DEI Symposium Series - Building Career Pathways for Neurodivergent Learners

This episode is part of the DEI Symposium Series, developed from the DEI Symposium sessions presented at the 2025 NCDA Global Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Maisie and Nulty Lynch are veteran teachers and a husband and wife duo. They address the communication nuances between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, the significant barriers in traditional interview processes, and the importance of inclusive practices. Maisie and Nulty also advocate for creating accessible systems and intentional, empathetic communication to better support neurodivergent individuals in achieving meaningful employment.

Nulty Lynch is the English Language Arts department chair at a large public middle school and a certified autism specialist and coach. He openly shares his personal journey, including his autism and ADHD diagnoses and the challenges of masking.

Maisie Lynch is an internship coordinator and career services provider, as well as President of FutureReadyU. She discusses her experiences assisting students with neurodivergencies. 

Transcript

Career Practitioner Conversations

National Career Development Association

DEI Symposium Series – Building Career Pathways for Neurodiverse Learners

December 16, 2025

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Melissa Venable, NCDA, director of Professional Development, and this episode continues our 2025 DEI symposium series with a conversation about career pathways for neurodivergent learners. I'm here with two veteran teachers. They're also a husband and wife duo Nulty and Maisie Lynch from only Maryland.

Nulty is an English language arts department chair and certified autism specialist. And Maisie is the internship coordinator at her school, a certified career services provider and a college counselor. She's also the president of Future Ready You, a college and career coaching and consulting company. So Nulty and Maisie, thank you so much for bringing this conversation from the conference to this podcast.

I will turn it over to you.  Thank you. Thanks for having us.  I am super excited to be here and it works out really well because Nulty and I have been talking a lot recently about neuro divergencies, especially as we have started back up with the school year. And one of the things that we have been talking about just last night, was remember we had this conversation about universal learning and or universal design  and the, the frustration with the, the lack of use of it  in certain spheres.

Right    um, so I think probably what would help listeners is they know we're. Married, but let's maybe hone in a little bit on why, what's gotten us to this point, right? And why this is such a  passion of both of ours from different perspectives, but, but equally passionate about it. And we'll start 

with you.

So I    as was said earlier, I've been a, I'm a veteran teacher, now I'm a career changer. And  a couple years ago I was  diagnosed with autism  which explained a ton of my interactions through the world, and then that combined with my other.  Adulthood diagnosis of A DHD.  And I immediately started doing what you called my, my, uh, my doctorate in autism, where I essentially approached every single, every book that I could find that I felt was, uh, not from sort of a fear mongering, but really a modern scientific and sociological point of view.

And what I then realized is the masking that I've been carrying around this idea that. I have been  pretending acting to be  neurotypical in order to fit in. And this is something that  we see across most neurodivergent individuals. Uh, uh, this idea that you learn to be a certain way and in unpacking that in this unmasking.

 You start to notice the  difficulties that I had. And then being an educator of young people, I teach middle school, I really wanted to see what can I do to  limit or alleviate the obstacles and difficulties and  emotional trauma that really comes along with.  Being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world and then that tied really into the work that you've been doing  post starting your teaching career and what for 

sure.

Yeah.   I've come at this, I think very much from both a personal and professional perspective. I, as a teacher, I've. For 20 years, I've had lots of students come through my door who may or may not, who may have had diagnosed or undiagnosed NeuroD divergencies.  That has resulted in a lot of executive functioning issues, which really plays out in the classroom.

However, I also was our college and career research and development teacher for 10 years. So I was charged with helping students come up with their post-secondary plans and then actually helping them to get there. And what I saw was that a lot of students, they may have been able to articulate to me, let's say  you know, if I.

Talk to them about it or ask them some questions, but when it came down to being able to actually follow the pathway from A to Z to get them to apply for the job, apply for college  whatever process sort of they needed to follow, this is where  those executive functioning skills or. A lack of them or deficiencies would really  rear its head.

And I realized that there is, this is a really big issue. I started doing more research on it and through  I ended up, there was an article that I put out in Career Convergence about it because the data out there is really clear that. There are higher rates of unemployment and underemployment for those who are neurodivergent.

