There is an uncomfortable question in autistic employment advocacy that we rarely ask: What if, sometimes, part of the reason we struggle to find employment is our own behaviour?
We hear frequently about employers who refuse to hire autistic people. We hear about discrimination, inaccessible interviews, inadequate accommodations, managers who misunderstand autism and workplaces designed around NeuroTypical expectations. These are real problems. Autistic people should have fair opportunities, appropriate accommodations and protection from discrimination.
But there is another side of employment that receives much less attention: the employer who tried. The manager who took a chance. The colleague who put their credibility behind somebody. The friend who recommended an autistic candidate.
What happens when we break their trust? The immediate consequence may be that we lose a job or an opportunity. The larger consequence is that the person who helped us may become much more reluctant to help the next autistic person.
This is why autistic job seekers need to understand something that is easy to overlook: When somebody opens a door for you, you may be borrowing their reputation.
Ask not (only) what your employer can do for you
My concept of Partnership Equality places relationships at the centre instead of treating either person’s interests as the only interests that matter. President John F. Kennedy famously challenged Americans to ask not only what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. I believe autistic employment requires a similar principle: Ask not (only) what your employer can do for you. Ask what you can do for your employer.
This does not mean accepting discrimination or refusing accommodations. You can reasonably say:
- “I need clear instructions.”
- “I need a quieter workspace.”
- “I need an adjustment to the way this task is organised.”
- “I need to be assessed on my actual work rather than whether I appear NeuroTypical.”
At the same time, your employer can reasonably ask:
- “Can you perform the important parts of this job?”
- “Can we depend on you?”
- “Can you learn from feedback?”
- “Can you work with the other people who depend on you?”
- “What value can you contribute?”
These questions are not opposites. A sustainable employment relationship needs both.
Someone took a risk on me
When I returned to Singapore after my overseas stint in autism work, I needed paid employment.
Someone who knew me personally put their reputation behind me. They could speak about my performance during National Service and my IT abilities. They also told me that there had been considerable reluctance surrounding my hiring because of my autism. The person who supported me asked me to remain in the position for at least two years. If I left very quickly, they believed it would become harder to justify why they had fought to get me hired in the first place.
At the time, I believed the job paid less than the value I hoped eventually to demonstrate. I could have looked only at my own interests and complained: “Why should I stay in a low-paying job?” Instead, I also considered what the other person had done for me.
Somebody had spent their credibility getting me through a door that might otherwise have remained closed. I needed the opportunity. I needed work experience. I needed to establish myself. And I did not want the person who had advocated for me to regret doing so. That did not mean I owed the employer unlimited loyalty. It did mean that the relationship was not entirely about me.
Someone had considered my interests. I believed I should consider theirs. That is Partnership Equality.
When you borrow somebody else’s reputation
Many years later, I experienced the other side of this relationship. I tried to help another autistic person I knew obtain an interview with my employer. Getting him to the meeting on time was already difficult enough that I told him it began an hour earlier than it actually did. He arrived inadequately prepared for the interview and did not get the job. He became angry with me, claiming that I had promised him employment and demanded that I compensate him.
From my perspective, I had helped create an opportunity to compete for a job. I could open the door but I could not walk through it for him. I had spent my time and some of my credibility creating an opportunity. Instead of feeling that this effort was appreciated, I felt as though I was being blamed for failing to deliver something to which he believed he was entitled. I never introduced another autistic person again.
That is how you shoot yourself in the foot
The first consequence was obvious: he did not get the job. The second consequence was more important: he damaged my willingness to advocate for another person. If he had simply failed the interview, I might easily have recommended somebody else in future. If he had said, “Thanks for trying. What do you think I could do better next time?” my confidence in helping him might even have increased.
Instead, the experience taught me to be cautious. I learned that when I personally recommend somebody, my own reputation can become involved. That means I became more selective about whom I was willing to recommend.
This is a lesson autistic job seekers need to understand. When a friend recommends you, a manager argues that you deserve a chance, or an employer deliberately creates an opportunity for somebody with autism, you are not necessarily the only person taking a risk. Other people may also have something at stake.
