, making the more involved document will require more minutes of work and devotion, and some longer-range thinking.  However, the increased and prolonged usefulness you'll get from that time will almost certainly be worth the time, effort, and thought, and it will also develop a personal habit of doing an excellent job on a task that while mundane, is also important.  This habit will almost certainly stand one well in future endeavors, personally and at work.  It'll take more time, so make sure you account for this up-front need in your time management and personal schedule!

Studying for a test or reading a report at work and taking good notes by engaging in "active reading," where you stop after ever page and summarize the page/paragraphs and record any lingering questions or observations you might have before reading on, is another example of "MUSY." Contrast doing this with just reading the text, flipping page to page, and having nothing written when done.  Sound like something you'll be able to recall with ease and get a longer-term benefit from? Applying "active reading" is the sort of effort will help with real understanding and recall, let you have notes you can refer to now and in the future, be something you can share with other workers or classmates, and generally exhibit a meta-application of the accurate, if aged, adage that "If a task is worth doing, it is worth doing right."

Take some extra time and imagine what would be most useful now and in the future with regard to a task, plan out how to accomplish this approach, and schedule yourself enough time to do it well, and you'll have saved time in the long run and given yourself many more options with the information than doing it in just the quickest way possible.  Try it and see!

Predicting how much time and effort a task will take...CRUCIAL SKILL

All too often, many students and adults have a distinct lack of understanding about how long a certain task will take them to complete, or even to do a "rough draft" of the task.  Why is this important?  It gets back to being able to master the variable elements of a schedule, having increased self-awareness and self-understanding, and lessening the stress and tension that naturally come along with something that we totally cannot grasp the time needs of.  Lacking this understanding, every night and weekend is without a possible predictable structure, every task might take 15 minutes or all night, and other tasks may or may not get the time and attention they might need..."and the planes back up on the runway," a term I use with clients in describing how other needed tasks don't get the attention they deserve.

One basic thing that helps with this skill get established is a person writing down how much time a task, be it English homework, searching Craigslist for a job, or writing an email to a mentor asking for a letter of recommendation, takes them.  This memorialization should list what the task involved was as well as the time used, and extra credit for listing the resources that helped the task (i.e. "Defined 20 vocabulary words from first two chapters of "The Great Gatsby," then used them in original sentences.  Took 45 minutes, used dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and PinkMonkey.com.") Then, at least there is a recorded, certain list of how much time a task took in the past, and in the future the new task can be compared to the old one and at least there is a guesstimate that is based in previous experience available.  Of course, English homework on one night might be vastly different from that of another night, and looking for a part-time job casually might be worlds away from carefully scrutinizing options for full-time employment when wanting to switch jobs.  That said, the more that tasks are defined and made granular (into smaller details), the better the application to future efforts and the more that can be gotten out of the effort, which is always a goal.

It is critical that outside distractions be kept to an absolute minimum during time of applied work.  Some people need silence in order to do their best work, others need music or a TV murmuring in the background, some benefit from being in a cafe setting, etc, but digital distractions like IM's, Facebook, chat rooms, and other social media HAVE to be controlled, or else the time that a task took will be grossly inaccurate...take the last ten minutes of an hour to engage in this activity as a reward for staying on task the other fifty minutes if being without it cannot be tolerated, or get to the social media when done with the needed work, but trying to divide attentions is only something that mostly results in doing multiple things poorly. 

Getting back to the value of being able to predict how long a task will take someone, as a longer list of precise tasks and the time they took develops, people quickly get better at comparing what the task they are dealing with is in comparison to older ones is like and how much time the new task will take.  Thus, they can decide what work to do in what order (Do the hardest, most time-consuming stuff first?  Or save it for when you are really warmed up?), how to chop up a larger effort into smaller parts and how to build towards a comprehensive finish, and how much time to allow this task.  It may seem like a small thing, being able to accurately predict how much time a certain bit of work will take, but in my experience it's a skill that students and adults alike MUST develop in order to take real control of their time management needs.  It's also a skill that involves many smaller things, all of which, when mastered, lead to a more resilient, responsive, and responsible individual.

Lose the guesswork!  Work towards a time diet that is predictable and fulfilling!

"Executive function" is really "EXECUTE-ive function!"

Ahh yes, "executive function." I ask clients if they know what this is, and once got an answer along the lines of "I don't know, but I hear it all the time...my Mom is an executive and she wears pantsuits, gets calls at dinnertime, and is alway sending texts." Now fashion and digital involvement aside, I can understand why this student was a bit confused. When I explained that often I intentionally mis-pronounce the term in question as "EXECUTE-ive function," meaning to execute a task, to get something done, to carry out fully, we began to make progress!

Asking the right questions gets higher-quality answers!

Had to grin when working with a client recently on finding their first part-time job and the lesson about asking "Why?" was reinforced. This person was absolutely dead set on working at a Chick-fil-A, and would allow no other options for their part-time work search. No McDonald's, no Burger King, no Subway, no In and Out, no No NO!