 And these numbers are really kind of shocking. Oh yeah. Like, I think when we think about, we think that these might be just    deviations or standard deviations, but like neurodiverse, NeuroD, divergent individuals, and we'll get to like the difference between that. I wanna tell you talk about that in a second.

But it's 10%. 10, sorry, 10 times. Higher than neurotypical individuals. The one that got me is the  autistic individuals with, uh, college degrees. So, you know, people like me  have their unemployment rate is 20 times higher, so the, so a vast. Percentage of people who sort of fit my mold, an autistic person who manages to mask their way or figure out a way through college  a large percentage of them  are either unemployed or deeply underemployed.

Well, I can think of it even just having been  an observer for your own career track, right? And  where you've struggled at certain spots where it may have been. There was a period where there was like. Indecision.  And not being able to make the decision about what you really wanted to do.

Remember that 

period? Oh yeah. I mean, and then I ended up in a second job purely because the company went under, right. I got forced into a decision. 

You got forced into a decision, and then even then it was like, okay, I know I wanna do this. But then getting yourself through that process of, you know, you wanted to go through an alternative certification program.

So it was like, okay,  step by step. Going through that process and hitting obstacles along the way, which, let's be honest, it's hard for anyone to do, you know? Right. Going, putting themselves out there, going and looking for a job is hard for anyone. But then when you, go ahead Hun. 

Sorry. And I, I think, and if I hadn't had you, an amazing wife, oh, sorry, an amazing wife.

You, that's where that was going, Uhhuh who, who, and who had already done the process. Four years earlier than me. Yeah, probably five. Five is this, so four or five years earlier than me. So you knew the people there. You knew the process there. You knew what the paperwork looked like. You knew when the paperwork was due.

You had relationships with these people and someone like me who has the capacity to do it, but the executive functioning is.  Where I can fake it, it often is completely exhausting and can be debilitating. I don't know if I would've been able to, I would've still been like in a cubicle 15 years on as opposed to being here and talking about the students I've had for the last 15 years.

I know that's why you keep me around, honey. 

I know, I know that, that, that absolutely that. Well, 

and I think it's important to mention, I've said executive functioning, but. It, obviously there's other barriers that come to play also.    That's just the, that's sort of like the low hanging fruit, easy one to identify, but there are so many more that are both  visible but also invisible for people.

So, right. I want to circle back around to that at some point. Um, well, 

yeah, and I mean, you've said repeatedly that it's like we're, we're trying to work with the systems.  And some of these systems work and some of these systems don't work, and some of these systems actively are harmful. They're in play and 'cause they've been designed by people who aren't thinking about  the breadth of  human  neurophysiology and Right.

I wanna, and so that Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I want to go to that because, 

well, gimme a second. Let me finish this thought. Sure. 

Please. 

Okay. So I wanna just hone back into sort of where I have evolved into what I'm doing now, of course is, you know, seeing it in the, seeing it play out in the classroom and then seeing it play out in my own life and my personal life.

And really realizing that there is opportunity here to help advocate for,  individuals with neuro divergencies and to create systems and processes that make things more accessible for them. And that's where Future Ready you came from. And then we've sort of  building out from there. You and I trying to navigate this together, but also with very different perspectives and very different goals.

 And so, which I love, I love that we can do that. But you're like my walking, you know   you have the lived experience, firsthand personal experience. You have the, and. Insane knowledge    the  unofficial PhD that you've done on autism when your special interest is autism.  Right. And yeah, so anyways, back to what you were saying, wanted, I 

wanted to set up a few terms because I think like I often will just start using them under the assumption that people who are interested in this topic understand the topic already.

And so. Uh, I've been u like the term neurodiverse has been used a lot recently. It's in social media all over the place, and neurodiverse really just applies to how everybody's brain functions differently, everybody in the world.    And we can kind of. Get our head around that, uh, that  we all approach things slightly differently.

 The scientist in me just compares it to biodiversity.  Right. The idea that there's all these different, I mean, obviously we're not talking species, but it's the same concept here, right? Right. We have this diverse  just by nature.  And 

so unfortunately that off that word usually gets conflated sometimes with neurodivergent.

And neurodivergent is means that, that these are individuals whose thinking processes  differ significantly from the norm. They, they are not part of the normal spectrum of thinking. And then, so this are  autism, A DHD, uh. Obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD. 

