Shyness/poor social skills/social anxiety/Asperger Syndrome & interviews/applications

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  • CFC
    CFC Posts: 3,119 Forumite
    anewman wrote: »
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    I then went to college part time to do maths and english GCSE. To cut a long story short I left college with the required 3 A levels for University. Went to University and studied Psychology, and got a first. A million miles away from where I was after leaving school you might think, but still I applied for jobs, got few interviews and the interviews I did have all went like lead balloons due to my poor social skills. I guess part of it is social anxiety. Whatever it is I cannot click my finger and make it go away. I feel like I am never going to get a job due to this difficulty. It will always be a problem, even if the problem is reduced somewhat. No job = I feel like a complete failure.

    When applying for jobs and going to interviews I spend lots of time and effort in writing the applications, and researching and preparing for interviews. Yet often it doesn't always help when it comes to the interview as I become somewhat anxious when it comes to the interview situation itself. It becomes monotonous and I can only feel like I am wasting my time and money applying for jobs and going to interviews.

    I know I am able to work well and I feel it would be a shame for me to remain jobless just because I am not good at interviews and some man behind a desk goes for the best communicator every time.

    Possible approaches I am aware of

    Getting the crappest possible job ever where no interview is involved (they just check you have a brain and a pulse) - not good for your mental well-being but gets you minimum wage and possibly a step up the ladder and an opportunity to develop social skills when you're not working your hands to the bone to meet manager's over-enthusiastic targets.

    Voluntary work - no money, more opportunity to develop social skills. Looks good on CV when it comes to looking for jobs. Likely problem - takes lots of time to develop social skills - still have difficulty in interviews.

    Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based self-help books - need effort, time and possibly the sort of insight you might only get from an experienced clinical psychologist who specialises in CBT, rather than a list in a book.

    The Shaw Trust - http://www.shaw-trust.org.uk/page/504/505/ looks interesting and worthwhile but no doubt they're geared up for all the "usual" challenges people with disabilities and mental health issues have when job seeking.

    I think it's a pity you did psychology and not a vocational course in a specialised area. At the moment, outside of academia, all you are offering really is the 'basic intelligence test' of a non-vocational degree. An employer will therefore want a well rounded individual, and you are competing against all the other graduates.

    Could you turn your hand to writing? You could try researching some magazines and sending some 'speculative' articles in. You don't need any social or interpersonal skills for this, and if you got something published it would massively increase your confidence. I do not know whether graduates can mark exam papers now or whether it is only fully qualified teachers, but something that was paper based rather than people based should be right up your street.

    Frankly, your lack of interpersonal awareness appears to me to even come over in most of your posts (eg. an insight into what others may think of what you say, or how they may react, or how they may feel), so I think you do have a real hill to climb in order to get a role in business commensurate with a degree. Any job where you are required to interact well with a team or with members of the public also does not appear to be a winner.

    I think you might perhaps consider getting some specialist career advice and deliberately look into what kind of work is done predominantly alone rather than with other people, and outputs mostly written work rather than verbal. Aim for those jobs, and work out what you will need to do to be a good candidate, eg maybe a short vocationally orientated course. Interpersonal skills, from an employer's view, are then a 'nice to have' and not a 'must have'.

    You mentioned in your other post that you feel that it is discrimination for employers not to employ you because of your lack of social, communication and interpersonal skills. Yes it is discrimination, in exactly the same way that no art studio would take me on as an employee, because I cannot draw or paint. I would be discriminated against in that job market.... absolutely correctly.

    Employers want the best people they can get to fill their jobs. You need to play to your strengths, and not ask people to make allowances for your weaknesses in ways that they cannot do. At the moment, in effect you are asking an employer to take a risk on you on the basis that given time, you will probably be OK, as your uni referee has said, where instead they could take on somebody who gives them no risk at all now and who may, given time, be very good. This is not the same situation as making adjustments to a job to accomodate a wheelchair user or partially sighted individuals.

