Neurodiversity & working on the railway

[nolypops83]

Hello, can anyone give me some advice here? I have been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD when I was 3 years old and I have always been very fixated on trains and the railway industry. I've sort of rediscovered my passion for trains as I am in my mid 20s. I have had jobs in logistics and in security but I have been out of work for a year after the company I worked for had it's contract terminated at the venue I worked at and I been applying for all kinds of jobs that I can realistically do but struggle to get anywhere. What sort of role would best suit me to start off with? Northern Trains is the local operator for me.

Have you had a look on the Northern careers site? Loads of different roles available, have a read through and see what you fancy. https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/careers

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[43066]

Hello, can anyone give me some advice here? I have been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD when I was 3 years old and I have always been very fixated on trains and the railway industry. I've sort of rediscovered my passion for trains as I am in my mid 20s. I have had jobs in logistics and in security but I have been out of work for a year after the company I worked for had it's contract terminated at the venue I worked at and I been applying for all kinds of jobs that I can realistically do but struggle to get anywhere. What sort of role would best suit me to start off with? Northern Trains is the local operator for me.

The most important thing to say is that neither autism nor ADHD are bars to working on the railway - beyond that it’s going to be difficult for anyone to say what role would suit you to start off with. It entirely depends on your background so far, and what you ultimately want to do!

Generally a record of safety critical work, responsibility, working with customers, periods working alone without supervision etc. lend themselves well to many railway roles.

 

[DM352]

Hello, can anyone give me some advice here? I have been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD when I was 3 years old and I have always been very fixated on trains and the railway industry. I've sort of rediscovered my passion for trains as I am in my mid 20s. I have had jobs in logistics and in security but I have been out of work for a year after the company I worked for had it's contract terminated at the venue I worked at and I been applying for all kinds of jobs that I can realistically do but struggle to get anywhere. What sort of role would best suit me to start off with? Northern Trains is the local operator for me.

One thing that helped me was a career personality test some 15 years ago when I was looking at other areas to IT. It was offered through an employee assistance program. The output from questions gave me the top 10 profession areas to consider. Being a politician or car salesman was not near those 10 but audit was!

A career test may help with some ideas of areas that could be aligned to different areas of the railway industry. When I was 18 I probably would have been happy working in a signal box but my parents wanted me to do uni and ended up in IT afterwards.

As late autism diagnosed, my story of my life has been passing the interview as I don't like to sell myself and refer more to successes being a team effort. I would rather they give me a 3 month trial instead of an interview!