Yeah. 

O  uh, dyslexia. Dyslexia. Dysgraphia.

Dyscalculia.  And  and this is where it could, because we think of neurodiversity as the spectrum, and then we talk about autism as a spectrum. They're not quite  the, there isn't like everybody's a little to super being autistic to  Dustin Hoffman and Rainman or, or someone who's non-verbal.

 So when we talk neurodivergent, we're really talking about people who have very specific ways of interacting with the world in a different way. And these aren't. Right or wrongly.  Although historically they've been seen, often treated that way. Yeah. Treated that way, especially in our educational system.

 But, and then sort of on the, on the opposite pole of neurodivergent, we talk about neurotypical. And neurotypical is the person who  doesn't have a DHD, doesn't have autism, just  you know, wakes up and is able to make a cup of coffee without thinking about it. Forms, habits. Because they wanna form a habit.

 So 

well, and I think it's important to distinguish the language, but I also think it's easy to get hung up on the language. And I, as  a career service provider, what I try to be really mindful of, but I never get just perfectly, is that. It's changing and it really depends who you talk to, what the context is, right?

Like Yeah.  Even when we talk about, I know I've been doing some writing stuff recently, and I'm always going, okay, do I say individuals with autism? Do I say autistic individuals? Do I say people with A DH, D? And so  from my own perspective, I hope our listeners understand that. There is no judgment, nothing  if I'm, if I do misspeak in some way, it is purely because  it's not intentional.

It's not, you know  and please, I want to, I always wanna do better,  I appreciate feedback and knowing, and that's why I loved having you around because yeah, you have, you know, you're someone who, this is you, this defines you. So you really have a voice in this that I think is really important. Um, that I, I think the 

tricky part is, is like if you meet one person with autism, you've met one person with autism, right?

And so I prefer to say I'm an autistic person. There are other people who say, which is gaining in. Usage  disability first language is gaining usage. It's a spinoff of it. It really comes from, in many ways, the  the deaf rights community in the eighties and nineties.  But when you see people talking about their children, often they talk about they have a child with autism.

And so really the only way, especially if you're working with these individuals, is just to say, how do you want to be?  How should I refer to you? Right? Just the same as if  you ask someone their name, if you're going to be talking about  if you're gonna be talking about their disability.

And when we are thinking about putting people into careers, helping people get into careers, helping people get into college, disability is something that, at least between sort of the, the career services provider and the client. Needs to be discussed. Whether or not it gets disclosed beyond that needs to be discussed.

So just like you would ask what name they wanna be called, if you're discussing someone's neurodivergency or other disability, you would. Ask them, how should I be referring to you? And then realize with the next person who comes along, you need to ask the question again. And then you, well, it reminds me of 

my student and  I had a student last year  Abby  we'll just say Abby  who was on the spectrum and, and we became very close.

'cause I had them for two years. But I remember saying something like. Saying something about the superpower and it was just like, you know, is 

is Abby? Who I'm thinking is Abby? Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. And  and that's not even fair to say, Abby, I should be using another name, but  Yeah. But I think, but yeah, for me, but then again, if you're,  I, but that's o we C, social media is 

superpower.

Superpower.  Right,  and this, and you know, and this is where, you know, one of the things. I like to talk about some of the most interesting researches gets into this double empathy problem, which talks about how neurotypical people talk to neurodivergent people and historically. I mean, and realize all of this history is new, like 1950s new, the first person who was diagnosed with autism just died 1950s 

is considered new.

Well, yeah, I mean, as far as scientific, that's amazing. Discoveries go. That's so, but the first person ever to di be di officially diagnosed with autism just died of old age. So  it isn't like in the far distant past.  And so typically. Neurodivergent individuals are seen from like a deficit model.

So you say an autistic person struggles with communication skills, and what the research says is that's not actually the case.    I wanna talk about the interesting work that's going into how we talk to each other, how neurotypical people talk to neurodivergent people and backwards and forwards.