    If you don't get a handle on this, and learn to really focus on what you would actually be good at, whatever that is, I fear you will desperately struggle with employment all through your life, and never truly understand why.
  • anewman
    anewman Posts: 9,200
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    CFC wrote: »
    Employers want the best people they can get to fill their jobs. You need to play to your strengths, and not ask people to make allowances for your weaknesses
    Ok so perhaps those jobs which say "excellent communication and interpersonal skills required" are out.

    There are still some "desk-based" jobs that come up occasionally. The last job I had an interview for as a research assistant involved taking data from clinical notes as opposed to direct contact with the clinical population. But it would of course have needed the occasional communication with appropriate people in external organisations, but would mostly have been desk-based, and most internal communication would have been e-mail based. I feel this job would have been suitable for me.

    Also in terms of the allowing for my weaknesses issue, to get a job I have to go through the interview process. Even if the job involves being sat at a desk with no phone or contact with people all day or week long, and the employer couldn't care less how good I am at verbal communication etc. Unfortunately it's universal for employers to use interviews to select their employees.

    The best communicators win in the interviews every time, even if the job requires zero communication/social skills, and that's where I feel the discrimination/unfairness lays mostly - the interview itself. So even if I did happen to be the best person for the job, and was not a risk whatsoever, I won't get the job just because of the interview. Even though my written application impressed them enough to interview me. I want to be valued and employed for my ability to walk the walk, not talk the talk.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,938
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    The reasoning behind interviews is partly that someone else may have written your application - with the real person in front of them, do you appear to be capable of what you've written?

    I know this might sound insane, but have you thought of joining an amateur dramatic society? There are usually plenty of backstage roles, where your lack of social skills might not matter initially, but you might pick up tips!

    Joining ANYTHING would probably help - evening class in a subject which interests you, choir, cricket team ... whatever you enjoy!

    DS1 (who has mild Asperger's) joined the juggling club at Uni and has a more hectic social life than I'd ever have expected!
    Signature removed for peace of mind
  • Jarvissa
    Jarvissa Posts: 158 Forumite
    Elle83 wrote: »
    My Mother's boyfriend has two degrees but wound up working as a postman due to his stutter and poor communication skills. Okay it isn't what he wanted but at least he brings home a wage and can support his two kids that he went on to eventually have later in life with Mother. He found another way to get something out of life even though his career never progressed.

    Sorry, off-topic but I had to laugh at this (in a pained kind of way!) - I've got two degrees and I'm a postwoman. I don't have a stutter, aspergers or any lack of social skills... it's just after 7 years of academia, I like manual work (when the job is done, it's done etc, always a definite end in sight if you catch my drift...)

    Although never a day goes by without my parents or friends telling me how I'm wasting my life...
    Wins for 2009: Nada, Zip, Zilch :(
  • Nicki
    Nicki Posts: 8,166 Forumite
    anewman wrote: »
    The best communicators win in the interviews every time, even if the job requires zero communication/social skills, and that's where I feel the discrimination/unfairness lays mostly - the interview itself. So even if I did happen to be the best person for the job, and was not a risk whatsoever, I won't get the job just because of the interview. Even though my written application impressed them enough to interview me. I want to be valued and employed for my ability to walk the walk, not talk the talk.

    Whilst I agree with you that it is discriminatory to request good communication skills for a job that requires no communication, it isn't true to say that the best communicators always get the job at interviews.

    The last two senior appointments I made actually went to people who did terrible interviews. The first person didn't answer any of the questions we asked in a particularly dynamic way, but came back into the room after the interview was over (just before we started deliberating) to say he knew he hadn't done well and to re-answer one question he had made a particular hash of. The other person we interviewed that day did a great interview but when we looked at her qualifications and references they weren't as good. The second post was given to the most nervous candidate, who had to keep starting again with all her answers, and when asked if she had any questions at the end of the interview, asked if we would give her feedback on improving her interviewing skills as she was sure she hadn't got the job!

