• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

soooo depressed (bombed job interview)

rollerskate

rollerskate

ร๏гค ɭย๓เภค
V.I.P Member
I really don't know what to do right now except post here. There was this job I really really wanted that was perfect for me... the company seemed perfect as well... I did great on the phone interview but I bombed, bombed, BOMBED the in person interview with the head of engineering and head of IT. The interview was informal and they also seemed kind of nervous, which doubled my nervousness, and since they had nothing prepared to say to me my mind went blank too, I had a hard time answering questions both because my mind was blank and because my speech issues started showing and I was really self conscientious about it, I couldn't even remember what a stupid IDS was and when they asked I said I wasn't familiar with them (when I AM but it didn't click with me what IDS MEANT), they kept asking me to ask them questions and I just couldn't think of hardly anything so I just asked stupid generic questions about their network.... I mean... it was HORRIBLE... I was horrible... and this was my very first interview ever for something in my actual field, entry level too. And now I'm just like... I so stupid... I will never be able to get a job in my field and my student loan is completely wasted because I have no social skills and I can't even talk to others about what I know because my communication about it sucks too... I know what to say and do when I SEE it but just casual chit chat is not up my alley considering it's not like I can live and breath the stuff when I've never been employed to deal with it... and I'm just so ready to give up because I either don't qualify for any other types of jobs or I just know downright I can't do them. And I don't know what to do. It's not like I can support my kids without a job at all. Or myself even for that matter. I feel like just throwing in the towel, returning my oldest son to his abusive dad, putting the youngest one up for adoption, and moving out on to the streets where I so obviously belong and never will be able to escape. I'm completely worthless... I'm sorry to be so negative here but it's the truth, I'm 30 years old and I just can't do anything. And I have to deal with this constant screaming day and night in this transitional place... and this super loud intercom... and it's always always so so NOISY here and I can't ever think or get anything done because I can't deal with the sensory overload. I never have any peace and quiet. I want to stab my ear drums so I can't hear anything any more. I feel like I'm about to just start hitting people because I can't take it any more. I just want to dig a hole and stay there until I rot. :'(
 
I can tell you that you don't belong on the streets (no one does). From what I've heard, you're an excellent mother. I won't pretend the job hunt is easy. I know that myself as a recent college graduate who's still looking for her first long-term paying job. But you'll do better next time.

I've felt this way sometimes too, but we're not stupid, and we're not worthless. I promise you that.

Take some time to vent, and then relax as best as you can. You'll feel a little better after some rest.
 
Let me tell you a secret. If this was your first interview you've ever had in your chosen field, of course you bombed it! Interviewing takes lots and lots and lots of practice.
Job seeking is tough and takes a long time. Even if you do well, you won't hear back from most companies.
I learned not to look upon interviews as an attempt to get the job; I learned to look upon each interview as practice in the art of interviewing. This meant that I left each interview happy, because I had learned a little bit more.
With time, one learns the questions that are usually asked in one's field. Eventually, even if the question is not asked, one learns to make statements that give the information the interviewer would have gotten from asking the question and hearing you answer.

It sounds like the people interviewing you, actually were pretty bad at interviewing. This is actually a huge factor in interviews. Don't put all the blame on yourself.
With time, you can learn to take the interview into your own hands and make it good even if the person interviewing you is bad at what they are doing.
 
Last edited:
Do you have a resume? List your education, what computer programs you know, any experience, references are important and any letters of recommendation from other IT people you may know or past professors. Also have a list of questions you want to ask about the company you are going for the interview with then whip out the information during the interview as your cheat sheet. Also bring a pen like you're taking notes about what the interviewer is saying.

In that movie "Adam", he also had to practice with another person who acted like the interviewer which is a good thing to do. I'm sure they have some books on preparing for interviews with interview questions. There's so much competition now that you must make sure you come to an interview over prepared - like you're studying and preparing for an exam. Look at this interview as a learning experience. Also, in a few days call the interviewer up and let them know that you're still very interested in the job and you're inquiring about your status where that position is concerned and say you would like to do a second interview if needed to clear up some things. Interviews are scary for everyone. Just prepare and practice. A really good résumé will help speak for you and leave a lasting impression - leave a copy with the interviewer. I believe they even have special companies that make up professional resumes.
 
Lots of smart people here are very impressed with what you've let us see of you through this place. I'm sure you are also very very good at what you do. There will be other opportunities. Maybe call them back? Nothing to lose. Pursue it a bit. If that doesn't work, let this one go, and do what you can to make sure you come across more as you next time. Can't be too hard on yourself. Tomorrow is another day.
 