And when you look at this, I mean, neurodivergence as a concept is quite new. Uh, it's.  Mid the terminology, you mean the, like even the diagnoses is from the 1930s. This isn't stuff that is, you know, it's not like we're talking about tuberculosis, right? We, we, this is, these are, this is still very much in flux, very much figuring these things out and, but it has historically been a person with autism struggles with communication skills.

And  the research recently. Has shown that that's not really the case. That when an autistic person talks to an artistic person, there's very little communication difficulties. They click immediately. They understand there's a communication style  that works very, very well. Much like when a neurotypical person talks to a neurotypical person, they're, if they have some kind of shared interest, they're able to communicate at length with each other.

The difficulty comes when a neurotypical person tries to communicate with a neurodivergent person or vice versa, and the research is showing that the difficulty actually happens on both ends, and where I think that's really important. This work is this idea that when you are talking to somebody and you say, you know, you have a client, and as I get with students, their parent says to me, he's autistic.

 And they say it like. 

Like, you're gonna catch it if you say it too loud. Well, like, I'm gonna 

catch it.    Or they're apologetic, they're apologizing in advance. 

Aw, poor baby. And then 

I say, well, I'm autistic too. And they go,  oh. And they, some of them are, get really excited. Some of, and you're like, 

and I went to UVA and I have a job and I'm married, and I, I have a, there's like that.

And some of them love that. 

And then some of them are very confused by it, but. This idea, if you're approaching a client and you know they're autistic, or if you've been around enough autistic people, you have, you can make a, a reasonably educated guess about it. You need to realize that your communication, like the  if the communication starts to break down, it is not just on the part of the neurodivergent individual.

   Both sides. The communication is breaking down on both sides and it's not, yeah.  And especially in sort of a client relationship, it should not be the other person's responsibility, 

right? Like, because they're autistic, they can't communicate well, certainly. Or 

that it's their job then to communicate in a communicate with you in a way that works solely for you 

and well, and I think the important thing there is  being sort of reading the room and being able to step back a little bit and just say.

Hey  I feel like maybe I am  maybe I'm not wording this well. Maybe you know, how, what do you need from me so that I can better explain this? Or, or whatever. Like  be reflective, right?  That's always being willing to get, ask for feedback and take that feedback. And do 

something with the feedback 

and do something.

You know, you reminded me, NTI, do you remember when I was working with that client maybe two years ago, Andy, and I'm, I'm on like literally on Zoom with him and he was autistic and I'm talking back and forth with him. I'm trying to like explain to him about the interview process. Yeah. And we're trying,  we're like debriefing after he had an interview and I'm just kind of, and I can feel, I just keep hitting this wall and hitting this wall and I looked over at you.

You were like in the kitchen and I'm like, melty. I said, Andy, do you mind if I bring my husband in this conversation? He's like, yeah, no, that's fine. Bring you in. And the two of you, it was just like Bing. Yeah. Like you knew exactly. I could know what she meant to say was this. 

Here's how you should handle it.

Here's what you should do. Here's what that person really meant when they said it. I mean, and this gets into sort of our  you said earlier this idea of like, it's a superpower and that gives me the ick. But there are absolutely skillsets sets that neurodivergent individuals are,  have excel in that, you know, you had mentioned earlier hyper focus.

This is a, this is often used as sort of like a, a clue that someone might need, should be diagnosed. That you get into a topic and you get into the topic. Um,  which, if I am hiring computer programmers, I want that person.  Yeah.   And so we see this  and almost as a.  It's cute when we, sometimes we talk about it when we see little kids, uh, autistic little kids and they're really into trains, or they're really into sharks, or they're really into dinosaurs.

And then you go, oh, and then you talk to that kid and you realize that they know more about dinosaurs than anyone you've ever heard of in their life because that is their thing. And so if you're hiring someone and you manage to find someone who's hyper focus is pearl and you really need someone to code pearl.

This kid  or adult is gonna know more than you'll ever ha they'll ever need to know about the topic. 

Well, and to be fair, I jumped into it because that sort of is a stereotypical place. Yeah. But let's move it out of that. Let's think of like, you need someone to do research at a museum, you know? Yeah.

 You need someone  I mean that's, that jumped to mind is just any field, especially where. There's an appreciation for that expert  very focused right. Expert opinion on some or  knowledge on something. Excuse. Yeah. 

