6 remote (work from home) SEO-related jobs for autistic adults - this quiz will help you choose.

The 32 remote jobs for autistic people quiz has helped many autistics and Aspergers adults to learn what kind of work from home jobs are a good fit for them.

Spectroomz has recently focused around SEO (Search Engine Optimization = getting sites ranked high on Google), an $80 Billion industry. Anyone can take the SEO training and join.

There are different SEO roles a freelancer can do from home, and in order to help people with autism understand what’s the best role for them, we have prepared a quiz.

Choosing the best remote job for you - the quiz

There are 6 roles below and a quiz that will help you choose which one is most relevant to you.

The tool doesn’t take into account your interest and qualifications (our SEO course/training can help with that). It focuses on the nature of work. If you have special qualifications, make sure to take it into account

How it works

1. Answer 4 questions below and get the score;

2. Check below the list of roles based on your score;

3. Optional: submit your details to become a freelancer on Spectroomz.

Step 1 - The autistic SEO remote job quiz

powered by Typeform

Step 2 - Check to which category you belong and choose the right job for you

Group A (score is under or equal to 5.5):

1. SEO writer - if you have writing skills, being an SEO writer is in the heart of the SEO process. It means writing content and using the right keywords that will help companies to rank high on Google.

2. Ongoing content optimizations - There is an ongoing process of optimizing content even after it was officially posted (changing the titles, adding keywords and much more). This is a very analytical role.
   
   

Group B (score 5.6-8):

1. Keyword research - Keyword research is the process of making a list of keywords and phrases your potential clients are searching for, and based on that list, generating the content that will drive them to your site. This is an analytical role (and super interesting).

2. Technical SEO - If you have a technical orientation (not necessarily a coder) this might be for you. An example for a task under this role would be to plan the URL structure of a website.

Group C (score 8-10):

1. Backlink building - getting other sites to link to your site is part of the SEO process. This requires marketing orientation.

2. Email finder - part of the backlink building process is to find emails of other websites owners. It’s a repetitive work.

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What are the Best Jobs for Autistic People?

By: Vanessa Blanchard

I’ve had a lot of jobs in the last 20 years.  Some were great, others awful, but all of them burned me out.  Figuring out why I couldn’t hold a job helped me learn I’m autistic.  The majority of autistic adults are un or underemployed, largely because the demands of traditional jobs erase autistic needs.  So, are there jobs for autistic people?

I think yes, but the key to stable employment for autistic adults is to let meeting their needs become part of the job.  We often thrive in environments without hierarchies that foster authenticity.

My worst jobs were ones where hierarchies mattered greatly.  I’m always thrust to the bottom of social structures like this.  That’s what being “othered” is about. These are the jobs where needing accommodations is both a betrayal and a sign that you’re a liar.  

The worst job I’ve ever had was in real estate.  I wanted to talk about houses all day. Instead, I had to mask constantly and chase people’s approval.  Office work requires constant interruptions and phones make me anxious. I quickly found myself being manipulated and bullied within the office.

There were parts of that job I loved very much, but I couldn’t make it 4 months before I was fired.  The disappointment and embarrassment nearly broke me. It took me months to recover and I had to pay for therapy out of pocket just to last as long as I did.

My best job was the opposite.  I designed crochet patterns and sold them on Etsy.  This job let me organize my day around my needs. I could stim freely.  There were tasks that were good for bad sensory days, hyperfocus, or no focus, far fewer social and sensory demands, and new projects meant novelty within a routine.  Breaks were allowed because stillness brings innovation and clarity, which is integral for an art business.

I kept that job for several years before I decided to move on.  During that time, my mental health improved immensely. Building an expression, stitch by stitch is a tangible transmutation.  Finishing a thing is my favorite way to gain confidence.

I firmly believe that there could be a diverse range of  jobs out there for autistic adults that won’t chew them up and spit them out.  It will require innovation and perhaps a union so that we’re protected from discrimination, but it’s 100% possible for many more of us to have the independence and sense of purpose that employment offers.

Silicon Valley Dreams Meet Reality: The (Supposedly) Perfect Job for an Aspie

When thinking about the best job for an autistic person, it’s usually the tech industry that comes to mind. The geeky and eccentric Silicon Valley programmer archetype maps well onto stereotypes about autistic people. We’re often portrayed in media as latent mathematicians or computer whisperers, but many of us aren’t particularly good at math nor moderate debates between calculators.

