July 23, 2020

Dr. Gwen:         Hi. I'm Dr. Gwen. I'm a clinical psychologist who's been empowering disabled individuals, their families, and their support system for over 20 years. If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to my channel where I curate tools, share mindsets, and promote habits, to help neurodiverse individuals thrive. Also, hit that notification bell so that you don't miss a thing. In this video, I interview Jessica Lee, Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Spectrum Works. The Spectrum Works is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting gifted individuals with autism to corporations who need talent.

                        With unemployment rates of disabled adults as high as 80%, Jessica's organization couldn't exist at a better time. Many of us who are familiar with the autism population know how much they have to offer and can do so when given the right job with the right support. To accomplish this, The Spectrum Works has a comprehensive approach. They simultaneously prepare corporations and their workplaces with inclusive practices while also preparing gifted autistic adults with education and training. By doing this, the corporation wins by acquiring amazing talent, and the adult wins by having sustained employment that they find satisfying. Jessica and I also touch upon diversity, equity, and inclusive mindsets throughout the interview. So, I encourage you to stay until the very end. I hope you enjoy this interview with Jessica.

                        Hi, Jessica. Welcome. How are you?

Jessica:             I'm good. Thank you. So, thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Gwen:         Oh, I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. So, I'm so happy we're able to do it.

Jessica:             Likewise.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah.

Jessica:             Yes, likewise. Thank you.

Dr. Gwen:         You're welcome. So, let's get started by you telling us about yourself.

Jessica:             Yeah. So, my name is Jessica Lee and I am co-founder and executive director of The Spectrum Works. We are a nonprofit organization that's based here in Los Angeles, but we're serving the greater Southern California region. And we help to place individuals with autism into employment, and we do that by partnering with companies to build autism and neurodiversity hiring programs. And we started this organization three years ago. And before that, I was in business consulting for about eight years before transitioning to this full-time a year ago. And my co-founders come from corporate backgrounds as well. So, that's who we are.

Dr. Gwen:         That's amazing. That is absolutely amazing. And maybe we can dig deeper into The Spectrum Works and specifically what you do because I see you guys as a connector, right? This idea of you're very, very knowledgeable about disability rights. What are the federal kinds of guidelines and requirements and best practices for corporations to be following?

Jessica:             Yes.

Dr. Gwen:         How do you help corporations understand this and implement effective systems, and then match talent?

Jessica:             Yes, exactly.

Dr. Gwen:         It's a big role. I mean, it's a big job.

Jessica:             It is, yes. You could be a great advocate, spokesperson for us though because you nailed it on the head right there.

Dr. Gwen:         Well, I mean, I've had really the honor of learning more about The Spectrum Works for a while now, and you and I work together and collaborate a lot. So, I've had the luxury of your guidance in that. But maybe what we can do is talk about how you guys work. And maybe we can uncover that a little bit, look at the cogs because I think that could be really insightful for others to understand.

Jessica:             Yeah. So, we are a little different from what I would say a traditional service provider where we start with corporations. And this is part of the reason we started the organization, which is our team seeing that we have backgrounds and experience in the business world, and our networks are there as well and addressing a gap that we see, which I can talk about in a little. So, we start with corporations and we go in and promote neurodiversity, which is a diversity of minds in the workplace. And we talk about what is neurodiversity, how does that fit into the company's greater diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. I think a lot of companies have really done a great job of addressing gender and race, but not as much in the disability space, and I know veterans as well.

                        And many have not heard about neurodiversity and yet we believe and know that when we accommodate in the workplace or when we build programs that are inclusive for neurodiverse individuals, that that actually raises the tide for all marginalized communities in a company, and we can talk about that separately. But it's really important to us to prepare the workplace for people to be introduced to even understanding what autism is, what does it mean to be neurodiverse, and what are also a lot of the special abilities and gifts that our talent pool brings. It's an 80% unemployment rate in the United States and we believe that one of the largest barriers to that is the traditional hiring process.

                        It's set up to be so social, where you and I are sitting across the table and I'm trying to convince you why I'm the right candidate for your job. I mean, for most of our candidates, that can be really tough and there's those biases that step in. And so, we consult and work with companies to help them understand how that traditional hiring process can be unintentionally biased and difficult for our candidates to get through. And so, consulting on certain practices of certain jobs, it may be better to gauge the technical skills that are required for the job, not whether you can sit there and convince me of that.

