I love to volunteer and help people. It was instilled into me by both my parents. They were extremely active in the volunteer community most of our childhood and in their adult life’s. My dad volunteered all over our community with sports and cub scouts. He was a Vietnam Vet and was a life long advocate of veterans and helped found and open one of the first homeless shelters for veterans in Massachusetts. Through his job he also volunteered and helped a large amount of charities and communities in the Worcester, MA area. From clothes drives to donating old furniture to homeless shelters, to providing schools in Africa with library books, he covered a lot of bases. My mom’s focus was always on children’s causes. She was a long time volunteer at the local library and ran the summer reading programs. She also volunteered as a den mother for cub scouts as well as contributing time and money to local homeless shelters and charities.
My dad unfortunately passed away in 2022, my mom is still alive and still participates in giving back. I carry on both of their charitable legacies and teach my own son that direct volunteer action is the way to help your local and greater community. You can have an immediate impact on someone and can really understand their needs and craft solutions towards them.
I’ve done a lot of volunteer work myself over the years through other organizations or 1 on 1. I’ve wanted to find a way to give back using my experience in business, technology and HR. I know a lot of ND people struggle finding the right school or training, the right job, and the right accommodations once in a job. It can be a daunting task to self-advocate in a work or school environment. I feel I am in a unique experience of holding degrees in Business, HR, and technology as well as working experience in all 3 as an ND person.
You can learn more about me on the “About Me” page including a link to my LinkedIn. You can see I am a real person, who has real connections, who has worked at the jobs that are on my resume.
I have worked in the tech or business field since I graduated high school in 2000. I worked my way up from a field tech and then working in a help desk to a manager role. In my 30’s I went to college and received a degree in technology that included technical writing and 2 Business degrees, one in Management and Leadership and another in Human Resource Management. I received grants, and scholarships to help pay so I have experience recently in navigating college and financial aid. After college I worked as a Director for a startup and am now a manager at U.S. Bank’s customer support center. I have built up teams at multiple companies, ran recruiting campaigns, reviewing thousands of resumes and interviewing hundreds of applicants. I have helped people request and get approved, and received my own accommodations. I am not a lawyer but I am well versed in business and HR guidelines, and know where to find any information that I am not up to date on. If it is a legal issue I will know where to point you to get assistance.
I think one of the traits of autism I really have is I am direct. I am ethical, I don’t lie, I don’t brag, and I don’t over promise. If I say I will be there, I will be. If I say I will complete something for you. I will. If I am unsure of the answer or not sure if I am the right person to help I will be honest and let you know and then do everything within my knowledge or power to find you the right resource. I don’t claim to be a resume expert. I do know how the industry works, the use of ATS systems, and how to make a clean resume that will pass the checks you need.
If seeing I am real via LinkedIn, and meeting me via video or in person and seeing I match that person, is still not convincing you. I can provided emails of references, or you can see references I have on my LinkedIn. While I am new to this project of starting my own Non-Profit. I am not new to assisting people in these areas.
Yes! Totally 100%. I am the only person here, my overhead is about $25 a month right now, I have no reason to seek any kind of payment or donation. I never at any point will request or solicit any payment or ask you to sign up for any mailing list or subscribe to anything. I will offer to make a LinkedIn connection with you but that is 100% up to you. If I ever got to the point I need to hire more people or had a higher overhead, I would solicit donations from the public or grants. My services will always be free for the ND Community and this will become a registered non-profit.
Not yet but I will be there is a lot of paperwork and fees, but I am working on it. If you are finding this project in the early stages my focus was on the webpage and structure. As I am not taking any money registering is not required it would just be nice to have. Once I gain a little traction and feel its worth the money and time I will be filing the paperwork at a state level to become a registered non-profit in the state of Washington.
At this point it is just me running this page and group. I would need 2 other board members and either have grown to the point I do need to hire or overhead has grown to a place I need donations from non clients, in that case I would purse tax exempt and federal on profit status.
Actually, there are. There is one webpage I did find they seem to have a decent setup, but not run by ND people. There are other pages but most of them when I looked into them offered the same generic type of advice and resources and not a lot of 1:1 time or resume creation. I feel a lot of people don’t know where to start, or are dealing with people that don’t understand our challenges. I want to start an organization that gathers and provides specific support to the ND community. A lot of generic resource have bad advice for anyone, but add in the struggle of being ND and it can be a lot harder to figure out which advice to follow, or how to craft a resume. Or worse you follow the wrong online options and end up with a resume that isn’t getting pass a single ATS check.
