Finding employment

JulieJoanne

Has anyone else with Asperger syndrome experienced difficulty finding work?  Since I left my highly-paid position within local government in 2007 - mainly because of a bullying supervisor - I have struggled to find full-time work.  I have been employed on a part-time basis as a secretary within a small independent firm since 2015, as well as invigilating examinations at various schools, but full-time work still eludes me.  I have 9 GCSE/O-level passes including English language, English literature (which I passed in 2017) and mathematics, plus Level 3 certificates in Microsoft Office and Sage.  Could it be because of my age (over 50), or because I have never married or had children?  A well-meaning friend recently suggested I get my hair hennaed to improve my chances!  I've been consistently told that I perform well at interviews, but tend to lose out to someone with more experience in a particular sector.

Ross_Alumni

Hello @JulieJoanne

Welcome to the community, good to see you join us. 

Sorry to hear that you've struggled with finding full time work lately, it would be hard for us to say whether there is a reason why you are strugglign or not, but I know that many people do find it hard for various reasons. Have you sought any support with finding work? Or done any preparation like volunteering to help boost your CV? 

You might be interested in reading about Scope's Support to Work service, which is a free online and telephone support programme for disabled people in England and Wales, who are looking for paid work.

janer1967

Hi and welcome to the community 

Sorry you are struggling to find full time work 

The job market is very hard currently with lots of applications for any vacancies 

Apart from the scope programme mentioned the job centre could help they have disability work coaches 

Good luck with your search 

JulieJoanne

Thanks for your support.  I must mention that I volunteered at two charity shops, a community centre, a sheltered accommodation scheme and a residential care home during one of my long periods of unemployment.  The local Asperger team assigned me a coach who worked with me for a year, but team restructuring forced him to withdraw his support last summer.

I am a member of two local societies, both based at church halls, and have plenty of hobbies: reading, knitting, cookery, bridge, Scrabble and tenpin bowling.

My only major problems are that I have difficulty with some athletic skills such as swimming, and dogs sometimes make me nervous (which means I would not be able to work as a vet's receptionist).  Also, certain group activities make me feel uncomfortable.

Tori_Scope

It sounds as though you have lots of great volunteering experience for your CV then @JulieJoanne. 

You mentioned that you often miss out at the interview stage due to a lack of experience. What kind of work would you like to go into? 

I'm sorry to hear that you were bullied at work in the past. Did you make a complaint about that at the time?

JulieJoanne

Hi, Tori - the supervisor who bullied me was suspended for 6 months pending an investigation, but was cleared.  She had been forcing me to make reams of photocopies of forms.  I suspect that the alarm was raised after I had had a meltdown in front of another team when the photocopier jammed yet again.

At that time, I was also caring for my late father, who was in the final stages of COPD.  I could not confide in him because of his illness; when I resigned, I told him that the office was relocating.

I was also bullied at school, by teachers as well as peers, because I found PE and whole-class music difficult and because I was less extrovert than the other pupils.

Ideally, I would like to work for the church, or for any kind of organisation that supports people with learning differences, as a administrator or secretary.