                        And so, we do a lot of neurodiversity education for companies. If they do work with us for a hiring program, then training that goes deeper into how would you possibly work with the colleague that's on the spectrum, what are inclusive management practices for hiring managers. And to us, it's important that all team members of a company or a team are trained in this and kind of raising that cultural competency of neurodiversity just as we do with these other categories of inclusion. So, that's where we start. We start with companies, and the goal is to find the right companies that are committed to inclusive hiring, committed to inclusion, and really understanding that from a process standpoint and in practical workplace practices.

                        And so, once we found the company, it's looking for a hiring manager and the right team. It has to be a strategic fit for companies. We know that that's how budgeting works. And then, once we identify a job or a team, we rely on a network of partners in the autism community that we build relationships with. So, a lot of our candidates that we get come from other service providers around, I mean, locally, geographically here, and we then will meet the candidates. Sometimes we provide some coaching. We are in our still early startup phase. So, what we're offering now is different from what we want to be offering long term. But then, it's really about matching the right person with the right skills for the right job and us building that capability to gauge and to do that correctly.

                        So, that was a long-winded answer, but that is how it works. We really focus on workplace readiness and we rely on a network of partners who are doing the employment readiness. And however, we have found though that we think there's a difference between employment readiness and corporate employment readiness. And so, we foresee ourselves providing some training and guidance around what does it really mean to be corporate ready, what is that gap that we need to fill for candidate to be truly competitive in competitive integrated employment.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. I know you refer to the people who are looking for a job as "talent."

Jessica:             Yes.

Dr. Gwen:         And I love that word because when you embrace the uniqueness and the specialness of this community, you see it as a talent because there are things that individuals in this population can do and do really well...

Jessica:             Yes.

Dr. Gwen:         ...when they're plugged into the right job.

Jessica:             Yes. And if needed, the right accommodations to help them do their best work.

Dr. Gwen:         Yup, yup. And Jessica, would you say that The Spectrum Works, aside from workplace readiness, also can help with landing what accommodations a particular talent might need?

Jessica:             Yes. And I think what we've found and what we've heard with a lot of candidates that we've worked with, we've done a couple of pilot hiring programs and I think more often than not, our candidates may not be aware of what accommodations they need or what even accommodations are, like what can be considered an accommodation. I think with physical disabilities, it's a little more straightforward because of technology that is available. But for people that are neurodiverse, I think there's uncertainty of what a reasonable accommodation could be.

                        So, for example, I think what we promote and want to help advocate for is answering that question of, "How do you do your best work?" And so, for some of our candidates, it could even be with their managers requesting that if we're having a one-on-one, that if we could, together, write down a priority list and have the priorities laid out of what's high, medium, and low. Just having it written down so that I can refer back to it is helpful for me to do my best work. And so, it's coming to that self-discovery that that is what is most useful and needed for me to do my best work. And so, what we are planning to do and what we're working on is this self-advocacy, self-disclosure toolkit, and that you're weighing into heavily and we're partnering to co-design, but it's exactly that. It's to self-discover what accommodations may I need.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. And so, you've got these kind of two arms, right? You've got workplace readiness, corporate readiness, and you've got the talent readiness and preparation, which they're both very big.

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         They both entail a lot of thoughtfulness and preparation. This idea of advocacy is so critical from the talent side, right? And that I can't advocate if I don't know. And sometimes, my clients need a formality to articulate or find the language to describe themselves, right?

Jessica:             Yes.

Dr. Gwen:         They might think that they know about themselves, but when you're asking them specific questions, it's hard for them to answer those questions clearly, parsimoniously, where they can articulate it in a way that someone can understand. But man, if they don't understand themselves, then advocating for what you need is going to be really hard. As you were talking, it made me think of something, which is that I think that there's a stigma. And correct me if I'm wrong because you're going to know this better than me, and that is disabled individuals can have accommodations in the workplace and still be competitive.

Jessica:             Oh, yes.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. And so, sometimes I feel like those two things are mutually exclusive, right? Like if I need accommodations, then I can't be competitive, where that's not the case at all.

