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Dell Autism Hiring Program

jobs.dell.com

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Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#2
Thank you for sharing this. As someone with ASD who feels disadvantaged by traditional interviewing, it's comforting to see more examples of companies expanding their approach.

I live in Canada, so this doesn't seem to be available to me. But, I still have a year or so until I graduate, so I think I still have time to sort out my plans.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#4
Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee:

  Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums)

  * They have no social skills
  * They generally marry the first girl they date
  * Can't make eye contact
  * Resume and educational background is a mess... because they have no social skills
  * They work like machines, don't engage in politics, don't develop attitudes and never change jobs

[1] https://www.geek.com/news/developer-bro-alex-st-john-want-a-...

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#6

Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee: Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums) * They have no social skills * They generally marry the first girl they date * Can't make eye contac…

People are generally more forgiving when you perceive your employees' disability in a positive light instead of viewing their disabilities as something to exploit.

It's a subtle difference, but the first one encourages/enables the employee to function in spite of their disability or perhaps one day overcome the shortcomings, or simply work in a way / environment where it becomes irrelevant. (Software development already gets us 90% of the way there)

The other, well, that one doesn't really give a shit as long as you're productive, i.e. it will probably still exclude a large portion of autists and never really help anything. Hell it probably expects to never give them upward mobility with that last remark either.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#7

Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee: Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums) * They have no social skills * They generally marry the first girl they date * Can't make eye contac…

How could anyone stand to work for someone who so swiftly limits the breadth and depth of a person via their mannerisms such as this? it's dehumanizing, full stop.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#8
post #7

Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee: Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums) * They have no social skills * They generally marry the first girl they date * Can't make eye contac…

How could anyone stand to work for someone who so swiftly limits the breadth and depth of a person via their mannerisms such as this? it's dehumanizing, full stop.

His daughter disowned him.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#9
I wish I was born in the first-world. You people seem to be having a lot of fun over there. In my (exploited by first-world for resources) country autists get bullied relentlessly and put to under-equipped mental asylums when they eventually break down.

Can you see the hypocrisy? I see it everyday.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#10
I'm curious to see what's going to happen when an employee, secretly part of a neurodiversity hiring program, says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR.

Will someone's comfort levels take precedence over the desire to employ someone with difficulty with social cues?

Or will we visibly "tag" employees who are neurodiversity hires so that you know that if they somehow offend you, that might be because they're on a different wavelength compared to you, so you should give them a pass? Do neurodiversity hires get to keep their status secret, or will the company need to disclose it?

On one hand, you don't want to fire them, that will look terrible for the company, but on the other hand, you don't want people to feel uncomfortable either, which creates legal vulnerabilities down the line. Curious how that conundrum gets solved.

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