I mean, there is a reason why some of these stereotypes exist because these sort of jobs do allow a person to step away from sort of customer facing events.

You know, you might be dealing a lot of customer facing stuff, and then you go, oh, I'm gonna go do my research, and then you, you have an opportunity to step back. And I have an opportunity to kind of be in different spaces, whereas if you're just working customer service like I did for years, there's no stepping back.

And  and that, and how did that 

impact you, do you think, as an employee? How did that impact you as an employee? I certainly 

wasn't as proficient  as a husband in our early marriage. It certainly. It, you know? Oh  can we unpack that right now? 

How much time do 

we have? 

This is a short podcast.

Let me see. 2000. But a lot of times, 

you know, they're gonna, they'll bring these things home. This is what I, when especially 'cause in the age group I work with 13, 14 year olds, this dysregulation comes home. So like, how do we. 

Yeah, because we had conversations with teachers about our own kids, right. Where it was like, I don't understand.

They're fine at school. They're fine at school. They're fine at school. And then you're like, yeah, because they're keeping it together all day long at school, 

right? I mean, and then we, then we think like, what could like, but obviously something's going wrong at school, and then they're just managing to mask themself or just contain themself well enough before they got home.

Right. So same thing, apply it to work environment and Right. So 

like, what's this, like, if you could wave a magic wand    and change one thing, thinking about neuro divergent individuals or, or any sort of inclusivity, what would you, what would that be? 

Oh, you mean like in the context of the work  like hiring career or like career development.  So  to me, I'll wanna 

talk about myself and my own life experience for hours, but you know, like coming back to the career  the client right. Relationship we're trying to get meaningful. 

Well, there are two things. Number one, I just wanna mention this  the double empathy you made me think of that little trio of students that I had during first period last year that they were.

All three besties. All three on the spectrum. And they, they spoke the same language to  they were so in tune with each other. Yeah. And  that to me was really eye-opening because there was nothing forced about it. We don't, we're, this is high school, we're, we're not tracking kids. And it's not like when we don't have an autism program here where all of our kids travel in a pack.

These are kids that are just, it was just. Purely organic, how they connected with each other and became best buddies. And, but I think it really lends itself to that, what you were talking about. So I don't wanna that, it's interesting if you think 

about that, and you saw three neurotypical kids in the classroom all chatting it up.

You wouldn't, it wouldn't. No, but it, it, it would be normal because we, but we see these other kids in, in awkward situations. 

Right. See them struggling and they make, they might be the ones who struggle. Yeah. 

Shows. I think that the struggle isn't just about them.  No, for sure. Yeah. It's, it's the different, a different way of communicating, I think.

But so back to your question, the magic wand. 

Magic wand, 

okay. If it's whatever  so for me, I feel like, I mean, there's definitely just the whole like executive functioning, getting started doing the job searches.  But a lot of the applications are online now, so it, it, you know, you don't have to necessarily go in and ask for an application.

So if I had to, if I could only pick one thing, it would be the interview process. What about, 'cause I mean, is that what you, what'd you say? 

I said what about it? 

Oh.    You know, we are, we have these particular jobs that require a certain skillset, but then the gate to get to that job. Is a process that has really sometimes nothing to do with what they're actually gonna do in that position.

 Oh, you 

speaking my language.  So you, you are going, you have to make, I have to go into, I mean, I teach, this is what I teach my students. I literally teach how to do an interview. Yeah. We stand out in the hall, we all shake hands with each other. I teach them like, okay, this is a good grip. This is a   and I explain to them very clearly, like.

Uh, right or wrong, I don't  we could debate that all day long, but the reality is that we live in a culture where people do judge how you shake hands, how much eye contact you have with someone. And so we go through that entire process. So now you know, you've got whoever, Scott, who is going through, he's applying for a job.

We'll just go with what we like, let's say cybersecurity, just because that's a  big field and important, but  so the skillset you need for that right, is very technical, very, you know, there could be some client facing stuff  but let's say they're being hired as a programmer, but then yet we put them through this process.

Where they have to sit in a room with one or more people and potentially  mask  to the point of where they can't even focus on the questions necessarily because they're so worried about, am I making eye contact?  Am I  you know  I would take that one step. 

The sensory stuff.