Worse, I found some pages that seemed to really stereotype autistic people and they seemed to be offering low level, low paying jobs. While we all have to start somewhere, I think the resources should be for preparing you for what you want to achieve in life, and the career and life goals you have. That is hard to do in the modern world for minimum wage. I believe that everyone has the potential to reach their goals and there are many ways to do so. Training, certifications, 2 year college, 4 year college, a University, trade school, vocational rehabs, and more. I feel too many online groups seem to think “Well this is the best someone who is ND can be so lets prepare them to be a janitor or work in a warehouse because they like repetitive tasks”. My ADHD does not like repetitive tasks, does yours? You can receive funding, grants, and accommodations. Why not try? Worse that happens is you end up where you already are. The best that can happen? You’ll have to try to find out.
At the moment I am offering a variety of services related to resume help, career development, navigating accommodations, finding resources and training/schooling as it relates to Neurodivergent people. You can check out everything I have on my services page and if there isn’t something there that you need reach out to me, I might be able to help. I have experience in mentoring and finding my own way through the college and training processes. I have helped people, approved, and have requested my own accommodations. I have had to at time advocate for my own rights as well.
Anyone that is Neurodivergent. I respect anyone who is on any stage of their diagnosis journey. If you need help finding resources locally or online to get a diagnosis I might be able to assist with finding you options you might not be aware of. If you do not have an official diagnosis but just need help with resume stuff, interview prep or LinkedIn type requests, I can assist with that, feel free to reach out.
If you have come across this page and are not ND but are looking for help, feel free to reach out I will assist how I can, but I probably would not have the personal time or resources to assist in the same services I am offering ND people.
My dad was a Bronze Medal Recipient Vietnam Army Veteran. If you came across this and are a Veteran and need help. I will assist you with a resume and can point you in the right direction for other resources. My dad was a life long advocate for other Veterans and while I am not the expert he was I can at least point you to the people that will be.
No, we are on the honor system here. Please do not take away resources from the people I am trying to help. If you need resume help and are not ND, just be honest and let me know. I can assist as much as I can and point you in the right direction.
No, but that is where my expertise lies. I do have some experience with recruiting FROM other countries and colleges. I have recently started to help a student at the ENGIn program I volunteer at prepare for applying for jobs in Europe and the United States after their degree program ends. I am starting to learn some about the European process. If you are outside of the US still feel free to contact me. If I can’t help I’ll be honest and try to locate resources closer to you.
When I was diagnosed and started to join online communities I found out about what I like call the “politics of autism”. I found that depending on your age, your background, your experiences, and your diagnosis journey, your opinion on various symbols or colors, or organizations could greatly differ. Taking a stance on one or the other can immediately alienate other parts of the community. The world has enough strife and conflict lately and I am here to help bring community members together not alienate them. There is no official color, or symbol that I will use ever in this group, as to keep everyone else feeling welcome.
I designed this page myself using WordPress, this was the first page I’ve designed in WordPress, all images were created in Photoshop and Adobe Firefly. Any colors or symbols are all my creation or with the help of Firefly, and there is no affiliation or refence to any organization or official stance or statement. I’ve enjoyed orange and blues my whole life and find the design clean and comforting, I hope you do as well. I will leave the politics to the online echo chambers, I am here for advocacy. I think these two things get mixed up a lot and we get caught up in language choices, and labels, and what color or symbol is ok to use. Autism is a spectrum, other types of ND are complex, we are all individual who might identify or find comfort in things others might have different opinions on, and that is ok. Arguing is not advocacy and does not help anyone nor advance support or acceptance of neurodivergence.
I make no official stance on any group or organization. There are lots of resources on Google if you want to join a national or local Autism Society or group, and I encourage you to do your own research and use reputable news sources and not online blogs to make your choices.
I am not going to ask for any information outside what is on your resume. There are dozens of sites, and communities including places like /resume on Reddit that people post their resumes, either looking for advice or jobs. I would not go through the trouble of building this site to try to solicit a resumes when I can find thousands online for free. You can remove identifying information from your resume if you are concerned. I can still make a headline and use place holders like “Name” “Phone” and if you had Microsoft Word and are comfortable with it, you can edit your information back in to my design.
You don’t. I can’t make a guarantee like that. I can guarantee I will make you a resume that will pass ATS checkers and give you higher match rates, which could leave to more people seeing your resume. Which will increase interviews chances and chance for a job.
I have a Resource page on the website, I am slowly trying to build it up with useful information. I find a lot career pages are just full of reposts and generic information and I am trying not to do that here. Keep checking back for more, if you have suggestions let me know.
Yes for sure! Contact me.
My main special interest in normally music. I love music and listen to all types. I play guitar, bass and drums and use to sing and play guitar in a band. Currently I want to learn piano. I love computer games as well I use to competitively play computer games when I was younger and still continue to play for fun. Right now I am really loving VR. Onward and Contractors are my favorite. I also really love ARMA and Hell Let Loose on the PC. I used to be a dedicated World of Warcraft player but don’t really play anymore.
I really love to read as well. I am married with a 16 year old son, we enjoy going hiking and biking and exploring the Pacific Northwest.