Jessica:             Yes. Yeah. And I see both sides to that and why that belief is there. I've met a lot of candidates who've asked and said they don't even know if they should disclose about their disability in the hiring process, and they're fearful of when they disclose, how they disclose, who they disclose to. And many have even asked me, "If I don't disclose in the beginning of the hiring process and in the year I'm employed at this company, am I going to get in trouble that I didn't disclose in the beginning?" And I'm like, "No, not at all."

                        And it's interesting because on the other side, when I talk to corporations, there's this notion of, how do we make it safe for people to feel that they can disclose? How do we create an environment to do that? And then, this gets into the self-identification. As a company, if you're a Section 503, you fall under the Rehabilitation Act, which requires federal contractors to have this 7% utilization goal of hiring and employing individuals with disabilities that you are putting a good faith effort as a business to have 7% of your employees be people with disabilities. And so, anyways, there's this gap of communication and information and we're hoping to bridge that divide. But yeah, the disclosure and accommodation piece we think is key, but is also very complicated and understandably why, especially for our candidates.

                        So, that's why we want to build this toolkit is to really help candidates, too. I think also just step into who they are confidently. I think as adults, that is one of the things that we learn the most. I'm still learning, too, of stepping confidently into who you are, understanding what your strengths are, and really owning those. I think that's what I wish to see in our talent more is to really own their gifts. And they share things with me where I'm like, "That's amazing. That is different from a neurotypical person. Talk more about that." Those are the things that job hiring managers want to hear about. The fact that you can focus for long periods of time on this one subject matter, or the way that you see things differently, I mean, those are the things that we want to help our candidates shine in and share those confidently. So, it all links together.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah, yeah. And I think about like narratives because the idea of confidence really, I think, is tied into a self-narrative, right?

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         And a lot of times, disabled individuals come to be adults with a narrative of you can't, you haven't, you won't, all of these pieces. Versus, "These things are hard for me because of my brain profile, and that's just the way I work, but I'm also really phenomenal at these things as well." And so, the disability becomes an ownership of, "This is my identity." Much like me being Asian or a female, or whatever that is. That is something that is a part of me, and that's nothing to be ashamed about. So, really owning that piece. I think it's so hard becoming an adult anyway. Young adults have this transition period anyway with or without a disability. And then now, we're saying, "Oh, we actually want you to highlight your special powers here."

Jessica:             Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         People have been like, "No, no, no." Just fit in and be in class and don't say anything, or whatever it is.

Jessica:             Yeah. And I appreciate you bringing that up because I think-- one of the things I've thought about a lot in these past few months has been exactly that, where our candidates have been told their whole life, "You can't do this. You're not going to do this." And yet, here I am seeing our candidates that have done so much work to get to where they are as young adults. So many who've gotten bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and have brilliant minds, like they're humble people, they're funny, and they've done so much work to get to this level of what I will say is competitive integrated employment, and they've done all this work.

                        But in my mind, I also feel like when we talk about equity and inclusion on the other side in the workplace for neurotypicals, like we need to do that same work. It's the concept of emotional labor and that it needs to be done on both sides. If we really are looking to build inclusive and equitable workplaces, the work to educate ourselves to understand how our practices are what we do and how that can-- the work to actually build inclusion for people that are neurodiverse is needed to be done on this side equally as hard as they are getting ready for this employment.

                        And so, that's why we do what we do, and that's why we start with businesses because I don't think that people in businesses want to be discriminatory. They don't want to be biased. I think they just haven't been exposed to it. I think in many ways, we only know what we've been exposed to. And so, the more that we can expose leaders and individuals in businesses about what neurodiversity is to break those negative stigmas and perceptions, that's what's important and that's what we need to do in businesses and just across society in general because that is what holds so many of our candidates back, or all the negative stigmas that are put on them, or to social awkwardness, and that's what we all have to do to remove those biases.

Dr. Gwen:         Mm-hmm, yes. Yeah, that emotional labor.

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         That's such a great word, or those words together that there is work to be done there. Let's get back to competitive employment because if we could define competitive employment, I think this label here tends to get a lot of people confused. So, when you say competitive employment, what does that look like?