If the opportunity succeeds, their confidence may grow. If you fail despite genuinely trying, reasonable people should understand that not every placement works. But if you behave as though everybody else is responsible for your success, refuse to prepare, reject reasonable feedback or attack the people who tried to help you, you may destroy something more valuable than a single job opportunity. You destroy trust and all the opportunities that comes with it.
What I mean by entitlement
The word entitlement is easily abused, so I want to be precise. I am talking about behaviours such as:
- treating an opportunity to compete as though somebody has promised you an outcome;
- expecting other people repeatedly to invest time, credibility and effort without considering what the relationship costs them;
- failing to prepare for foreseeable responsibilities while assuming somebody else should repair the consequences;
- assuming that having a disability automatically makes ordinary job requirements unreasonable;
- rejecting negative feedback automatically because criticism is interpreted as discrimination;
- expecting allies to rescue you whenever something goes wrong;
- becoming hostile towards people who tried to help because they could not guarantee your success.
These behaviours are not uniquely autistic. Plenty of NeuroTypical people behave this way too. But if autistic people behave this way, mature autism advocacy should be willing to say so. Otherwise, we are not helping autistic people become employable; we are merely withholding uncomfortable information from them.
Autism may explain a problem without removing its consequences
Some behaviours may genuinely be related to autism. An autistic person may have difficulty understanding an unwritten workplace expectation. They may interpret somebody’s words unusually literally. They may struggle with planning, executive functioning, emotional regulation, communication or recognising what another person expects.
Knowing this should affect how we respond. Perhaps the person needs clearer instructions. Perhaps expectations need to be made explicit. Perhaps a checklist, reminder system, job coach, mentor or different communication method would solve the problem. Perhaps an accommodation is necessary. But explaining why a behaviour occurs does not always remove its effect on other people.
If I unintentionally insult somebody, my lack of malicious intent matters. But the other person may still feel insulted. If executive-function difficulties repeatedly make me late, that may explain the problem. But a colleague who has to cover my work is still affected. If I misunderstand a recommendation as a guarantee of employment, the misunderstanding may be genuine. But attacking the person who recommended me can still destroy the relationship. Understanding autism should help us solve these problems, not require everybody else to pretend the problems have no consequences.
Sometimes the employer took a chance too
This becomes particularly important when an employer has little experience employing autistic people. Imagine an autistic applicant seeking a client-facing position. A manager is uncertain. Someone inside the organisation says: “Give this person a chance. Don’t reject them simply because they are autistic.” The applicant gets the job.
Now suppose serious problems appear. The employee repeatedly redirects client interactions towards their own concerns, struggles to maintain professional boundaries and reacts angrily whenever corrective feedback is given. The employer tries to explain the problem. The employee interprets every criticism as discrimination. The internal advocate tries to mediate. Nothing improves. Eventually the placement fails.
The autistic employee may walk away thinking: “Another discriminatory employer.”
The employer may walk away thinking: “We tried inclusive hiring. It created endless problems.”
The internal advocate may walk away thinking: “I am never putting my reputation on the line like that again.”
All three people may understand the same experience very differently.
This does not mean the employer was necessarily right, but it is also possible that some of the employee’s behaviour genuinely needed to change. We should be willing to consider all of these possibilities.
Could failed inclusion make employers more cautious?
This question matters because Singapore has recently seen a surprising decline in reported workplace attitudes towards people with disabilities. According to a 2024 Straits Times report on Singapore’s Disability Trends Report, the proportion of respondents with positive attitudes towards people with disabilities in the workplace fell from 59.6% in 2019 to 50.6% in 2023. The decline was particularly large for autism. Positive attitudes towards people with autism fell from 69.9% to 56.2%.
The study did not establish why attitudes declined. We should not pretend that it proved employers became more negative because autistic employees behaved badly. But the findings raise an uncomfortable possibility worth considering.
