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Microsoft Hopes To Hire More Coders With Autism (fastcompany.com)
Autistic people are methodical and detail-oriented, and a new Microsoft program is trying to hire more of them, according to Fast Company. Slashdot reader tedlistens writes:
Vauhini Vara takes a look at the at the (difficult) efforts of Microsoft to recruit more autistic engineers and make a more neurodiverse workplace, through the lens of one of those coders. "The program, which began in May 2015, does away with the typical interview approach, instead inviting candidates to hang out on campus for two weeks and work on projects while being observed and casually meeting managers who might be interested in hiring them. Only at the end of this stage do more formal interviews take place.
"The goal is to create a situation that is better suited to autistic people's styles of communicating and thinking. Microsoft isn't the first to attempt something like this: The German software firm SAP, among a handful of others, have similar programs -- but Microsoft is the highest-profile company to have gone public with its efforts, and autistic adults are hoping it will spark a broader movement."
One autistic coder says they make better employees because "You don't have to tell someone not to go home early. They'll just stay." But there's also a push to bring different analytical and creative approaches into Microsoft's company culture. The article ultimately asks the question, "Could the third-largest corporation in the world make the case that hiring and employing autistic people, with all their social and intellectual quirks, was good, not bad, for business?"
"The goal is to create a situation that is better suited to autistic people's styles of communicating and thinking. Microsoft isn't the first to attempt something like this: The German software firm SAP, among a handful of others, have similar programs -- but Microsoft is the highest-profile company to have gone public with its efforts, and autistic adults are hoping it will spark a broader movement."
One autistic coder says they make better employees because "You don't have to tell someone not to go home early. They'll just stay." But there's also a push to bring different analytical and creative approaches into Microsoft's company culture. The article ultimately asks the question, "Could the third-largest corporation in the world make the case that hiring and employing autistic people, with all their social and intellectual quirks, was good, not bad, for business?"
And if you can't look people in the eye, look at the bridge of their nose. They will likely never know.
Learned off the telly from an Asperger's kid who wrote a book on his experiences.
Works well, to the point that it ultimately trains you to be much more comfortable looking them in the eye. At least it helped me; I'm probably a 'normal', though at times in my youth, had diagnosis been more common, some of my repetitive behaviours and lack of non-verbal communication ability might have been put down to Asperger's rather than what I now think are the causes -- wildly varying tenency to shyness and very definite OCD.
As someone who looked liked the poster child for mongolism (large head and slow learner), misdiagnosed as mentally retarded due to an undiagnosed hearing lost in kindergarten, and spent eight years in Special Ed classes, I can tell you exactly what quality Microsoft is looking for. It's the same quality that my Special Ed teachers prized the most when I was in class: a well-behaved idiot.