Ongoing problems with unemployment and interviews. Aspergers, specialised degree.

I don’t know if this is the most suitable place to put this post. Could you please relocate it if need be?

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So, the scope of this post is to outline my experience with Aspergers unemployment. I am struggling with gaining entry into the workforce and I am not sure what to do.

For an introduction, I am 25 years of age, I was diagnosed with Aspergers at aged 16. I live in Northern Ireland. I have struggled with the more social aspects of the condition, my condition being mild it can be hard to spot initially, but becomes more obvious with time.

Education wise, I have 3 A levels. I attended a university in Southern England for a few years. I graduated in July of 2019, with a bachelor of science (Hons) in Meteorology (the study of weather). This is a very specialised degree that I regret studying. The maths was highly challenging and brought my overall grade down, I had to spend a lot of time indoors studying the maths. I was told about the maths in the course but it was not emphasised to me that the breadth of the course would be half maths based.

Anyway, throughout my time in England I struggled to fit in. I didn’t face any abuse or adversity. However, I found the local southern English to be very closed off, unfriendly and cliquey. It was very difficult to make any inroads socially, so I only made a friend in the final year. During my time there, I was continually isolated and depressed, I binge ate a lot. I still maintained fitness in the gym. I had developed a lot of independence that someone with Aspergers wouldn’t typically have, flying back and forth between Belfast and London once a month, every month. This alongside my monthly day trips to London mean’t that I had no problem travelling about in England alone. Whilst I have met people with Aspergers who can’t drive yet and need family or friends to go on a simple trip to the supermarket.

One thing that was not emphasised (at least not until the end) at my university was work experience. It was raised once or twice but no great emphasis. This is a major mistake that I made in not getting an industry related internship.

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Moving forward into unemployment. Since graduating, I have only worked six months. Three months at a university (unrelated to my degree) internship and 3 months recently in a retail establishment. I performed very well in both jobs, however, not being very social I think kept me back. Particularly in the retail job, I think the staff thought I was very weird. Although they made no efforts to include me, socially (didn’t talk to me. Tatted on to me to the managers. Complained about me in front of me, but didn’t offer to help etc.) In fact near the end, the people in my department would avoid coming in on the days I was there, which was extremely hurtful.

(Truth be told I heard the manager saying that these people were jealous of me. I wouldn’t be surprised as I had a very high output, they did not like that. I was given digs about this a few times. This is something I worry about in future jobs, I am a person who just goes to work to work. I don’t know how I am going to be able to handle this without rattling extroverted/lazy coworkers).

Anyway, beyond that I have spent a lot of time trying to get a job. I have applied for hundreds and hundreds of jobs in all sorts of sectors. I have been to over 50 interviews this year (I had one interview which was unsuccessful two days ago). I have no problem getting interviews, writing cover letters or passing psychometric tests. I have had interviews for some high caliber jobs for ex a statistician.

The problem is that I cannot get past these interviews. No matter how much I practise I struggle. I am a very neurotic and anxious person, I am highly perceptive to others body language and moods. I struggle to put across my enthusiasm and interest in the job, I don’t feel comfortable pretending to be jovial in front of strangers, it’s all very fake. I am also quite aware of others body language and can see their interest in me fading as I go further into the interview, for ex, the interview the other day, the woman kept fidgeting, looked uncomfortable and was using her phone. This showed me that she was disinterested and put me off big time. I forgot most of my answers and stuttered/struggled.

I have gone through a couple of practise of interviews and am constantly told that I sound disinterested.

I don’t think I can do anything about this. I am just not good at interviews and it’s my downfall in getting a job.

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I would also like to talk about employment in the Meteorology field. This is where I feel particularly depressed and saddened.

I have a lot of interest in the weather. I have a personal £1500 weather station which I have uploaded online. I spend a lot of time looking at weather models etc. This does not seem to be impressive to the meteorology companies.

I have had about 10 interviews for jobs in the field since graduation. The closest I have got to a job in the field was a 2nd interview. Time and time again an issue that comes up is lack of experience. Nearly every Meteorology job I come across requests experience. However, there are no internships opportunities for graduates, in the U.K. all of the internships are for undergraduates studying a degree with a placement year. So you can’t do a meteorology internship without being on a placement. I have sent cover letters to several companies asking for opportunities, to no avail.

One company, which I will not name is a major employer. One thing I regret putting on the initial application form is my Aspergers. Because it was a large company I thought it would help me, however, I think it was to my detriment. As I get the impression that they are highly rules based. I attended two assessment centres with this company and failed both of them.

This company hires people with A level physics and non meteorology degrees so that stands out as odd to me, that I would be rejected twice with a Meteorology degree. The company places a high emphasis on being social. During the process, I did notice they kept talking about being friendly with your coworkers which I found odd. I noticed they were watching me to see if I would communicate when at lunch. I did try to talk to people but felt very uncomfortable knowing that they were observing me.

During the interview, the people interviewing me spoke to me in a patronising voice and seemed quite negative towards me as a person. One asking “so why are you here for a second time”.

Anyway, this year I applied again. The job was military based, I noted one person from the military organisation was looking at my LinkedIn profile. I received a rejection email the other day. I am pretty sure this is because of my diagnosis of Aspergers. They put a no response note on the bottom so I cannot ask why. But I am aware and have noted that her military organisation does not hire those with an ASD diagnosis.

So, I don’t think this company wants to higher me due to my diagnosis of Aspergers. Why else would they higher somebody with a level physics but reject myself with a degree in Meteorology?

Honestly, I feel so hurt and depressed about this. I have a huge interest in the weather and have spent so much time trying to improve my knowledge and experience. I went out of my way to decrease my 1.5 mile down to 11 mins in the rare chance that I would be called for the military test. But no this company does not want to give me a chance, they will not look past my diagnosis. They do not see that people with Aspergers have a variety of skills and abilities, that it is not a one size fits all approach.

But no, nothing I do will get me a job in this industry. There is just no easy way to enter the industry. There is very few opportunities to gain experience and employers do not want to help.

So I have this meteorology degree and feel that it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. I really don’t know what to do at this stage. I have been unemployed for a long time and can’t get a job because I struggle in interviews.