Sometimes I feel the same way after a business meeting. And I already got the job. In fact now I am the boss of my company and a senior partner in our group of companies. But there was a time when I was convinced that I would never be able to support myself, make money or be able to do any if the things I dreamed of and I would end up locked away in some horrible place. And there was some evidence that this would happen given the multiple failures at jobs and with social interactions. I was bankrupt, sick, friendless and hated everything about my life.

It was not until I turned 30 and hit a bottom that things started to slowly improve. And after 5 years things started to get allot better. By the age of 40 I had completely changed how I felt, acted and interacted with the world of work. It was not magic or luck. I simply started slowly but surely to focus on taking care of myself, eliminating toxic relationships and pursuing my interests.

As others have pointed out, job interviews take practice and it is a great suggestion to focus on the process as a learning experience - not the outcome. I am very lucky that I did not get hired for many jobs that I thought I wanted. Curiously, the best job I was ever hired for was one where I politely told the employer that I would love to get the job, but even if they did not hire me I would not stop until I got the same kind of position with one of their competitors, and they could see I meant it.

It is not necessary, but it did help for me to move away from my childhood home and state.

Finally, as someone who has hired about 100 people over the past 15 years, I can say that employers including myself are far from perfect at interviews. It sounds like the ones in yours were inept. You might want to call them, tell them that you have AS and were very nervous and would like another chance. You can skip the AS part if you want. It could be good practice.




rollerskate said:
I really don't know what to do right now except post here. There was this job I really really wanted that was perfect for me... the company seemed perfect as well... I did great on the phone interview but I bombed, bombed, BOMBED the in person interview with the head of engineering and head of IT. The interview was informal and they also seemed kind of nervous, which doubled my nervousness, and since they had nothing prepared to say to me my mind went blank too, I had a hard time answering questions both because my mind was blank and because my speech issues started showing and I was really self conscientious about it, I couldn't even remember what a stupid IDS was and when they asked I said I wasn't familiar with them (when I AM but it didn't click with me what IDS MEANT), they kept asking me to ask them questions and I just couldn't think of hardly anything so I just asked stupid generic questions about their network.... I mean... it was HORRIBLE... I was horrible... and this was my very first interview ever for something in my actual field, entry level too. And now I'm just like... I so stupid... I will never be able to get a job in my field and my student loan is completely wasted because I have no social skills and I can't even talk to others about what I know because my communication about it sucks too... I know what to say and do when I SEE it but just casual chit chat is not up my alley considering it's not like I can live and breath the stuff when I've never been employed to deal with it... and I'm just so ready to give up because I either don't qualify for any other types of jobs or I just know downright I can't do them. And I don't know what to do. It's not like I can support my kids without a job at all. Or myself even for that matter. I feel like just throwing in the towel, returning my oldest son to his abusive dad, putting the youngest one up for adoption, and moving out on to the streets where I so obviously belong and never will be able to escape. I'm completely worthless... I'm sorry to be so negative here but it's the truth, I'm 30 years old and I just can't do anything. And I have to deal with this constant screaming day and night in this transitional place... and this super loud intercom... and it's always always so so NOISY here and I can't ever think or get anything done because I can't deal with the sensory overload. I never have any peace and quiet. I want to stab my ear drums so I can't hear anything any more. I feel like I'm about to just start hitting people because I can't take it any more. I just want to dig a hole and stay there until I rot. :'(
Click to expand...
 
rollerskate...you made mistakes...we all do at one point or another...there is no way to avoid them at times.

There is nothing wrong with failure if you learn from it. Those who claim to never make mistakes must not be doing anything...it is the best way to avoid them
The better preparation advice is sound as well as the use of cues...I would rather have too much info from you in the beginning and ask questions that only apply to specialized parts of the task,not generalized ones that your education should have provided...you have the degree in your field which means you completed academia's requirements to hold it

Hiring processes are human events...there are mistakes made on both sides of the table...getting placed in the position of hiring may have been handed to the wrong people as well...upper management makes mistakes too...being the heads of the departments does not guarantee that they have people skills,only skills in the areas needed by the company to perform their tasks.

My personal experience with hiring has been a learning process the entire time I brought on my new hires,so it does apply to both sides of the fence.

If you have the skills to do your job well,all I see is you needed to polish your act before your next interview and place some structure in your own side of the process...with out being harsh to the interviewer,try to stump them...make them babble as they try to answer your questions...a great tool for you to see if they know their job and if you actually want to work for a place that makes mistakes too

To quit trying because of failure is failure in itself...to not learn from failure is even worse...prop your butt up and go make us proud...winners get there by practicing abilities...yours appears to need some work at the hiring desk


"Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?'' "practice,practice,practice"
 
At age 20 I was handed a mechanical drawing of a part to be made for a quadrupole mass spectrometer,along with a sample of what the parts was...when asked how I would begin the job,it was apparent that the sample and the print were of two different sizes...my reply to my interviewer was to go to the stock rack and get the appropriate sized material to make it...it stopped my interviewer in his tracks because he failed to see he made a mistake when he selected the sample...I was hired immediately...after a year at that job,I was the youngest member of their management team ;)
 
You're not alone. I had many software development interviews and didn't do well on any of them. I'm not nervous during my interviews and try my best to show as much confidence as I can. However, it seems all the time I'm having trouble giving answers they want for their questions.

