Finding strengths after losing job

alex197 · 17 June 2018 at 8:07PM

Hello, I’ll try to keep this as short as I can. I’ve highlighted the main part of the question if this is too long-winded.

A quick back-story to the question I’m about to ask in case any of it is relevant. I am 26, currently unemployed and have begun looking for work after my last role ended in a Stockroom/ Production environment having only worked in one other similar role for a combined total of 10 months since leaving full-time education (college) 7 years ago when I got a BTEC in IT business. I have however volunteered at a few places in this period (Mostly in warehouses but also a very small amount in an office and a kitchen). I have also just finished re-taking Maths and English GCSE’s which I did part-time after a recommendation from a careers advisor last year, given I left school having failed them.

Now I’ve never been really sure as to what I can do in a workplace and what my strengths are, and after my last employment I feel like I now know even less. I always thought that this sort of role would be ideal, I’m terrible at dealing with customers and thought I could work at a good speed and pick up things quickly. But after working there I found out that I can’t learn as well as I thought I could, can’t work with my hands well and could not keep pace despite best efforts and ended up being made to do really basic tasks after overhearing that management were not impressed with me, unsurprisingly I was not kept on after the contract ended.

At present I’m starting to feel I just don’t have enough skills or strengths to offer employers. Every time I’ve ended up in a work/voluntary environment I feel like I only know more of what I can’t do and nothing or little of what I can do and now that I’ve begun jobsearching again, I look at descriptions and requirements for jobs and just don’t feel like I could perform in any role at all. The only two strengths I think I may have is being organised and maybe being eager to learn (but as mentioned I don’t think I can even do that well enough anymore).

So how best can I find out what other strengths I may have in a workplace are? Do I need to try working/volunteering in a different area I haven’t tried yet? Do I need to keep at similar past roles in case I improve? Or am I just unskilled and there’s nothing I can do, maybe down to having Aspergers? Or is there something obvious I've missed? Because at present I just don’t even know what roles to look for anymore.

I'm really starting to get concerned now, all I want is to be able to work competently in a role without being unable to do it through lack of ability and there surely must be something I could do, I don’t want to keep being mostly unemployed for the rest of my life.

Sorry if this comes across as a sob story as it’s not intended, I just really want to make a mends for the past few years of not doing enough and I don’t think I could take another long stint of unemployment. The not knowing if I’m even capable of working anywhere anymore is frustrating when I’m trying to move my life forwards for the first real time.The GCSE’s I re-took recently as mentioned was primarily so I could move forward in some direction at least, and I'd to go any length if it means I can get out of this mess I’m in because I really am tired of being out of a job and not knowing if I’ll ever find one I can do. I really want to keep the ball of my future rolling forward and I think knowing more about what direction to go now would be a huge help in this.

Thanks for reading, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Savvy_Sue · 17 June 2018 at 8:21PM

OK, so the Aspergers may make life more difficult, there's a lot of it in my family, but it also brings strengths, even if you haven't yet discovered them.

Do you have passions? As a teenager, DS1 wanted nothing more than to work for Games Workshop, for example, and he could bore for England on that subject, and on Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek ... Whether that would have made him more or less employable I'm not sure, but it was at least a start. We found out GW wouldn't employ him before he was 18, so the obvious thing was to do A levels, and after that ... things changed.

And he's also gone from very poor social skills to being barely noticeably different over time - as has my DH. So I'd say customer skills can be learned, in the right environment. In fact I'm sure I was served in Tesco by someone well on the spectrum!

Did you enjoy studying for your Maths and English?

Can you speak to the Careers Adviser again?

Definitely worth trying other areas of volunteering if finding another job proves tricky.

aife · 18 June 2018 at 2:00AM

stop beating yourself up OP (and who exactly do you feel you have to 'make amends to ?)
As already suggested you need to think about what interests you . You'll find it easier to learn new skills if it's something that appeals to you
Have you tried registering with an agency for temp work ? Apart from earning a bit of money it would give you the chance to try things out.
you could also try evening classes / part time courses , again as much for the sake of trying things out as getting qualifications.
do you have IT skills ? That can be a good fit for people with aspergers. you might even think about setting up as a virtual PA or some other kind of freelance.
Don't get disheartened , you're young and the way we work is changing

alex197 · 18 June 2018 at 11:01PM

Thanks for all the replies, sorry for the late response.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Do you have passions? As a teenager, DS1 wanted nothing more than to work for Games Workshop, for example, and he could bore for England on that subject, and on Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek ... Whether that would have made him more or less employable I'm not sure, but it was at least a start. We found out GW wouldn't employ him before he was 18, so the obvious thing was to do A levels, and after that ... things changed.

And he's also gone from very poor social skills to being barely noticeably different over time - as has my DH. So I'd say customer skills can be learned, in the right environment. In fact I'm sure I was served in Tesco by someone well on the spectrum!

Did you enjoy studying for your Maths and English?

Can you speak to the Careers Adviser again?

Definitely worth trying other areas of volunteering if finding another job proves tricky.

I don't really have any solid passions which is really frustrating, I know that if there was something I really liked I could focus on something similar but unfortunately I lose interest in things very quickly. I naturally really wouldn't be keen on a customer-facing role, though if i'm facing long unemployment again I may have little choice but to take the plunge and hope I can pick it up.

Yes I actually really enjoyed learning English and Maths to my surprise, the latter I found I could do much better than I ever thought I could but i'm not sure if could put that to use in a workplace as it is a very different scenario.

I could speak to the careers advisor again, but I don't think there's much more I could ask I asked a lot of questions when I last saw them. Plus they I think they base their judgement on a test which I have done again recently which came out more or less the same.

aife wrote: »

stop beating yourself up OP (and who exactly do you feel you have to 'make amends to ?)
As already suggested you need to think about what interests you . You'll find it easier to learn new skills if it's something that appeals to you
Have you tried registering with an agency for temp work ? Apart from earning a bit of money it would give you the chance to try things out.
you could also try evening classes / part time courses , again as much for the sake of trying things out as getting qualifications.
do you have IT skills ? That can be a good fit for people with aspergers. you might even think about setting up as a virtual PA or some other kind of freelance.
Don't get disheartened , you're young and the way we work is changing

Making a mends to myself, I was incredibly unenthusiastic about finding work or even trying to better myself in the past and it I just feel I let myself down as I now know I could have done much better.

Regards interests, again I suppose it's difficult to find something that I like when I struggle to hold down an interest for very long.

The majority of agencies in my area seem very role-specific, which does put make deciding which ones to go for difficult given my plight, but I definitely see the benefit of trial and error so I may look into that again.

I'm definitely open to learning but I feel reluctant to do it for the sake of it, unless I was dead set on something I thought was a good idea, may sound ridiculous but I feel I've been in education far too long as it is.

I do have IT skills and have an OK knowledge of programs. I actually do like creating things like spreadsheets and I also used to do a bit of 3D modelling in my spare time. However I've found that most jobs that are IT-related require a lot of skills and most of these (such as telephone handling) I just do not seem capable of.

I've also just signed back on and have an initial JSA appointment on Friday, so it would be nice to know in advance what roles I am looking for when they write my agreement. I think i'm just being far too worried about heading the wrong direction and continuing to go round in circles, but I do know that doing nothing at present is far more damaging.

Finding strengths after losing job

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