From Autism To ADHD, How Hiring Is Changing

New career avenues, especially in technology, are opening up for neurodivergent employees as companies wake up to their potential

- Neha Bhayana

When Anil Prakash got his first salary of Rs 30,000 after joining Wells Fargo Bank as a trainee technical support associate this December, he bought his mother and grandmother silk sarees and paid the water and electricity bill of their Bengaluru home. “I am an only child. I was so happy I could contribute to the household expenses, says the 21-year-old who lives with mild intellectual and developmental disability.

In Mumbai, Usaid Shaikh (22) treated his friends when he was recruited as a junior video editor at the advertising firm McCann Erickson last year. He took his friends for a pizza treat when he got his first paycheque, says his mother Fatima, who used to worry that Usaid, who is affected by autism spectrum disorder, would never be able to have a meaningful career like his elder brother, who is a civil engineer.

But that's changing as a significant number of young people who are neurodivergent - a term used to describe people with autism, Asperger's syndrome, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning or intellectual disabilities are now being recruited by leading multinational and national software firms, banks and media companies. Earlier, they remained unemployed and dependent on their parents or took up menial (and often monotonous) jobs at cafés or factories.