I worked in IT having thought it was the most fitting career for me. And, in many ways, the job was fitting. However, office politics exasperated me.

In 2017, I was finally hired for the sort job I’d always hoped for. I was contracted to do mid-level cybersecurity work at a Fortune 100 company, and, if I performed well, there was a good chance of a steady, full-time spot on the team. I was ecstatic.

Then, a couple of months into the job, I realized how awful corporate life is. The quarterly performance evaluations made me and coworkers anxious about job security, which made the office feel competitive rather than cooperative. And most of the managers were callous and cutthroat because they would face repercussions if their team’s performance slipped.

The stress of masking combined with the company’s cutthroat work culture grew to be too much for me, so I left what I thought was my ideal job.

After that experience in IT, I felt drained but inspired to explore my other talents. I started taking writing more seriously and also worked as a professional tutor. Betraying the autistic archetype, I enjoyed writing and tutoring significantly more than any job I’d had in the three years I was working in the tech field.

Tutoring was refreshing for an autistic extravert like me, and it pays well for a side gig. Now, I’m working at a startup company called Embrace ASD, a research-based autism blog, and tutoring on the side. I discovered my niche and finally found work I'm passionate about doing with people I enjoy.

Rather than a perfect job for autistic people, it’s more about finding a work environment and culture that dissuades strict social rules and hierarchies; frankly, I believe that these changes would make the workplace more enjoyable not just for autistics, but for everyone.

So keep searching for your niche because we ought to at least be entitled to enjoying the work we do.

Jobs for Aspergers? It’s more than just the job…

By: Jimi Wills

Since my relatively recent diagnosis of Aspergers, jobs have been on my mind.  Not just what might be the best jobs for Aspergers, but also thinking about the experiences I've had in the past.  Most of us have had bad times in employment, but even what most would consider great careers can be terrible jobs for autistic people.   

I've had the privilege of a university education, and with a lot of hard work I even got a PhD.  The constant geeking-out on one subject, and lone working - it was the path of least resistance.

But before university, I worked for two supermarkets/grocery stores: Kwiksave and Sainsbury’s.  In both jobs I was basically stacking shelves, which is a boring but in principle easy role. They were essentially the same job, but I reacted very differently to them.  In Kwiksave I felt great at the end of a day’s work, happy with myself and the world. At the end of a shift in Sainsbury’s I felt drained, confused and full of self-doubt.  I was clearly very switched on in one job, as I remember the names of all my coworkers, even 23 years on. In the other job, I was clearly struggling, as I don’t even recall my manager’s name.  

But why?

Looking back now, I realise that this was entirely down to management.  I remember Mr West, the Kwiksave Manager being supportive, understanding, fun!  He made sure I knew exactly what I needed to know, when I needed to know it, and that I had breaks when I needed them.  Bearing in mind that none of us knew I was autistic back then, this was pretty amazing. The truth is, he was like this with all the other staff too.  He was just a really great manager of people.

During my studies I worked part-time, including in a hotel and a store.

It was a trinket chain-store called The Natural World. It was dry, noisey, confusing and worst of all, company policy was at odds with law, meaning that we had a lot of dissatisfied customers.  The last straw was when I had to do my induction (I'd already worked 80% of the hours I would ever be offered!) and the contents of the induction pack were just wrong. It's a hard job for autistic people to gloss over the details of a topic and just go with the gist, and so when I had to answer questions about the products we sold, I did so with typical Aspie pedantry, figuratively ripping to shreds the inadequate training material.  I handed in my notice the next day, which is just as well because when she read what I'd written my manager blew a gasket and would have sacked me anyway.

In my experience, the suitability of jobs for Aspergers depends less on the job itself, and more on the environment and the care with which the individual is managed.  My hotel job was awful: dirty, smelly work with yet more dissatisfied customers, a high turnover of staff, and terrible wages. But management meticulously articulated their particular routines and the day had a reassuringly unbreakable schedule... breakfast, billing, cleaning, laundry, reception, ironing.  On paper, it's the worst job I've ever had and would be equally terrible for anybody, but in reality the best Aspergers job I ever had because of the explicit structures and routines!

Before getting what academics call a “proper job” (I think most of them don’t realise that this is supposed to be an ironic phrase) I worked every job from farming to data-entry.  But after my PhD I started in a laboratory role, and my only part-time work since then has been occasional free-lance consultancy. 