Recently I watched a YouTube video of a software developer haves Aspergers and he felt he did better being self employed than working for a company. Myself, I have a pending application with the government to get accepted in a business program.


I'm not sure being self employed is an option for you? While I wait to find out if I get accepted in this business program, I'm applying for non IT jobs as my unemployment is running out soon. I don't know what my future going to be and I sure you not knowing your future is stressful. I wish the best for you and hope something good comes your way.


The Penguin
 
Thanks everyone for your support. It's hard for me to remember sometimes that I'm never really alone thanks to this forum. Someone here can ALWAYS relate!

A lot of what has been said is exactly what I was trying to tell myself BEFORE the interview. But I still ended up like the OP said. Like I said (I think)... I really wanted this one more than I've ever wanted any kind of entry level IT position. It was too perfect. And I'm kind of taking it out hard on myself for not being able to impress them. But at the same time I must admit I'm a bit angry I felt like I had to impress them for an ENTRY LEVEL position. They should have been looking for potential, not the technical knowledge. And I hope I did leave the hint of potential behind. But I doubt it.

However, they did give me their email addresses to follow up with any questions I could think of etc. And I took advantage. One email went out last night just to explain my position yesterday, to ask questions, and to rectify something kind of dumb I said at the time that made it seem like I didn't know something I actually DID know but didn't recognize the acronym for. Another email went out tonight as an afterthought with links to my LinkedIn, my entire library of Linux articles I've written, and three phone numbers to other IT professionals that are willing to vouch for my potential and can better explain what I'm all about than I even really can.

I've NEVER been a left brainer. My gift with technology has always been mainly intuition, creativity, and spatial/pattern skills. Not to say I'm not at all logical but there's pretty much a good mix of logic and creative madness with me that often gets laughed at by more logical/left brained types.

Example: a very left brained ex used to laugh at me because I wasn't good at math... but he was in denial about my ability to "guesstimate" everything from the total price of items in a cart to distances and measurements with spooky accuracy without ever breaking out any kind of calculations or measuring tools. He would insist it was impossible and that he couldn't figure out how I could possibly do it.

There's a lot I screwed up on with this interview though that I'm not sure I can fix. Like when they asked about my biggest accomplishment I suppose they were thinking in terms of technical prowess... I interpreted it in terms of most success... so I used a story that wasn't my most technical but WAS my biggest success. And a lot of the problem there with me was that I've done SO MUCH. I get bored so easily and finish projects so quickly I just can't keep track any more. It doesn't help that I have had my hands in sooooo many different hobbies....

I suppose that's the aspie talking again, huh? Like when they were saying they work hard and play hard and I'm thinking, shouldn't working hard and playing hard be the same? If you really enjoy your work, won't it count as play? It does for me... I can work endlessly on a project for weeks, with that being THE ONLY THING I DO, and I never think, "oh, I need to go have some fun." That project IS my fun.

Bleh, maybe you're right and it wasn't really a good match for me after all...

I figure I'll just spend this weekend regaining my focus back to practical matters and Monday start applying to stuff again. I have no issues getting responses to my resume. My issues all come with the interviews... because this time I'm actually focusing on my field instead of chasing whatever, which "whatever" is usually marketing... for some reason they LOVE my resume even though I hate marketing (for obvious reasons) and the resume is focused on IT.
 
BTW, FTR, I'm trying to get started on entry level corporate IT. Help desk or network technician or IT assistant. My ultimate goal is network engineering. Because this company was full of engineers, it really was a dream job for me because it meant I would be rubbing elbows with the people whose shoes I want to fill one day. Ah well though. As someone else pointed out if I really want this I can just keep bugging them even after this position has been filled. They showed me where they're expanding the building to make room for more employees. So maybe...
 
Acronym can be a *****. We both know there is so many of them. I bet you if you give them a list of a lot of IT acronyms there will be a point you can list something they don't know.

Also, just like yourself, I have no issues with my resume, it's the interview I have issues with. I hate those people that know how to B.S. during an interview, get the job though they are not qualified and they lose their job later on and they repeat. Batards like this is affecting some of the job market. I think interviews need to be changed to cater for people with disabilities. But of course it will take decades if this will ever happen. During the mean time is use trying to find work now. Once again I hope you find something soon.
 