Jessica:             Yeah. To me, it's when you are competitive and it's integrated employment, that means that you are competing with your neurotypical counterpart. So, when I am looking at getting a candidate ready and the skills that we're working on to develop and practice, it's to get to the skill set level of a neurotypical candidate as closely as possible. I mean, there's so much gray area there, but it's so that if you go into an interview, that you are equally, I'd say, prepared, like putting really your best foot forward to compete with the neurotypical candidate, knowing that there are certain things, biases that work against you, but that we can build the skill set as much as we can to get you to that place, or that you can ask for accommodations confidently so that you are truly being able to show your gifts and abilities and skillsets to be the best candidate for this job because that's what it comes down to.

                        That's what the ADA supports is that remove, all else equal, who is the best candidate for this job. And so, how do we prepare you to advocate for yourself that you are the best candidate for that job, and how do you show that? So, that's how I view competitive integrated employment. And that's also because I'm thinking of the corporate workplace, office jobs where there is a certain level of professionalism that is required. So, that is the standard.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah, yeah. And that's good to know because we'll get into this. And actually, maybe we can just get into this now because it feels like a natural progression, which is who is your in-the-pocket kind of talent or client that's going to come to you when you know, "Gosh, when this particular person comes with this kind of setup, personality, attitude, whatever you want to say setup that matched with what we provide is really going to help this person thrive. It's like a rocket fuel. Like together, it's rocket fuel, and here we go. Do you know what I mean?

Jessica:             Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         I don't know if you can describe that kind of candidate / client / talent that you get really excited about maybe.

Jessica:             Yeah. And so, I will say that we work with a pretty wide array, we work with candidates that have associates degrees, or equivalent experience, or a certificate that's equivalent, all the way up to students that have master's degrees. But I would say that our in-the-pocket client, which I appreciate you kind of like challenging us to think really clearly about this, in the perfect matches, it is somebody who most likely has a bachelor's degree, has a resume that they've already worked on and tailored, and where the individual knows what job industries or job roles they are interested in, like being pretty specific, but broad enough where they know, "These are the types of jobs or industries that I want to apply for, these are my skill sets and education or work experience that I have that led me to be a strong candidate for this job."

                        And I think the most important part with that is being self-directed and self-motivated, where I know that after we talk, you go and you start applying to jobs, and you do that on your own that there is that self-motivation and commitment to finding a job. And finding a job is just tough in general for anybody, especially now with COVID, and even more so for our candidates. And so, again, I know it comes back to that self-awareness and that the self-work, but I think it's really being mentally and emotionally prepared for failure in the process, and accepting that that is part of the process. Being rejected is part of the hiring process, and having that self-awareness that this is a journey, but to have that intrinsic desire and confidence that I know that I bring value and that a company would be lucky to have me. And with us, it's like, "Okay. That's the hardest part for anybody to get to. Now, we can work on the rest." I think that would be it. That was a long answer.

Dr. Gwen:         No. It's really good, it's really good because it's a mindset.

Jessica:             Yes.

Dr. Gwen:         You're talking about this mindset that by the time they get to you, they have a mindset to be positioned for a connection. And sometimes, you might get talent that's not ready yet. They're not at that place yet for a lot of different reasons because the things that you're talking about are challenging for the humans in general, right?

Jessica:             Yes. All of us, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         Right. Self-direction, self-motivation, emotional resilience, facing failure. I mean, picking yourself back up, being resilient. It's like all of these things that are so difficult. If they're not ready yet-- and maybe this is where we can do a little bit of a pivot because I don't want people to get confused with your service and something that may be a regional center or a Department of Rehab. So, I just want to put it out there to the audience that we live here in Southern California. So, we're referring to our California DDS system. But differentiate for the audience, Jess, the difference between The Spectrum Works, your service let's just say, and something that may be a Department of Rehab, DOR, or regional center service would look like.

Jessica:             Yeah, yeah. And so, for both DOR and regional centers, I think more often than not, they refer out to vendorized organizations. And I think most of those services are really--it's person-centric. It's around getting that individual ready for employment. It is working on the resume. It's working on interview skills, the soft skills required in the job. It's a lot more intense. I'd say work and focus on the individual and getting those skill sets ready. It could also look like working with a job coach to start-- like, if you're in an internship or wherever they place you. And they also provide I think more holistic wrap-around services. They might focus on independent living skills on transportation, and it's really getting the individual ready.

