How Stack Recruitment helped the fantastic Ellie, an autistic adult, find meaningful employment.

Emily here! This blog is all about Ellie and how she gained meaningful employment with a bit of support from us at Stack Recruitment.

The start of Ellie’s job search…

Ellie messaged Stack in October 2019 as she wanted to kickstart her job search again. She was made redundant a year previously and had applied for many roles, but had unfortunately had no luck.

I met Ellie on a chilly day in Reading, where we headed for a coffee to share stories and make a plan of action to help her find meaningful employment. She told me that she found applying for jobs stressful as an autistic adult, especially with the anxiety associated with the interview and feeling like she had to mask her autism to appear ‘neurotypical’. This really impacted her self esteem and meant she couldn’t go any further with her job search.

We spoke about her ideal career, skills and experience and I could automatically see she had a lot of potential but needed a bit of support to bring her confidence back. We decided to create a plan to match her to a fantastic job and get her job search started.

Ellie gets hired!

Fast forward to November and Ellie has landed a job interview! This is amazing as the job is the perfect number of hours and an ideal commute, meaning she can still be close to her family.

We arrange a phone call to help her prepare. This involves ensuring she’s getting the right reasonable adjustments to reduce anxiety and to make sure she’s comfortable.

She absolutely smashes it and gets the job!

“They were extremely sensitive to my needs, they even got the supervisor to show me some machinery in action to ensure that it was ok for me. Thank you so much for your help. And guess what? I can wear my Doc Martens and jeans!”

“Omg!!! I can’t believe it! I feel so happy but choked up, a weird feeling! Thank you so much, I just can’t believe someone would say something so nice about me!”

Visiting Tea People’s newest employee!

I went and visited Ellie in her new role at Tea People in January to see how she was getting on. On arrival, I met Ellie’s employers, Vishaka and Neeraj, who are also the founders of the business.

After sampling some of their award winning tea, I learnt all about Tea People, their commitment to helping those less fortunate and hiring neurodiverse employees.

Tea People are a fine speciality tea company that develop and produce hundreds of fine tea blends. As well as this, they are a social enterprise that helps address the educational development of impoverished areas in India.

Ellie’s role

Ellie works in the operations side of Tea People where she does everything from receiving orders, sorting through stock, packaging items within a small team and providing excellent customer service.

It was clear to see Ellie was flourishing in her new role! It was great to see her confidence levels had increased since we first met and the smile on her face when she was working.

Changing the attitudes of employers

I had a great time visiting Ellie and meeting the founders of Tea People. Seeing her happy and flourishing in her new role is rewarding, however another huge benefit of what we do is when we see employers realise the benefits of hiring autistic talent.

“Initially we we’re concerned about hiring an autistic individual, however we are so pleased we did as Ellie is an asset to our company”

Neurodiversity can be such a huge benefit to employers, and with the right support they can create an inclusive workforce.

Thanks to Tea People for having me and showing me your wonderful business.

How Stack Recruitment can help you

Here at Stack, we help employers hire autistic talent through our specialised recruitment agency model. All you have to do is to get started! Or,if you’re an autistic adult looking for work, just Register and Submit your CV and we will support you finding a job.