    Properly trained interviewers are good at sorting out those who are nervous or socially a bit awkward from those who are bluffing about their capabilities, and that is the basis on which they make their decisions. You may want to consider next time you are invited for interview, warning the interviewer in advance that you get nervous/shy/whatever at interviews so that you feel more comfortable about the whole set up, then go in and talk about what you know without worrying about what the interviewer is thinking about your personality!

    Good luck!
  • anewman
    anewman Posts: 9,200
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    Nicki wrote: »
    and when asked if she had any questions at the end of the interview, asked if we would give her feedback on improving her interviewing skills as she was sure she hadn't got the job!
    Wouldn't have thought about that. Wish I asked that at my interview in Huddersfield as when they asked me if I had any questions, I knew I was wasting my time asking the questions I wrote down with how poorly the interview went.

    And I'm sure although these people did badly, I'd have done doubly worse.
    Nicki wrote: »
    You may want to consider next time you are invited for interview, warning the interviewer in advance that you get nervous/shy/whatever at interviews
    Always wondered whether this would just lead to less interviews, and I know I would feel more self-conscious about the issue if I made a point of it. I did retrospectively ask after an interview at Huddersfield if doing exactly this would have made any difference (and he gave a short phone conversation with me as I previously studied in the department in which he worked), and he felt it would not due to needing to deal with people's queries etc as part of the job, which is fair enough. He did seem impressed with my written application though, if not the interview.
  • studentphil
    studentphil Posts: 37,640 Forumite
    Thinking through the answers to questions before hand and having them preped is very useful to give a good interview and to overcome shyness.
    :beer:
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,938
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    anewman wrote: »
    Wouldn't have thought about that. Wish I asked that at my interview in Huddersfield as when they asked me if I had any questions, I knew I was wasting my time asking the questions I wrote down with how poorly the interview went.

    And I'm sure although these people did badly, I'd have done doubly worse.
    I know it's hard, but please please try not to think like this. I'm not a devotee of 'the power of positive thinking', ie if you wish hard enough for something it will happen, but I DO believe that if you think negatively, negative things WILL happen!

    Plus, when I took my driving test 2nd time, I was sure I'd made a hash of something early on, so I thought blow it, I'll just enjoy the drive. Which I did. Then when it came to the theory questions at the end I nearly said "Why don't we agree NOT to waste each other's time, I know I've failed." And I hadn't! But I surely would if I'd refused to answer the theory questions at the end.

    Plus you never know how badly others will perform. I've done interviewing, and can scarcely credit the disparity between some written applications and face to face answers. I'm not talking social skills, anxiety, shyness here, I'm talking plain stupidity!

    And for once, studentphil is right (although if he takes over this thread I shall report him to abuse!): if you think in advance about likely questions and practice the answers either in front of the mirror or with a friend it can only get easier!
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  • anewman
    anewman Posts: 9,200
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    Thinking through the answers to questions before hand and having them preped is very useful to give a good interview and to overcome shyness.

    Tried this myself, thnking of all the possible questions based on the job description, and tried to think of examples of when I have ... x... but with the nerves of the interview and self-doubt that keeps growing and everything turning over in my head, if I had pre-prepared a perfect answer to all the questions it wouldn't help much unfortunately. Not saying it's not worth doing of course as I am completely useless doing the opposite and stringing answers together on the spot.

    But perhaps with time and experience the process will get better.
  • studentphil
    studentphil Posts: 37,640 Forumite
    anewman wrote: »
    Tried this myself, thnking of all the possible questions based on the job description, and tried to think of examples of when I have ... x... but with the nerves of the interview and self-doubt that keeps growing and everything turning over in my head, if I had pre-prepared a perfect answer to all the questions it wouldn't help much unfortunately. Not saying it's not worth doing of course as I am completely useless doing the opposite and stringing answers together on the spot.

    But perhaps with time and experience the process will get better.

    What about looking an interview adjustment on disability grounds (assuming that you have AS)? You could certainly put on the disability interview adjustments for consideration on quality rather than presentation and more time than other people to think of answers.
    :beer:
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