Rather than react impatiently or with judgement on this feeling, I simply asked "Why Chick-fil-A?" The answer came back that this person loves playing tennis with their sibling on Sunday afternoons, they have done this for years almost every week, and they wanted this tradition to continue...and Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.

This ability REALLY mattered to this client, and who am I to judge what goes into a complete and fulfilling life? I gently suggested that perhaps they could specify that they were not able to work on Sunday afternoons at places they might apply, and that this would allow many more potential job applications and thus potentially more interviews and job options. The client brightened and agreed that this would work, and so our effort to find a part-time job continued, but with much broader parameters and hopefully a greater chance of success!

Ask "Why?" and listen to answers...you might be able to present options to job seekers that they had not knew existed, and increase their job-seeking velocity!

Networking 101 for people who have not done it before

“Networking” sometimes is a concept that is misunderstood by many young adults, including people with unique abilities or learning differences. By “networking,” I mean reaching out to people that you may be acquainted with or that may be friends, neighbors, relatives, or business contacts of other people you know in order to have them assist you with a project, a job possibility, information-gathering, or other task that is timely and important to you.

Perhaps because it involves so many variables (Will the person know who I am? Will she be in a good mood to talk if I call her? Will he be angry I am taking up their time? etc. ) that might be things they are dealing with for the first time in such a way, I have had many clients express severe dis-inclinations to even try networking, and instead employ a different, often more difficult and less efficient route to get a result that may well not be as desirable, such as sending a cover letter and resume to a third person without a boost or helpful nod from a person who might be able to help with an introduction.

The thing about networking that is sometimes not grasped by people with no experience doing it is that it’s a compliment to the person you are asking to help you, and, done tastefully, it helps their reputation and image of connectedness with others. It’s also something that usually takes very little time and effort, and is often just a task that someone is glad to do in order to help another person out, knowing full well that they themselves have probably networked in the past and that they may be doing it again in the future, perhaps with people involved in your networking inquiry or others than these people might have contact with. On the “burden vs benefit” scale, it’s a small, reasonable burden against massive and untold possible benefits, and it also normally makes people feel good to help others out, and they know they have a favor or two banked in the game of life, which can take odd and unexpected turns sometimes.

One thing that helps my clients with early networking efforts is figuring out how best to contact a person they are attempting to network through, and helping them with the email draft, phone call script, or live conversation that they will undertake. No matter what medium it will take place through, having a quick and cogent main idea (I’ve also explained it as a “thesis statement” when comparing it to an essay need, something they may be more immediately familiar with) to let the person they are contacting quickly be able to understand what they are hoping for is always a good idea. This also helps the client think through what it is precisely that they want…is it just an email address, or is it an introductory email that they can follow up with? In most cases, the more the better, but this can vary.

Also helpful is practicing the “small talk” that can go on in a personal conversation or email, possibly reminding the person you are reaching out to who you are and how they know you, or, if you have never met, establishing that you are a friend of a friend/relative that has mentioned them. Better yet, having the contact set up a group email or meeting. For an email, helping establish this in a written draft is normally pretty easy, and for calls, having this written up as a script or in a few different sentence bites that they can use is also good. Writing it down along with things like “wait for answer” and a flow chart of possible follow-up sentences also helps prevent talking too much or getting off on tangents that might hurt the outreach and confuse the matter.

Helping clients make a list of people they know, encouraging them to ask parents/family members/friends about possible contacts they have in various potentially helpful positions, or helping them with internet searches for people that might be able to assist them is often a way to help the client think more broadly about potential networking targets. Often, clients may not understand that even “a slim reed” can be used for networking; it does not have to be a tight and deep connection in order to ask someone to help you network. Adding some reasonable creativity and vigor to putting together a networking list is something that an outside mentor or coach can help with, and when the client realizes that the list of people they could reach out to is longer than they might expect, it can be a step in the right direction regarding belief in giving networking a try!

So, explaining networking as a benefit rather than a burden to people you ask for a favor, lessening the variables, choosing the most comfortable way of outreach, scripting it out, anticipating the small talk needs, practicing via role-playing, and emphasizing the need for a thank-you (handwritten note preferred) are all parts of helping people get used to networking, a skill that will pay dividends throughout life and one that gets easier as you do it.

The value of a schedule prepared yourself

When working with uniquely-abled folks, people on the autism spectrum, or people who are trying to get more organized, the place I always start is with creating a clear and fair schedule.

By clear, I mean a daily/weekly/monthly schedule that isn't neccessarily "to the minute," but rather one that is realistic and is written down somewhere, and viewable and usable by more than just the person themselves...it often helps to have a partner/parent/teacher/mentor/etc have access to the schedule and see what the time usage chunks are, and to be able to offer input on events that the person may have overlooked, like standing commitments, family events, or appointments they may have forgotten. As these events are absorbed into the ongoing schedule, it starts to become more of a "living and breathing" document, and also has the advantage of having folks work on predicting what is coming up in their lives and having control over what is coming, rather than being surprised by events they perhaps should have been aware of but were not, either because someone else handled making the event and was going to get them there or just because the person does not have experience being responsible for time-planning.