                        Our services again really focus on the corporate readiness. So, we're working a lot with business. That's one of our main clients. And then, the candidates that do come to us, currently, our coaching and training is in a very limited capacity. But hopefully, in the next two years, we hope to get enough funding where we're going to be able to build a talent readiness training, workshops and trainings to really get to that, just that extra gap to get to that really competitive integrated level of skill sets. And I think the best example I can give you is just a couple weeks ago, I referred one of our candidates who is highly competitive and he applied to positions at this large company. And we have a good relationship, thankfully, with the director of HR there and he emailed me back and said, "Hey, Jessica, your candidate has applied to several jobs here, but can I give you feedback on how he can present himself better in his resume?"

                        And to me, I mean, that is like a golden nugget that we are so grateful for. Like, those are the relationships that really matter for us. And I think it was eye-opening to talk to him because from a recruiter standpoint, he was able to show me what are those little pieces, those nuances that actually make a difference. One, for example, is a LinkedIn profile that your banner image at the top, there's a standard LinkedIn blue-looking-- I'm not describing it well. But it's a standard banner and he said, "One thing to do is to upload a picture into that that makes you stand out as a candidate a bit more." It could be the State of California. It could be anything that's related. It can even be like if you really like sports, it can be that, but you also want to try to tailor it to something related to whatever job you're trying to get to, and that it is still professional, things like that.

                        Even the way the resume is written and that you're writing about results, what were the results of what you did in that job? But it's those small tweaks that make a difference to a recruiter that can help you stand out, or be even equal part to a neurotypical candidate. And so, for us, that's the training and readiness that we do. Those fundamental skills of being able to just get a resume put together is what most of these other service providers do. And so, that's why it's an ideal partnership, like it's very complementary when we work with other organizations. And hopefully, it's a two-way dialogue of learning and teaching one another, too. So, that is our goal, too, that we eventually can share our findings back to these other service providers so that-- again, it's the tide raising all boats. So, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         Yup. It's almost like you guys, The Spectrum Works, builds these partnerships and relationships with corporations, with maybe even different agencies, right?

Jessica:             Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         And those partnerships is really what facilitates or rises the tide for everybody. What I love is that, and I wrote here, that you get insider information. And that insider information is really great. And so, I was thinking about this continuum of support and where The Spectrum Works falls on it. Your outcomes are specifically geared to employment. I mean, careers, right?

Jessica:             Yes, yes.

Dr. Gwen:         That is your focus. So, if we think about that even here in California with support, we do see maybe some of the entry point support would be regional center and Department of Rehab. In those really lovely ways you spoke about, it's not maybe just about resume development, but it might also be about living skills and transportation or mobility, and maybe even taking some classes, these types of things. And then, when they're ready for maybe more refinement, that's really where The Spectrum Works, can really come in, where, "Let us refine. Like, you now have this general shape that's ready for something more specific, more nuanced. Let us help refine that piece so that we can now connect you with these relationships and partnerships that we have," which is so great, this idea of sometimes that is what we need and you are meeting the needs of both partners that you work with, the corporation and the talent.

Jessica:             Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         Those two things are so critical. I always feel like you guys have double work because it's different ways of thinking for both.

Jessica:             It is.

Dr. Gwen:         Go ahead. You were going to say something?

Jessica:             Yeah. I was going to just add to that part of-- the other reason that we started the organization is looking at the underemployment where 50% of individuals with autism that are employed are underemployed, where their skills and abilities are not being fully leveraged. I mean, we see people with bachelor's degrees, master's degrees that are working in grocery stores, grocery bagging, and where they would rather not be because they got a degree in something that they want to leverage, but they weren't able to get jobs.

                        My personal opinion from what I've seen is that it is the interview, that it's getting past the interview. And yeah, just on the corporate side, too, of just understanding that there are different nuances to communication and it doesn't mean someone is not smart or able to do a job if you gave them a chance to show you. And so, that underemployment is critical for us because that is part of the perception change on the corporate side, too, is really being able to see someone for the skill sets that they bring. So, yeah, I wanted to just mention that as well because I think that is really important. You don't want people to settle.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. You said underemployed, and the word that I've used with my clients is underpotentialed. Right?

