We know that you’re smart. We know that you have deep knowledge in a number of subjects. Everyone whom you know acknowledges your intelligence. While all of this is great, the frank fact of the matter is, it doesn’t translate into landing a decent job. Why? Because chances are, the smarts that you have don’t translate into the skills that employers need.
Let’s face it: those of us “on the spectrum” have it tough. All these smarts come with a price: our social skills — which come so easily to “neurotypicals” – are lacking at best. So how do you overcome that?
The simplest answer is, develop hard skills that employers need at their companies. This is not to say that you should neglect your “soft skills”, but it’s your hard skills that shall usually win you the job at the end of the day. These hard skills include training in the engineering field; they include training in computer science or programming; they also include training in accounting or in finance.
If the company manufactures anything at all – including food-related items – then it’s going to have an engineering department. That’s good for you, because that spells opportunity. There’s a running joke that Asperger’s is “the engineer’s disease”. As the saying goes, the sting of the humor is in the truth of the statement. In this case, those of us “on the spectrum” tend to take an analytical approach to the world, and it’s that very approach that makes us temperamentally tailor-made for this sort of work.
To land a job in that line of work takes formal training of some kind, though. It could simply mean earning a CAD (computer-aided drafting) degree at your local community college, and in finding an internship while working on the degree. This is exactly what I did. I earned an Associates of Applied Science of Mechanical Design (at age 31 – long story!) and eventually got on full-time at a conveyor machinery manufacturer, starting out assembling bills of material for all the types of conveyors we made. Assembling the BOM for each machine was a project all to itself. Eventually I was appointed the new production scheduler, but was soon able to leverage my CAD degree into becoming part of the engineering department when the opportunity arose, and was gradually able to learn more about engineering that way.
The best way to go is to go to earn a BSME (a bachelors of science in mechanical engineering). Again, make sure you get an internship or two while earning this degree. If you can start out with the basic courses at a community college where you can transfer the credits to a university that offers a four-year degree in engineering (mechanical, electrical, chemical, or the like), that would save you money. Surely that’s self-explanatory what with skyrocketing tuition costs these days.
Anyhow, if you earn a BSME (or BSChE or BSEE, etc.) and have an internship or two under your belt to boot, you will have some good employment options upon graduating. Indeed, the world shall be your oyster compared to the fools who wasted all that money majoring in world politics, English, creative writing, or other non-skills degrees. If you can land a job as an engineer, or even work your way into one like I did, then you’re in a good position to build a solid career.
The same thing goes for computer science/programming training. Even if a given company does not manufacture a darn thing, chances are, they still need IT guys. Moreover, even if they outsource their IT stuff to outside firms, those outside firms still need skilled IT guys to effectively render the IT services. Folks who work in IT are often considered “odd” by those who are outside of “the spectrum”, you needless to say, you’ll fit right in with this crowd. Moreover, since jobs like this require hard skills and some smarts, you’re in luck. The latter you likely have already. The former you can earn with formal training in school, and yes, an internship wouldn’t hurt. Remember, employers value experience above many other things.
If you don’t feel that technically-oriented, then you can fall back to the third viable option, that being accounting/finance. Here you can still use your analytical approach to things without having to be necessarily a science or math wiz. Yes, you read that correctly. You do not have to be a math genius to be good at accounting. The profession is not about being a genius at mathematics, rather, it really boils down to understanding the relationships of the numbers. That’s it. Such an understanding can be gained over time with formal schooling in accounting, and yes, an internship obviously would not hurt. The job of financial analyst is also viable, and it’s similar to accounting except you’re looking into the future instead of looking backward. The great thing is about this career approach is, it doesn’t matter what the company does: every company has an accounting department. Translation: tons of opportunity for you if you choose to seize it.
There truly is no substitute for on-the-job experience, because there you’ll quickly learn what you really need to know in order to be effective in said job. I currently work as a Product Application Engineer (it’s related to mechanical engineering), and I have learned more about engineering on this job than I did in any classroom.
So to recap, if you’re “on the [autism] spectrum”, here are your three most viable options for a good whitecollar job that can lead to a lasting, fulfilling, successful career: engineering, computer programming/IT, and finance/accounting. Choose one of those doors, throw yourself into it, follow the path of schooling and interning, and you should be well-set. Yes, there are further details, but we’ll explore those later. For now, though, let us orient ourselves towards these practical, marketable skills so we can all learn, grow, and prosper together.