Ringaround of employers for Asperger awareness

The guy doing the "Flexible Routeways" had a ringaround of 8 employers of different types about what they would do if they had employed or were about to consider employing someone with Asperger. He's just e-mailed me about his findings, with only 2 of those contacted fully aware of Aspergers. The others were happy to listen and agreed the potential benefits far outweighed the negatives. In some cases, it was thought that extra time which the companies didn’t have would be needed to give help and assistance to a person with Aspergers, after explaining only the normal about of induction time was needed things became clearer, the only main adjustment being to reallocate substantial amounts of face-to-face and telephone contact with customers and suppliers to a colleague with better ability on that count.

Interview feedback - not optimistic

Not optimistic about the interview unfortunately. Before going I felt boosted that I had got the interview as my outgoing letter had already said "I would finally make you aware that I do have a moderate condition of Asperger's Syndrome, so would not be well suited to customer or supplier contact", and I was pleased they were interviewing me in apparent full awareness of this.

However a few questions into the interview I got "How are you at dealing with awkward customers?" I referred back to the letter and the interviewer admitted that she hadn't noticed this part, and didn't know what Asperger was. I was asked because the "small family run business", really is that small, it is just father and daughter and the new person, and on two days of most weeks they would be out of the office a lot leaving the new person to work alone, thus being the lone face and voice of the company.

What got to me most about this is that as jobseekers we are constantly reminded to prepare by finding out about companies so they can ask "What do you know about us?". Yet on this occasion they hadn't prepared as they clearly overlooked that sentence in my letter.

First interview in six months

Had an e-mail back from a marquee hire company where I'd applied for a position doing admin and invoicing. I have an interview this coming Thursday 9th, its the first one I've had since the electricians' place in October.