I actually did get them with an acronym myself, so I guess I evened the playing field there, LOL. Wasn't even anything really that fancy which is exactly why I used it - I assumed with all the acronyms they were tossing around they'd surely know what BYOD meant when I inquired if it was a BYOD environment.
Yeah, I get the feeling that's what they thought I was doing. What really got me was... when their HR was interviewing me over the phone, she asked about OS X, and I told her my experience with it, and she was like, why isn't it on your resume? I'm like, well, I don't like to put anything on there that I don't feel I really know as much as I need to know about it, but if you think I DO know enough to put it on there, I'll do that. So she hands them my updated resume. And they're asking me why on earth I put that on there when my knowledge of it is so limited. :-/ Bottom line, I know how to do basic tech support for it and use it. I just don't play well with the keyboard shortcuts, mainly because they have me twisting my hands in such weird contortions. But they made it sound like I knew absolutely zero about it and was just trying to fluff my resume, which is precisely what I wasn't trying to do originally but THEIR HR recommended I add it. Ugh.

That's the crazy thing about this, too. My resume is 100% honest, but so many employers view it skeptically because so many other people fluff and even outright lie with theirs.

Something I'm doing now to prepare for my job hunt is I'm gathering actual physical recommendation letters from all the IT & Linux related friends/ex-employers and ex-supervisors I have. No one ever calls anyone on my reference list on my resume, or references my recommendations on LinkedIn, and it's driving me crazy because they can actually back me up better than I can. After having my butt kicked around so much by employers and the trolls of the Linux community when I was writing about Linux I'm not even really sure I know jack any more and even remotely DESERVE to be in a corporate IT environment. But seriously, I don't know what these people expect from someone that has never worked in a corporate environment but has maxed out everything they can possibly learn from the outside. I can't go back to consumer support because they think I've became a security risk with my level of knowledge, and I can't get in to IT because they don't think I know enough about the environment for an ENTRY LEVEL position (which is freaking NUTS... I know for a fact I actually know MORE than most "geeks" would starting out just because I've done crazy stuff like buy an old Cisco switch and run my entire home network off it just so I could learn the firmware and running Windows Server off an old desktop just so I could learn about it, LOL). The main impediment I have is that I haven't actually been able to play with any of these environments I've learned about in a real corporate environment. So all I really have are these theories with no backbone.

I think I'm also going to start making a physical portfolio of all the support articles I've written not only on Linux but everything else too. I will probably also throw in some stories in there detailing some of my home based projects. At this point I'm realizing I need anything and everything I can to show I'm no joke. Especially since I'm so bad at actually explaining myself in person.

But yeah, I pretty much started getting this sinking feeling in my stomach when the head of IT shared with me his favorite distro is Gentoo. No offense to anyone that loves Gentoo here, but the Gentoo fans tend to be the most likely to be real *ssholes to the rest of the folks in the community. I would have felt better if he had said Slackware or Arch or ANYTHING but Gentoo, LOL.
The Penguin said:
Acronym can be a *****. We both know there is so many of them. I bet you if you give them a list of a lot of IT acronyms there will be a point you can list something they don't know.

Also, just like yourself, I have no issues with my resume, it's the interview I have issues with. I hate those people that know how to B.S. during an interview, get the job though they are not qualified and they lose their job later on and they repeat. Batards like this is affecting some of the job market. I think interviews need to be changed to cater for people with disabilities. But of course it will take decades if this will ever happen. During the mean time is use trying to find work now. Once again I hope you find something soon.
Click to expand...
 
I know prior to the last company I worked for, all my experience was contract based working from home. It was very hard for me to get use to working for a company at my last job. It learning how to interact with co workers. The biggest issues is learning how to communicate with the manager. It took me months to find a way to get him to listen to me. Once I learned how to get his attention, I used only those methods. I learned in these environments I need to get right to the point.
 
I got the job. I start September 2.

Scared my six year old half to death screaming and jumping after getting that phone call, LOL.
 
good deal! you sound very excited...I wish ya luck in your new position :)
 
So yeeeeeeeeah, as per usual, I was worrying my fool head off about nothing because I can't read nonverbal it seems.... :smirk:
 
rollerskate said:
So yeeeeeeeeah, as per usual, I was worrying my fool head off about nothing because I can't read nonverbal it seems.... :smirk:
Click to expand...

I probably would have too. But who knows...maybe they threw you one of those "Kobyashi Maru" tests...just to see how you'd react. Where there isn't really a right or wrong answer. You hung in there...and didn't bolt.

In any event, that's the best news I've heard for a while. Well done. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom