Stack and Yo Samdy Sam
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Earlier this year, the founder of Stack Recruitment Emily Banks was a guest on Yo Samdy Sam’s Youtube channel. Yo Samdy Sam is a high-profile, funny and brilliant vlogger about all things autism! Emily had a great time talking to her about what we do here at Stack, and the challenges that face neurodiverse people in the recruitment process.
Sam speaks about her experience of trying to find support for autistic people approaching job interviews on Google:
‘The tips aimed at autistic people for job interviews were invariably about masking, specifically dampening down your autistic self to be more presentable or professionally acceptable – and you could say that everybody does this, especially in interviews, but when autistic people mask it is at the expense of their physical and mental health. Our ability to remain in employment should not depend on keeping up a damaging facade for many years.’
Luckily, help is at hand from Emily and Stack Recruitment! Sam explains:
‘During my search I was very excited to discover that there is a recruitment agency specifically aimed at improving employment outcomes for autistic people, which focuses not on masking but on skill-building, help with CVs, interview practise and that sort of thing, but also works with companies to help them be more accommodating to autistic people. So the onus isn’t solely on the autistic person to change to fit into the mould, which is refreshing.’
Emily gives some fantastic tips, including decoding the dreaded ‘What are your strengths and weaknesses?’ question:
‘When they say ‘Tell me your strengths’, what they’re actually meaning is ‘Can you say the three best things that you can contribute for this role?’, so instead of you maybe very honestly saying ‘Well I’m really good at tennis and I love doing art in my spare time’, they’re actually looking for things that are the “buzzwords” [key] things that you may be able to contribute to the role.’
Want to find out more? Watch the interview here:
Let us know what you think!
If you enjoyed this video, have a look around Yo Samdy Sam’s channel – you might also like this vlog focusing on work:
There are vlogs on everything from symptoms of autism and the stages of getting a diagnosis, through to dating and great gift ideas for autistic people in your life. Yo Samdy Sam’s channel is a fantastic resource for fun and informative autism content.
I adore Yo Samdy Sam! Great interview and post.