Young adults in UK in trouble, what chance for aspies?

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I have been trying to find employment for about 8 months, and so far out of my many applications have received two interviews both of which resulted in failure.
I am 23, recently graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, have a full set of A*s at GCSE and As at A-level in real science subjects. I have quite severe Aspergers but can largely pass as normal (with significant constant effort), the only apparant problems generally being eye contact and sensory sensitivity (to bright light and loud noise).
As far as I can tell, I should be employable. However, my lack of previous experience means I don't even get a chance. Every viable job I see advertised anywhere is demanding years of specific experience, even for part time roles (such as 2 years experience for a 5 hour per week library assistant role). The only jobs that sometimes crop up not requiring experience are jobs I cannot perform due to autistic issues, such as sales. I live in London, and have all of this massive city in which to find a job, but still nothing.
I cannot return to education because I don't have any money or family support, I cannot apply for internships for experience because you lose Jobseekers Allowance if you take one and that's all I have to live on. I already volunteer as much as I can while getting JSA, but I can barely afford transportation to do so.

In a socio-economic climate that is screwing over even neurotypical young adults, what chance do young adults on the autistic spectrum have of finding employment? After all, the statistics say we are far less employed even in healthy economies.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially from am older and experienced Aspie with a magical solution that I've somehow missed.

Last edited by Torpenhow on 02 May 2012, 6:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I was actually lucky in that I left school at 16 so have experience, just working on the qualifications now!
Have you tried a temp agency at all? You can get experience, the consultants can help you find something suitable for you, and if it doesn't work out, it's easy to leave.
Whereabouts in London are you based? I got a lot of data entry jobs in the City through the Cannon St branch of Reed Recruitment ..

I'm an older aspie who's bounced around from job to job. Sorry to say, I've never heard or seen a "magical solution" to the perfect job. You just have to go out there and, yes, take jobs you don't 100% qualify for. Personally, I don't know if there is such a thing as a job one can be perfectly satisfied in. You just do the best you can and hope friends & family members will help you along the way.

There's no magical solution, it's numbers and luck - take full advantage of what positives you have on your side.
Firstly volunteer work - they should be paying your travel costs - make sure you're focusing your volunteer work on something useful towards the type of work you're looking to do, also if you can go do some short-courses at college...they're free while you're unemployed, and even if they're not much use to you it still shows a willingness to better yourself rather than sitting on your ass watching Jeremy Kyle (which is what all employers think us unemployed people do all day).

Pay no attention to what job centre or Work Program staff tell you about how you should job search, write your CV's or interview technique - they really are not there to help you so learn these skills for yourself as much as you can, I recommend you get a copy of the book 'Job Interviews: Top answers to tough questions' by John Lees and Matthew J. Deluca. Get as creative as possible with your job search too, also get on Linkedin etc. - you're reaching the point when you start to be thought of as unemployable, you may see a dip in the number of interviews you get, thus it's important to make yourself known with recruitment agencies and apply for all you can - take rubbish jobs too, but do so with a goal in mind.

Although it doesn't seem like it you are lucky - I'm 4 years and 3 months into unemployment, I had multiple strokes in high school so didn't get the A* grades I was predicted, I was both too ill and too poor to go to university, I'm now 28 with bills to pay and really terrified for the future. I've barely had a handful of interviews and I can't seem to find any voluntary work, I've also been forced into harmful or outright dangerous work experience via the job centre. As I don't have qualifications worth a damn I'm stuck applying for retail jobs which are inappropriate for a number of reasons, not least of all because they're only part-time which would see me worse off than on JSA. Not meaning to get my life into this, the point is that you are better off than some of us so don't be too downbeat and work with what you've got.

The undiscovered workforce.

Last edited by Bloodheart on 02 May 2012, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@Intravenus
I appreciate the grounded straightforward suggestion, and have now added a few temp agencies to ,y long list of jobseeking websites. However, my initial look through hasn't turned up anything that doesn't require experience.
I'm based out on the eastern end of the district line (zone 6), and there certainly isn't much help available without significant travel into london.


@redrobin62
All the jobs I apply for are either those I don't have the qualifications or experience for, or those I really don't want to do due to autistic issues. Don't get me wrong, I'd take those horrible jobs, but I doubt anyone will give me one.
I'd be satisfied with just getting a job I can cope with, and feeling like I contribute to society. Unfortunately my two friends aren't in any position to help me in any way, and I receive regular anti-aspergers abuse from my family.


@Bloodheart
I volunteer at the Natural History Museum, and they do reimburse travel but it doesn't cover quite enough.
I'm looking into those short-courses, I saw something about them some months ago but I thought they were just for pre-GCSE or basic reading/writing/maths.
edit: actually I cannot find any information on what free courses might be available to me. Do you have any leads on that?

Indeed the jobcentre has been useless, but at least polite and useless rather than aggressively useless.
A sharp dip in interviews? Damn, I though 2 out of about 60 applications was bad enough.
Can you recommend any 'rubbish jobs' that are viable? I really dont think I could reasonably work in retail or fast-food.
(I'm sorry to hear your situation is so dire, I wish I had some measure of helpful advice in return)

Do make use of the employment/temp agencies. I always had a hard time finding work on my own, so most of my work history was with temp agencies. I am on disability now due to my other health problems.

Check out the online college courses. Many of them are free. The upside is that there are no transportation costs to take them online. The down side is that the free ones often don't include a certificate or degree.

Another thing to consider is vocational schools. They can train you for jobs in careers where people are still hiring. There are all kinds of vocational training:

- Truck driving and/or maintenance and repair of trucks.
- Nursing
- Auto mechanic
- Secretarial
- Various types of computer work.
- Plumbing
- Electronics

There are many others, too. So keep this in mind as a back up alternative.

I'm also around that end of the District line, Ilford and Stratford Reed offices cover that area, they've always been very helpful. I got my current job from Stratford Reed. It's in East London but it's just a bus ride away from my flat in Romford..
I found some of my first few jobs with Stratford Reed so they do have stuff for people just starting out!

My best advice would be to try to find a career fair in your area, and go to it and talk to as many people as possible! Give them all your resume! I'm not from England (I live in the U.S.), but I had a similar situation, I couldn't find anything that didn't require experience, and was having next to no luck despite a successful academic career. Once I started going to career fairs though I started getting tons of interviews....in 2 career fairs I got around 15 interviews, as opposed to 0 interviews from 700+ job applications before that.

I'm sure they did 5 years ago when you were starting out, but having now spent some time searching that website it seems they don't any more. Even jobs claiming to be entry level are asking for experience.

I've been to a few graduate careers fairs in central London, and they were unhelpful. Almost all the jobs they were promoting were sales in one way or another, and besides that the entire environment was loud and crowded so I had to put a lot of effort into staying calm. Going around talking to everyone would be extremely difficult.

@questor

I had never heard of a vocational school until I just googled it, and they do not exist in this country

I've only been permanent in my job for a year. Until then I always worked basically entry level admin jobs. I never even got a call back from any jobs on the website, but when you actually register with a branch and keep in touch with them, they can generally find something.. I just bug them every other day until they find something!

Ah I see, thanks for clearing that up.