Jessica:             Yes, exactly.

Dr. Gwen:         It's like your potential is so much higher, but you're doing this, and that just doesn't make sense to me. But you're not fully using all of the talents that you have and that you could bring somewhere. And I love this because if they're going to come to you for a refinement, that refinement does come back down to how do we help you pitch yourself as-- these are the results that I bring. Let me help articulate that in a very tangible way about the fact that I do have value to bring, and that what's suppressing that is this very traditional kind of onboarding or interview process, which is not necessarily where my strengths lie.

Jessica:             Yeah. Right.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah, but if we can get past that, then I can show you something. So, I love that.

Jessica:             Yeah. And I think practicing that in your resume writing actually helps you practice to interview better because now, you're not just saying, "Oh, I generated monthly reports for my manager." What does that mean? What value did you bring from that? So, a lot of it is teasing out, like, "Okay. Well, what were these reports? Let's specifically talk about, was this a budgeting report? Was it a report because based on data analytics that you gathered that you were actually providing insight into, let's say customer behavior or customer product, whatever it is?" And you generated the report, but what did the report enable somebody else to do?

                        So, it's being able to talk about, like this is the impact of the work that I do. This is the value in the work that I've done and that I bring. And so, practicing that in resume writing can then help you practice speaking about it when you are interviewed. And I will just make a side note there, too, where I think for people who support our candidates, whether it's parents or other service providers, siblings, it's so important for them to write the resume themselves, to have them type and do it themselves, to have them write their own emails that come to a service provider like me because it helps them to have the real-life practice of doing it. And to fail, I'll call it "fail," it's not really failing, it's just learning in this environment before it goes out into the professional setting. So, that is one thing I would definitely caution and encourage others who support our candidates to really allow that self-motivation to come through and to be developed.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. And experience is the best teacher. I mean, that's kind of what you're saying, right? Like, "Put yourself out there in a safe way because it's with me. And so, I'm the one that's going to be able to help you tweak and nudge and edit. It's not saying, it's not masking who you are. Let me help you do this." And I think what's so challenging sometimes is the Achilles heel of many of my clients is they have a difficult time perspective-taking. So, what you're saying about resumes and pitching yourself is that I actually have to be very keenly aware of who my audience is, so I can pitch myself to them, and that is really hard. So, that help is necessary. I don't know who said this quote. I'm going to have to fact check myself at some point, which is, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn." I really love that kind of idea of that failure really is a learning, and I love that idea, but that's what you're saying, right? It's like we need to remove the stigma of failure. And then, if you're going to learn, failure is inevitable.

Jessica:             That's true, yeah. I just wrote down that quote, too.

Dr. Gwen:         Oh, you did? Okay. Well, I'll have to fact check myself and see where that came from. I remember reading it and it stuck with me. All of the people that I've interviewed that talk about education or learning in any shape, way, or form, we really inevitably get into this idea that learning is risky. It's a risky business because I have to be vulnerable in order to learn something. So, if you're not in that safe space to do that, whether that's with you, Jessica, in preparing myself in the most competitive way possible, or whether I'm going to advocate or disclose my disability in a workplace environment, and that would be advocacy. This is a very interesting thing, right?

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         You know me. I can't help but bring the psychological perspective …

Jessica:             I love it.

Dr. Gwen:         … of these types of things to the table. But this is why your very specific role is so complex. You and I have often talked about how difficult it is because you're like, "I'm not a therapist, and yet inevitably, I'm swimming and playing around with the emotional health or well-being of somebody," because if they're not in the space of resilience, and I mean, I think something you said is that you need to be mentally prepared and emotionally prepared for the process of finding a job. Inevitably, you're talking about emotional resilience and social-emotional skills, right?

Jessica:             Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Gwen:         Okay. Sorry, digress. Okay, here we go we. This is what happens with us, but I think it's so lovely. There's another part of The Spectrum Works that I find to be so fascinating, and maybe we can get into this. If someone wants to access your service, let's say they say, "You know what, I have many of those skills that Jessica said already. I've got a pretty dialed-in resume. I'm pretty hardy, like I'm pretty resilient, and I do need help finding a job. I can answer some of those initial questions that she has." How do people access your service, or even pay for your service?

