I don't have any formal diagnosis, beyond a sixth form schoolmate introducing me to an acquaintance as "one of our more autistic members". I do know that things 'normal' people enjoy like nightclubs and football matches are my idea of hell, and that machine beeps and chimes are hard wired into my brain to a greater degree than 'normal' people.
In my working life, I don't think this has had a major impact, it is something you learn to live with and compensate for. The one scenario where I do feel that it might have counted against me was in my IET Registration interviews, hence my query about Turing & Tesla. I've been a design consultant largely running my own firm for over thirty years, and yet have twice received poor outcomes from these interviews. Candidates are told that they will be interviewed by people like themselves, presumably in my case designers from small firms, but I have my doubts in this respect, and the IET is unwilling to divulge any details of the interviewing panels.
I really don't know how the IET could adjust this process to aid candidates like me, which is why I was interested to see the report, but this appears to solely address industry, as far as I can see. I don't have answers, but it would be good to think that the IET might be taking a good look in the mirror whilst it is giving industry guidance.

This is a difficult one, and not something that can really be discussed here, in that it all depends on why you where unsuccessful at interview - which could be for completely different reasons. Although there is a level of confidentiality around this, if you used a PRA they have full access to the interview notes which can be very telling (occasionally it can be interesting as a PRA having to tell candidates things they really don't want to hear!) The interview results are relatively black and white, they are based on whether the candidate shows each of the competences. If a candidate is failed mainly on competence D then that might be a flag here - however it would (I can very much see both sides of this one) be a discussion of whether their communication skills met that required for effective communication of engineering matters, as opposed to whether their communication met the expected approach by the panel (which I agree could be inappropriate).

In a completely different context I was discussing this week the challenge of how do you know when you need to monitor for a problem, because monitoring for a problem is expensive, so to justify that expense you need to show that there is a problem, but you don't know if you have a problem unless you are monitoring for it...  However, IF candidates came forward with evidence that (e.g.) they are clearly communicating effectively in the workplace, but were rejected at interview for poor communication (which, as mentioned, the PRA will know) then they may have grounds for appeal which may in turn cause the process to be reviewed.

However, I would not suggest at all following the path of "who are these interviewers". The interviewers are not assessing whether you are competent to work in your particular field, they are assessing whether you meet the UK-SPEC criteria. It's certainly easier to assess someone when you have some understanding of their technical and business fields, e.g. management responsibility in a small business is different to management responsibility in a multinational, technical responsibility in fast changing consumer goods is different to technical responsibility in slow moving utilities industries. But it's pretty unlikely that the majority across the panels will be not capable of doing so.

As I suggest above, there are many, many people showing autistic spectrum traits - sometimes very severely - who get through interview successfully every year. (I work a business where CEng is a requirement for all senior staff, trust me, we have quite a few who are either self or professional diagnosed! Safety critical rail engineering is the epicentre of the Venn diagram for the autistic spectrum...)  And as a PRA I work with many failed candidates, who have failed for many reasons, But all the reasons I've seen have been that, in form or another, they have not demonstrated to the assessors that they exhibit the UK competences - very often because they've misunderstood what the assessors are looking for.

Maybe it's too far in the past now to be possible (you didn't say when your "poor results" were from), but if the latest one was recent I cannot suggest strongly enough finding out what the reason actually was, then it will be clearer to you (and the IET) whether this may have been related to any non-competence related issue. But certainly never assume you know what the reason was, I cannot offhand think of a time when I've had a failed candidate referred to me where the reason they assumed they were unsuccessful turned out to be the actual reason they were unsuccessful.

Hope that makes sense,

Andy

I have a degree of dyspraxia, self- diagnosed as when I was born it was not a recognised condition.  Like most with a similar condition, over the years I have adopted a number of strategies that make it nearly undetectable (except to my wife!).  I welcomed and embraced computers and word processors with spelling and grammar checks.

I am contributing from a personal point of view, not for the IET.  I am a volunteer in the Registration process and very familiar with the assessment and interview procedure, all of which is carried out by volunteers.  The people involved in any application are chosen to have expertise in the areas of the applicant’s experience.  A perfect match is not possible of course but we are well trained and experienced.   The interview is the only stage where the applicant is met face-to-face.  Allowance may be made at the interview IF you let them know in advance what your difficulty is.

As Andy said, it helps to have the advice and guidance of a PRA, both to prepare your application and to prepare for the interview.   At the end of the day the interviewers have to assess against the UKSpec competences of which communication is one; but one that impinges on all the others.  If you did have a PRA then speak to them if you want to know more detail of your interview results, otherwise you should have an indication in your letter which competences were weakest.

David

I have a degree of dyspraxia, self- diagnosed as when I was born it was not a recognised condition.  Like most with a similar condition, over the years I have adopted a number of strategies that make it nearly undetectable (except to my wife!).  I welcomed and embraced computers and word processors with spelling and grammar checks.

I am contributing from a personal point of view, not for the IET.  I am a volunteer in the Registration process and very familiar with the assessment and interview procedure, all of which is carried out by volunteers.  The people involved in any application are chosen to have expertise in the areas of the applicant’s experience.  A perfect match is not possible of course but we are well trained and experienced.   The interview is the only stage where the applicant is met face-to-face.  Allowance may be made at the interview IF you let them know in advance what your difficulty is.

As Andy said, it helps to have the advice and guidance of a PRA, both to prepare your application and to prepare for the interview.   At the end of the day the interviewers have to assess against the UKSpec competences of which communication is one; but one that impinges on all the others.  If you did have a PRA then speak to them if you want to know more detail of your interview results, otherwise you should have an indication in your letter which competences were weakest.

David