I started off as a post-doctoral research associate working on interpreting and mining data from mass-spectrometry in a biological context.  I collaborated with other scientists, which basically means we geeked-out together, and I spent a lot of time on my own developing algorithms and computer programs, processing workflows and automations to aid the lab in which I worked.  In collaboration with some real biologists, we published one of our approaches and its application in the top journal Cell. Up to this point, being a postdoc was great!

But this is when things started to go wrong for me. After our Cell paper, I was invited to write a review on machine learning, a core tool in our approach. I still didn’t know I was autistic, but I knew I wasn’t comfortable writing about things I felt I wasn’t expert in.  And no matter how much I read, I just didn’t feel I understood enough about the topic to present myself as an authority on the subject. I guess scientists not as far along the spectrum might just fake it until they make it. But for me, any job requiring blagging is not a job for autistic people.

So I transitioned to a support role, mass-spectrometry laboratory manager, in which there is less pressure on me personally to publish.  There’s a mix of technical and academic work but also customers and politics. 

I actually have no problems interacting with people, especially as many of them show signs of being on the spectrum.  Academia seems to attract neurodivergent people. But what I wasn’t ready for was the specific way things have changed in the place I work.  From changing management structure to laboratory renovations, it all uses up my spoons (you’ve heard of spoon theory right?) Because I’m providing a service to people, I cannot simply take the time I need to recover from these events, and the ever-changing environment and constant demand on my time has driven me to the point of mental ill health.

Since my diagnosis though, I have been able to ask for adjustments at work, the main one being allowed to wear headphones in the lab to listen to music (which is normally against H&S policy)  This helps me regulate my emotional state, but it’s not enough.  

In transitioning from postdoc to lab-manager, I thought I was moving into a better job (starting to suspect I might have it), but the environment has made it worse not better, and good management makes it barely tolerable.  Still, knowing what I now know, I would definitely consider the same role in a different environment.

You see, whether a job is good for autistic people seems to have less to do with the work itself and so much more to do with the environment and management.  Perhaps you hate your current job, but that same job might be a great job for aspergers in another context.

Asperger Life: The Highs and Lows of an Autistic Person in the Workplace

By: An Anonymous Aspie

I didn’t know I was autistic until seven years after I left the traditional working world – by that, I mean 9-5 office work, with the commute and the team building and the office politics and the competitiveness and the goal setting and the performance management. Ok, so writing that last sentence, as an Aspie (who is now more self-aware, and respectful of self) gave me a bit of an anxious-Aspie heart-squeeze. 

I was 35 when I was diagnosed with autism/Asperger’s Syndrome. I had suffered an episode of autistic burnout, which had led me to diagnosis. As a woman, this is rather common. Coming out of burnout, I had become basically non-functional, non-verbal, flat and my senses were out of whack. I thought (and it was said to me “If you were working, you would never have the advantage of sleeping all day to recover like this!”). Nice. 

As much as it hurt to hear that, and invalidated my experience and abilities, it got me thinking. It was true. The traditional workplace was laden with neurotypical expectations. It was designed for it. Think about it. 

• Open plan workspaces (to encourage collaboration. Cringe)

• Arbitrary performance goals, reviews and instituted competitiveness (meant to encourage competition and thus, performance. Sigh) 

• Team Building (packing bags to run for hills over here) 

• Office politics (and as an ND woman? Argh!)

• Office romance misunderstandings 

• The job itself. I was in IT, as a Business Analyst. My job definition was basically the “communication bridge between technical development and the end user”. I will leave you, dear Aspie, to your deductions. 

This was one of the most awesome companies to work for at the time, but I cringe to think how I would function happily there now, now that I had “gone full Aspie”. 

Fast forward to this year. I have the best office – my couch. I have the best coffee machine – my own. I have the best colleagues – my ESA cat. I have awesome lunch breaks – think Star Trek and hot dogs with spaghetti. I have the best physical environmental conditions – 16 degrees Celsius always, dim lighting, and the opportunity for a shameless power/depression nap. My dress code is lit! PJ’s! My boss does need to “meet” with me sometime and, it’s NOT a video call! Always a voice call and/or screen sharing! My performance management? I don’t have to compete with anyone! I just deliver. Heaven!  I am a part time freelance technical documenter and software tester. I run a small online vintage clothing store and I do volunteer work in the community almost every day. 

By my standards, this is the best. Even if it doesn’t conform to the neurotypical version of success.