Sensory stuff. Yeah. I would take that even 

one step further is that first meeting, that first interview, the gatekeeper of it. Someone from HR who their skill is soft skills and they are looking to see someone who has all these great soft skills, who it has nothing to do with the job. I mean, look at every application, every job offering.

Not every, but says like must have great people skills. Really, do you really need great people? You just need to not be a jerk, but you don't need to have great people skills to to program. But this, we put this gate up Yeah.  Of an unneeded skill. And you have to, you have to jump that hurdle.     And I think of myself, I mean, I've been in interview situations. It's nerve wracking, it's hard. And I'm a pretty, I get along with, you know, not get, this is not a getting along situation, but I'm a social being. I can have conversation with anybody. Right. I, you know, and so. Even for me, I feel like it's nerve wracking, right?

Yeah. So I can't even imagine what it's like for somebody who's already on a day-to-day basis dealing with certain  sensory issues. OCD, you know, we've said a lot about autism because. We're making it all about you, but you know, as, as we 

should.  But there is    I'm not, it's not lost on me that there are so many other things  and honestly in most cases, right.

We also know that  help me out melty. What's the term? When you have multiples of these things, they're not, they don't act in isolation.    It compounds. 

Yeah, it compounds. And, and it 

isn't one plus one equals two. It's one plus one. One thing plus one thing equals three things. Correct? Like weight wise.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I just, you know, what I would love to see is I would love to see, I love the adv a advocating that. Somewhere, a place like NCDA continues to do. You know, you and I, we've heard other people on these podcasts who are advocating for neurodivergent individuals. I would really love for us to make more space at the table for those who are neurodivergent to.

Know that they have a voice here and that their voice is really, really important. 

Right. 

And you know, we saw that some of that when we were at the  annual conference. You and I, I know a lot of people came up to you afterwards and talked to you about that and just how inspired they were by you because they have a story to tell also, but they know maybe they lack the confidence or they're just, you know, it's really hard for them to put themselves out there.

And I want people to know, like. No, you have a place at this table and your place is really important. Like, bump me out of the table, bump me out, take my seat and come and tell us what you need and advocate and you know, we will be here to support and lift you up because there everybody brings something important to the workforce.

Everybody brings something important to, you know, just the world  In general. General, right. And I think that  we need those different ways of thinking and we need  you know, just, we all, we need someone who's gonna challenge us too. Like with the communication and all of that.

 Just, you know, as a neurotypical person, I, my eyes are constantly opened up by my neurodivergent students, right? 

And I think we make a lot of these, I think a lot of people in very good intention. Are working toward being more accommodating, working towards having  towards like overhauling what they do, working toward being more inclusive.

But 

yeah, there's lot, unless you 

actually check in with somebody who needs those, sometimes they're based on stereotypes. Sometimes they're just shots in the dark. Now, as. A neurodivergent person, if I walk into that space, do I recognize, hey  I, do, I recognize that someone's making an effort? Usually is the effort sometimes enough?

No. Or is the effort even in the right direction, or is the effort like super focused rather than these sort of, these universal. Uh, shifts and, and they're just sort of these blanket changes rather than these intentional changes where you are thinking about your client base and how do you adjust to best serve them.

And their needs where they are. When we talk about this in education a lot, you have to meet a child where they are. And this goes with any sort of  relationship like that where you are trying to help any kind of helper relationship that you need to meet the person where they are and you can't expect them.

To be where you are. 

Well, and I think you said it like it's the intentionality of it,  and understanding and being  I, I admit I'm not perfect with any of it. I mean, we, you know, in a school setting we are    we're making sure that we're using  gender  appropriate language. I mean, there's  there's a lot.

And what I always tell my students is, I, in my heart, I wanna do the right thing, so you just need to tell me, if I mess up, please just tell me. Right, right. But the intentionality is really important. And I also think the other piece of this is that. It doesn't have to be huge steps. You can make small steps that will start to improve and open those doors for people.

So the small step could be something on your website that just says    if you,  if there's something that, some sort of accommodation statement or  anything like  that. Just puts it out there so that people know, Hey, this person hears and sees me and wants to make sure that I feel comfortable.

Right? 