Jessica:             Yeah. So, we currently, and in the foreseeable future, we do not plan to charge our clients, our job candidates for our services. We plan to be self-sustaining to a certain degree through corporations financially paying for our services because we are consulting and providing them talent. And so, that is the long-term goal, and to also have grants from foundations, which we're pursuing now. So, for our talent, there is no cost and we are still exploring if we are going to vendorize with the regional centers or DOR. We have not made a decision on that yet, but we are looking into it because we want to reduce all barriers for our candidates.

                        And currently, on our website, there is a section that says what we do. And for the autism community, there's a form there that candidates can fill out, and it is a requirement to submit a resume with it. So, that is that first layer of filtering. And once that's submitted, then we will get in touch. And we are still building that to be more robust, and yup, we're working on that. And Gwen has been amazing to help us think through how we sort those profiles. I think for us, it's also really thinking about from, I'm going to get nerdy here, at a data perspective where long term that the data entry that we put in as a job candidate, the better we can get at how people put in information and what we're gauging that then in our system, we're also getting data from companies, culture, job requirements, where we can make a really good match. And that that could be a tool for use beyond our organization to others who are in the employment space.

                        So, that is a goal of ours is to build a good matching system and tool but to also recognize that technology is not perfect and it's still at a relational human level. So, we're still navigating that, but that is part of these startup years is how do we really gauge and build that into our intake process.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah, I think it's lovely. Yeah, go ahead. You were going to say something else?

Jessica:             Yeah. The other thing I'd add is, and this is where your thought partnership has been so valuable, and I think what we need more of is it is thinking about-- I like what you said earlier about a brain profile because that is what neurodiversity is. It's that our brains develop in these different ways. And so, our cognitive abilities, executive functioning, that we all have these varying levels of it. But what I tell a lot of companies, too, is that our candidates, other parts of their brain can be overdeveloped than neurotypical, and that that kind of blends to some of these special gifts and abilities.

                        And I think that this is relevant. When I think about companies, if we all had some self-awareness to those brain profiles that we have, like this isn't just good for people that are neurodiverse, this is actually good for all of us. This is good for when somebody has an accident, they have brain trauma or an injury, this is good for all of us to put that language to have the skill sets and the tools and resources to actually talk about it at this human level. So, these are the high-level things I think about, but those are the things we want to partner in and find experts in because we know that we're not experts here and that it requires all of us to come together to solve this together. So, yeah. Just something else I'll put out into the world.

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. No, I love it.

Jessica:             Other things we're thinking about.

Dr. Gwen:         All the things, all the things. And maybe the other way to even think about this is, because I think sometimes we get caught up in labels, labels of things, but the idea of cognitive style, what is your cognitive style? We all have a cognitive style. I have my own cognitive style. I really gravitate towards-- I know it's really easy for me and I know it really hangs me up. Meaning, I've got to work super-duper hard to really think about something, anything mathematical. It would be that. But this idea of cognitive style, and something that I've appreciated in working with you, is you do always have your site on models. And I think models are really important as it gives us a framework for how to make decisions. And can that model capture the complexity of different cognitive styles and not having a label of like disability or not disability because that's too binary?

                        But like someone who's really good at paying attention to the mundane details and can do that for a long period of time, that's a cognitive style. That could be a really nice fit for some jobs that people aren't very successful in because they can't pay attention to the mundane details for a long period of time, or like whatever that is, which I only bring up that talent or skill because so many of my clients, that thing might not be mundane to them. It might be mundane to other people, but it's not mundane to them, and boy, they could process that information all day every day over and over and over again and blow statistics out of the water and we found the right fit.

Jessica:             Yeah. And those are the high turnover costs for companies, right?

Dr. Gwen:         Yes.