During the same period, Singapore has been actively encouraging more inclusive employment. More employers have been asked to open their doors to people with disabilities. The Straits Times report quoted an academic involved in inclusive hiring who observed that some companies had joined the inclusive-hiring movement without sufficient buy-in from managers and ordinary employees.
A subsequent CNA examination of the decline in workplace attitudes described employers and employees as sometimes being unsure or uncomfortable about how to integrate people with disabilities into the workplace. It also raised the problem of disabled people entering employment without having developed some of the workplace and interpersonal skills they need.
These reports do not prove that failed inclusive employment caused the decline in attitudes. However, they make a feedback loop plausible enough that autistic job seekers should take it seriously. An employer tries. The placement is badly prepared, badly matched, badly supported or damaged by the employee’s behaviour. The experience becomes difficult. The employer becomes more cautious. The next autistic applicant encounters a door that is harder to open.
This is particularly dangerous because inclusive employment can depend heavily on people who are personally willing to create opportunities. A 2026 Straits Times commentary on autism and employment noted that many opportunities still depend on individual employers choosing to open their doors, while also stressing that appropriate support and job matching are essential after somebody enters the workplace. That means trust matters.
Do not make the next autistic applicant pay for your behaviour
An employer should judge every applicant individually. If one autistic employee behaves badly, it would be wrong to assume that the next autistic person will behave the same way. Unfortunately, knowing that people should not generalise does not mean that nobody ever will.
This creates an uncomfortable responsibility for those of us who receive opportunities through other people’s willingness to take a chance. You are primarily responsible for your own career. You should not live under the crushing expectation that you somehow represent every autistic person. But you should recognise that your conduct can affect other people’s willingness to help again.
If somebody gives you a chance, try not to make them regret it. If somebody recommends you, take the opportunity seriously. Prepare. Turn up. Ask questions when expectations are unclear. Request accommodations when you genuinely need them. Listen carefully when somebody tells you that something is going wrong. Do not automatically interpret every criticism as an attack. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it and learn from it. If you fail an interview, thank the person who created the opportunity rather than blaming them for the result.
These behaviours will not guarantee employment. They will make you easier to trust and keep the door open for the future autistic applicants.
Feedback is information
This may be especially difficult for autistic people who have experienced years of bullying, rejection or being criticised for harmless autistic differences. After enough unfair criticism, it is understandable to become defensive. But a defence mechanism that once protected you can eventually become another way of shooting yourself in the foot.
If every criticism is dismissed as ableism, you lose the ability to distinguish:
- genuine discrimination;
- a misunderstanding that needs clarification;
- a disability-related difficulty that needs accommodation;
- a skill you have not yet learnt;
- a genuine behaviour problem that you can change.
An autistic person who learns to distinguish between them has a considerable advantage. You do not have to accept every criticism as correct, but you should usually examine it before rejecting it. Ask:
- “What exactly did I do?”
- “What effect did it have?”
- “What was expected instead?”
- “Is that expectation actually necessary for the job?”
- “Would an accommodation solve the problem?”
- “Is there something I can change?”
That approach gives you far more control over your future than simply concluding that everybody else is unfair.
From entitlement to contribution
This is the part of autism advocacy that I believe is often missing. We spend considerable effort telling employers how they should change, but we should also check to see if our own attitudes or behaviours is making people unwilling to employ, recommend or work with us. You do not need to wait for society to change before doing something useful; you can work on what is within your control.
Autistic people entering employment also need to understand what other people reasonably need from them.
- Employers need useful contributions.
- Managers need sufficient reliability to operate a workplace.
- Colleagues need reciprocity and workable communication.
- Clients need appropriate professional behaviour.
- Friends who recommend us need reason to believe their trust will not become a liability.
- Allies need us to recognise the effort they make when they open doors for us.
Fair employment is therefore not simply: “What will you do for me?”
It is: “Give me a fair opportunity. Give me the support I reasonably need. Then give me the chance to show you what I can contribute.”
If somebody opens a door for you, aim to leave that person more willing to open another door in future, not less.