Or like, how can I be, how can I communicate with you? Like realizing that getting on a phone call for me. No thank you. I will text all day long.  You will text all day long, but I think you came, I think you came to the end of the internet a couple of years ago. Didn you. I, 

yes.  I have come to the end of the internet a few times.

 Sorry  but like a text, I will text back and forth a phone call that's gonna go to voicemail  and I like the anxiety that sometimes will come around a phone call. I couldn't imagine doing it, especially if it was something important.    Like trying to find like if I had to find a new job    if I had lost work and needed to, like, if suddenly I was already in a stressful situation. Because, you know, in this, you know, coming, working with clients around career services  I was talking to someone the other day that this is. People are not coming to you when they are happy and thrilled with their life, people are coming because they're out of work.

People are come becoming because they want something more, because they want something different. They're not just coming to hang out and tell you how like great their job is and they're really happy with their career trajectory. Cool. So it's already has some level of stress from the client's perspective.

Oh, sure. Even making that first phone call and appointment is probably right. Yeah. So 

could the appointment be a, a Google form on your website and then I don't have to like, make a random, like a random phone call to someone I've never spoken to before. I can put that off indefinitely, but if I see just a little.

I had to order something for work the other day and I spent a lot of time on a chat with someone from one of the companies and they said, oh, to do this, you're really gonna have to talk to some to talk to this service. And they go, oh, do they have their own chat service? And they said, no, you have to call 'em.

And so then I ordered from somebody else who let me do it all online. 'cause I just, I'm like, I don't, it's not  I, there's other options for me. 

You know, as you say, as you are saying that I am literally just realized that. I've done this, I've done this to people, like I'm doing this right now because the model, if you sort of look at all the  coaching and how to get clients and all that kind of stuff, everywhere you go, it's click here for your free consultation because you're gonna have that 15 minute  phone call or face-to-face with me.

Yeah, yeah. 

Click 

here and then your phone rings. Right. It's like, it's it a nightmare I would wake up from    or whatever. But like, I just realized like. I, you click there and you're gonna get from me, like, okay, when can you meet? And 

yeah, I, 

I need to revamp that. I can't imagine putting like, 

oh, give me your, your information.

And I enter my phone number and my name and my email address, and then I hit send and like 30 seconds later, my phone rings. 

Well, I'm not calling you right away, but some people do that, but some people do that or you just happen there in a car.  Like your timing works. So like on your website, go.

How do you want me to contact you? Yeah. Or give multiple options to be contacted. 

Yeah. Um, so, okay, so you asked me to, you waved your magic wand and I spoke to you from my perspective about how I think the interview process is one that really needs, and honestly, I don't know the right answer for the interview process.

 I've gone, that's, I think 

a big cultural shift. 

Yeah. It's a really big cultural shift. It  uh.  I would love to talk about it more with people. I think it's a good point of  discussion to kind of figure out, okay, well we keep saying, 'cause I, it's not like I haven't read  this is not a new discovery to think, talk about the interview process being challenging for people with neuro divergencies, but like, okay, well what could work?

   What would be better?  But, so if you were waving your magic wand. What would you say?  I would,

I, I think there, it's one of two things. One, I would sort of take HR out of the hiring process. So like, if you're gonna interview for a job. Interview with the supervisor. This is not, we don't hate HR by the way, just Oh, no, no, no. Like they form, but like HR is filled with people who are really good at soft skills.

Are really, and so you, when you I didn't get that. Could you try again? Oh, hello. Siri answered me HR one more time. HR is really good at people with soft skills and. When you're really good at something, you like to surround yourself with people who are also good at it.  And then you go and you, and if that, if soft skills is your tool, then you approach every problem or you approach many of the problems from using that tool.

Um  but I think like the, the magic wand would be,  multiple methods of communication being considered equal, like sending a text or chatting online or a phone call would be considered equally important 

at any stage of the game, like. Through. So we're talking like in the hiring process now you have the job now, you know, like 

Yeah, I think like we get into some weirdness with AI now, obviously, because AI's gonna be answering the questions and AI could be asking the questions 

Oh, for the interview process.