Jessica:             So, when they hear that, that's when they're like, "Oh, so you mean you have somebody who actually would enjoy the repetitive tests and routine of this?" And I'm like, "Yeah, that's exactly what it is." And one of the first companies we worked with is an insurance company locally here in Arcadia, and this was a job that was outsourced because it was so repetitive. And so, task-oriented and detail-oriented that they couldn't find the right talent here to do it. And it's not just them, it's a lot of other insurance companies, too, that outsource this work. And so, what they loved working with us was like, first of all, "Oh, my gosh, you have people who can do that here. And yeah, let's bring the jobs back to the U.S.," and let's invest in our local community and really build the community up. So, yeah. And that's so much of what we do is going out into the business community to share about this, not as charity, but as sound business strategy.

Dr. Gwen:         Yup.

Jessica:             When you look at innovation, productivity, all of these things, our talent contributes to that. So, yeah, I could go on--

Dr. Gwen:         Yeah. No. I mean, we could totally go on about the necessity for diverse thinkers, and how diverse thinkers are really what elevates the way that corporations or the way that frameworks are determined, right?

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         We need a diversity of thinkers. We need people to come to problems differently and to fix problems creatively. That's what we need, especially as we continue developing in the way that we are with technology, it's not so linear anymore. And so, we do need to capture that. I think that there's this really lovely self-driving kind of thing that I pick up on, which is-- when you can empower a person to advocate for themselves, and then you can match them with a corporation that is educated and passionate and is also benefiting from the relationship, then that feeds a certain cycle. That talent is now in a career, is now autonomous, and they can feel good about that piece. That's important.

                        That company now has their mind open, like, "Wow, this works." We should be looking at different types of talent, which opens up more because there's kind of a proof of concept there. And that's a win for the corporation, I think, and also for the talent. It's lovely when I see my clients get a taste of success, get a taste of that where they're like, "Oh, this feels good." And so, I love that that's there, and I love that for talent and candidates, the service is free. So many times my clients and their families are just putting out resources hand over fist over and over and have been doing it for decades, right?

Jessica:             Yeah.

Dr. Gwen:         To find out that there's this lovely little connector, it's not even little, but there's this connector out there that if it's right for them, they don't have to pay for it.

Jessica:             Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Gwen:         They'll have to attend and be engaged, obviously. That's what they're having to do, but from a financial perspective, it's not, and I think that's so amazing. Okay. Alright, Jessica, so I end all my interviews this way. Maybe we can dive there, which is, if you could only choose one skill to empower a client with or your talent with, what would that be, and why?

Jessica:             Well, yeah. It's a tough question, but I will say that it's a lot of what we talked about earlier on. If there's one superpower or just-- yeah, it would be self-compassion. I wanted to say resilience, I wanted to say courage and confidence, but I think at the root of that is that self-compassion. It's being infinitely aware that we are human and that we're not always going to be good at everything that there are things that we need to work on in ourselves, but it doesn't mean that I'm not a worthy person, it doesn't mean that I don't bring value to the world, I think it's just having that-- gosh, just self-compassion that-- It's what you said. I wrote it down here.

                        Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, and it's that, it's having that compassion for ourselves that keeps us going, that gives us that resilience and that grit. And with that, you become a lifelong learner, and everybody benefits from that and is always a skill set that is attractive. So, even from a recruitment standpoint, your willingness and openness to learn and to be humble, but to also be confident, and it starts with yourself and how you view yourself. So, I think that's what it would be.

Dr. Gwen:         Awesome. I love it, I love it. Alright. So, Jessica, if people are listening to this interview and they want to get a hold of you or find out more about The Spectrum Works, how would they do that?

Jessica:             Yeah. So, you can visit our website. It's www.thespectrumworks.org and you can also send us an email at info or [email protected], and we'd love to connect with you. If you are a candidate that's ready and looking for employment, you can submit your resume and information on our website under what we do for the autism community.

Dr. Gwen:         Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Jessica:             Yeah. Thank you. Always a pleasure speaking with you.

Dr. Gwen:         Alright, back at you.

                        Hey, you made it to the end. If you're interested in finding out more about Jessica or The Spectrum Works, their contact information is in the description below. I've also provided a link to my website where I provide additional insights and impressions of this interview. If you got any value from this interview, please hit that Like button and subscribe to this channel. Doing so helps to get this information to others just like you. And if there's a topic or a program that you want to know more about, share it in the comments below and maybe you'll see it in the next video. Thanks so much for watching.