Interviews when you're autistic: the game nobody gave you the rules to

For a long time, interviews were a puzzle to me.

I had the skills, the drive. And yet, every single time, I came out of an interview drained, with the nagging feeling that I hadn't managed to show what I really had to offer. It cost me a staggering amount of energy. Far more than it seemed to cost the people around me.

About fifteen years ago, I finally hired an interview coach. I knew nothing about neurodivergence back then, and I didn't know I was autistic. I just wanted to understand why an exercise that seemed so simple for everyone else demanded so much of me.

Looking back, that decision changed the course of my career. I'm convinced that without that preparation, I would never have landed my first director role at Desjardins.

That coach gave me reference points. A way to walk into the interview on somewhat familiar ground. By practicing, the interview stopped being one vast, unknown territory. My brain could finally lean on an experience it had already lived, instead of trying to imagine every possibility at once. The unknown became more familiar. And that changes an enormous amount.

A few weeks later, I stepped into a management role where I truly flourished. Expectations were clear. I quickly understood how the organization worked, I felt like I belonged, and I loved it.

Years later, recently, in fact, I received an autism diagnosis.

For a long time, I had judged myself against expectations that were never built for the way I function. The diagnosis didn't change who I was. It let me look at myself with a little more gentleness. Naturally, I thought back on everything that had cost me so much without my understanding why. I finally had the words for that gap I'd carried for so long.

Deep down, I wanted this diagnosis for one very specific reason: to stop judging myself by the wrong criteria and to develop a little empathy toward myself. And, strangely, I felt more whole.

If I'm telling you all this, it's because you may already recognize a bit of yourself in it. Many people recognize themselves late, in adulthood, women in particular. Maybe you, too, come out of interviews with that same fatigue. The fatigue of having worked twice as hard as the person beside you, without anyone noticing.

Let's stay here a moment. This is exactly where everything plays out.

The interview: the game nobody gives you the rules to

Take a very simple question. “Tell me about yourself.”

You hear something else. Where do I start? From the beginning of my career, or from my last position? While you're searching for the right thread, silence sets in. And you feel it stretch out, that silence.

Another example. “Give me an example of a conflict you managed.” Now four or five examples come rushing to mind all at once. You want to give the right one. Except no one told you what they're looking for, so you sort through them at top speed, live, while part of you is still monitoring your posture and your gaze.

And then there's all the rest. The rules no one ever spells out. The small talk at the start, is that being evaluated? The polite laugh when the interviewer makes a joke, is that mandatory? For many people, these codes flow on their own. For an autistic person, it's a second exam happening at the same time as the first, with no instructions and no answer key.

It's exhausting. You do the work twice for the same result, and most of the time, no one in the room suspects a thing.

Most of the people I work with arrive believing they're bad at interviews. After an hour together, we almost always land on the same thing. The content was there. It was everything around it that had never been equipped. Here's what I often repeat: in the interviews you might call “failed” that I see go by, the answers were almost never the problem.

The mask

There's a word for it. Camouflage. In English, masking.

It's all those small adjustments we make without even realizing it, to seem a little more like everyone else. Eye contact held by force, an idea veering off that we swallow back at the last second. The voice we steady, the smile we adjust at just the right moment.

I don't want to dramatize. Camouflage isn't a catastrophe, and many autistic people do it with real talent. Me first, for years.

It still costs something very real. All the energy you spend monitoring your image is energy you're not putting into hearing the real question or retrieving the right memory at the right moment. There's an irony here: you can fail an interview because of the energy spent hiding your autism, far more than because of the autism itself.

There's also a slower trap. You camouflage perfectly, you land the job, and you inherit a role tailored for a version of you that you won't be able to sustain over time. The bill, what it costs you, comes later. It often goes by the name of burnout.

In my coaching, everything moves the other way. I help the person show up as they are, with accuracy.

Should I say it?

It's the question that comes up most often in my practice. “Do I say that I'm autistic?”

I'll be honest with you. There's no universal answer. There's yours, in your specific situation, when the moment is right.

What I can give you, though, is the framework. In Quebec, you have no legal obligation to disclose your autism, your ASD, to an employer. Not at the interview, and not once you're in the role. The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms protects you against discrimination in hiring.

You also have the right to request accommodations for the interview itself, without even putting a word on how you function. Receiving the questions in advance. Having a little more time. Taking the interview in writing, or in a room without noise that eats away at your concentration or your energy. Replacing a timed test with a role-play scenario. You don't even need an official diagnosis to name a need. A named need is enough.

The nuance I'd invite you to keep is in the why. You can name a need from a calm, aligned place. “Here's what helps me do good work.” Nothing to do with an excuse. And the way an employer receives your request tells you something too. An interview goes both ways. You're looking at them as much as they're looking at you.

What I do, concretely, with my clients

What that coach gave me fifteen years ago, I've reworked and deepened with everything I understand today about how the neurodivergent brain works.

The starting idea fits in one sentence. One of the most expensive things in an interview is uncertainty. So we go after uncertainty.

In practice, we make the interview predictable before it happens. We look at the possible formats, from the panel to the role-play. We break down common questions to understand what each one is really looking for, underneath.

Scripts, in fact, I avoid. I've seen it in myself and in my clients. When you recite an answer learned by heart, your brain starts searching for the exact sentence instead of listening to the question, so you end up answering beside the point.

Instead, we build anchors. Four or five solid professional stories that you know by heart, because you lived them, and that you can adapt to all kinds of questions. You always keep a point of support, no matter what happens.

And we prepare your presence as much as your words. What you give off when you walk into the room begins well before your first answer. Someone who knows what to expect breathes better. And when you breathe better, you regain access to your ideas and to yourself.

Structure, contrary to what people believe, frees you. It turns shifting ground into familiar ground, and it gives you back the energy the mask was taking from you. Structure doesn't mean a rigid frame.

Interviews can be learned

Interviews can be learned. The way you learn the rules of a game no one ever explained to you. The day you know them, you stop guessing, and what you already know how to do finally starts to show.

Your competence was never in question. What was possibly missing was readable ground and preparation tailored to the way you function.

Your answers, very likely, were never the problem.

If you want to go further

If something here resonated, there are a few doors. You choose your pace.

There's my free AI-powered interview preparation tool, right on the site. You can start practicing from home, tonight if you feel like it, no appointment needed.

There's also the free thirty-minute discovery call. We look together at where you're at, and you leave with something, even if we never end up working together.

And if the idea of speaking over video weighs on you, just write to me at info@adnevolution.ca. Take all the time you need. No judgment on my end, just a door left open.

To go further on neurodivergence more broadly (ADHD, giftedness, ASD), there's my more complete guide: Succeeding at an interview when you're neurodivergent in Quebec.