For the 

interview process if you went fully online. But I, but I really think that sort of initial contact, we tend to think that a phone call shows. Intention that a phone call means you're serious. And I think we are applying mid 20th century neurotypical logic to like  the kids that I'm teaching now, they don't wanna talk on the phone.

They wanna, they want a text  and.  The trick is that the hiring people are often a couple, three generations behind. And so  maybe that's my magic wand, is that like generational understanding, realizing that that the way why we communicate and how we communicate and the understood purposes of our communication changes with time and.

So like as someone who  steps in to help with your client, or, I've talked to, you know, when I, when I'm talking with people on my own  realizing that that communication at that moment is the right kind of communication for that individual. I can't expect them to do something the way I want it done.

Especially before I've hired them and  if you say, and I think yeah, that we get into this like clarity of like, what's your intention? We get into like, well yeah, is your intention to hire somebody who's really great with people? Great. Then your interview should reflect that and the person interviewing should be able to do that.

Absolutely. Could I sell cars? No. The nightmare. Like to do that sort of like cold stepping up to people. And  so like if I think I was allowed in a space and was approached from, like, I could go look and go, this is where I  belong, this is where I fit in. And that gets tricky in the, you know, we have to do a lot of skills in the interview process that we're not, like you saying you're talking to, you're teaching students how to shake 

hands.

Well, yeah, I mean, one of my favorite things as a very, what I find, what I think is a very simple accommodation that will help everybody. Is making your interview questions available to people ahead of time? Yeah, I mean, you know, we put people on the spot and honestly  it's not really it. It just, you're not really getting at the heart of the answer of the question.

If someone is making a last minute sort of call as to how to answer the question, because if I have a little time, then I can give you like real depth and real situations that I've dealt with. Right. But if I'm on the spot just going, oh, uh, yeah, one time I helped this customer, blah, blah, blah, you know?

Right.  But anyways, I, I think the point, the important thing that I want.  Listeners, and, you know, you and I to keep working on is just making sure that we're leaving these spaces for conversations, encouraging the conversations, making sure people feel welcome and that they know that like  they are, they deserve to be, and that we want to hear their voices because it's important.

And the only way we're going to be able to make. Get changes that help to  improve those statistics is by continuing to advocate and speak up. Yeah. Meaning the, the other side of the research is that it shows that when people do hire those with neuro divergencies. It tends to improve import performance overall.

Uh, improve, I can't remember. Improve performance. Improve It's like 40, 40% improvement or something. 

Yeah. They, they stay hired for longer. They have higher re higher retention rates, higher satisfaction rates, all of these things.  All the things that you want. We just aren't realizing we're stuck in an older paradigm.

Yeah. And really we need to be moving. What we need to be, as you were saying, taking these steps forward and the, we're taking the steps of the size that we can, as long as we are moving in a direction that is more, that includes more of the people who want to be included and who need to be included.

 Mm-hmm. And honestly, I, it's all a win-win to me. I, that's how I see it. So I.    My life is so enriched every single day with by me 

the diversity hire in our relationship.

You, you hired an autistic person for, look, they're a very long-term position. It's 25 years high retention rate. That's true. High satisfaction. That's true. You didn't know it. You were just auditioning and  you interviewed. 

Mm-hmm. And 

hired an autistic person and it worked out well. 

It has worked out well.

I would say my life is at least 40% better because of you. 

Mine's 45% better because of you. 

Oh, you just always have to one up me, don't you? Oh  I know.  I think it's, thank you. It's trying to wrap up. I gotta go back. Speaking of  all of these students and everything, I'm, 

you have students, I have papers, but really like  we're,  we're online and the the link will be here.  And, uh, 

let's just keep the conversation going. Right? I mean, I think everybody adds something to it. And, 

um, and I am always excited to talk about  autism inclusion and Yeah. About your special interests, advocacy and things like that. And how, just how do you like, just to look at something and I'll go, oh yeah, that's.

That's weird. Or that need, if we made this one little, a lot of these changes are tiny. 

Yeah, no, absolutely. 

And you just need to be willing to say, how can this be better? 

Mm-hmm. 

For my client, for the people I serve. 

Yep. Yep.

Thank you for talking with me. 

This was great. And thank you NCDA for inviting us to talk. We are. We love talking nonstop. 

Yes. We will talk all the time.