Penny Andrews got her job as a library graduate trainee at Leeds Metropolitan University in August without any help from a charity or specialist employment agency.
Having beaten 200 applicants to the job, she believes she has proved herself to be the best candidate. "Sometimes I feel people think I should be grateful that I have a job but I'm performing a useful task and doing it well, so they should be grateful to me," she said. "After all, they wanted me badly enough to employ me a month before I had finished my degree in IT and communications with the Open University."
Far from feeling that her diagnosis of Asperger's is something to be "got over", Andrews maintains it gave her a lead over the other candidates. "I was completely open about my autism throughout the interview process and even asked for a few special conditions to take account of my Asperger's, such as working from 8.30am to 4.30pm,for example, so I don't have to take the rush-hour bus home, taking extra breaks in a special quiet area if I need quiet, and not having to answer telephones."
They are small adjustments for her employers to make, she said, compared with the advantages her Asperger's gives them. "I'm more focused, intense and honest than a neuro-typical person," she said. "I do things thoroughly and pay proper attention to detail. I'm always switched on: even when I'm not at work, I'll go to events that are relevant. Libraries are one of my autistic specialities and I harness that at work."
Employers are increasingly coming round to the arguments from disability
advocates that employing those on the spectrum is not about charity or
social responsibility – but the empirical benefit of taking on people
with unique skills.
Tom Madders is head of campaigns at the society and responsible for its
Undiscovered Workforce campaign to get young people with autism into
employment. He talks of a "vast pool of untapped talent" among those
with autism.
"When someone has the intellectual ability and ends up doing a job like
working in a supermarket, it's heartbreaking. It's such a waste because
although everyone with autism is different, the things they bring that
are additional to the rest of us include a very high concentration
level, very good attention to detail and analytical skills that are key
in data analysis and when looking for anomalies in complex
spreadsheets," he said. "Why would employers want to miss out on those
skills? In addition, those with autism have very specialist areas of
exhaustive interest which, if these can coincide with the job in hand,
can be extremely useful. They're much more reliable in terms of
timeliness and absenteeism and very loyal. Often, they're very happy in
jobs other people find boring."
