SPECIALISTERNE USA

The goal of Specialisterne USA is to enable 100,000 jobs for autistic people in the US by 2025.

The strategy is to scale the autism advantage in a spirit of innovation, collaboration and knowledge sharing by:
• establishing center for research, development, documentation and education to ensure quality and scale of programs for education, transition, employment and career development for autistic people
• educating people involved in talent development (such as autistic individuals, parents, teachers) and career development (such as managers, councillors, coaches)
• training and supporting partners for distribution of operational programs for job creation

The impact will be significant:
• employers will be able to fill vacant jobs and grow their business
• autistic people will have career choices and become independent
• families will worry less about the future for their autistic family member
• society will give the labor market access to an untapped pool of talent

The social return of investment will be staggering for states that will reduce costs for support and get more tax revenue from employees and companies. As an indication, PriceWaterhouseCoopers has estimated an improvement of GDP by $ 158,000 per year per autistic person going from unemployment into a high tech job.

Ensuring that every autistic and other neurodiverse person who wants a meaningful career, gets a meaningful career.
Specialisterne is considered “The Gold Standard of Neurodiversity” by Harvard Business School because of our comprehensive and multi-tiered change management approach to recruitment and on-boarding. As companies undertake initiatives to improve their workforce by including neurodiverse individuals we are there to drive change through support in planning, training, sourcing, assessing and transitioning employees. We address change first internally by examining your company’s processes and attitudes. Our goal is to create an environment for diversity to thrive. Simultaneously we use our expansive network to source, recruit and prepare individual candidates, understanding their strengths and what they can offer an organization.

Specialisterne USA is a non-profit social enterprise that pioneered the Autism @ Work movement in the US. We partner with corporations, universities, high schools, and community agencies to create change by examining traditional recruiting, training and on-boarding practices to help companies to employ work ready neurodiverse talent.
Successful organizations realize standardized recruitment processes leave autistic and other neurodiverse talent behind. They know tapping into neurodiversity will bring new solutions to their teams, enhanced productivity and an increased bottom line. But understanding how to best access, recruit, onboard and manage neurodiverse talent can seem like an overwhelming endeavor.

By helping companies transform their traditional recruiting and talent acquisition models, and training managers to welcome and embrace neurodiversity, Specialisterne is helping systems across the globe to utilize the inherent skills of autistic and neurodiverse talent to create value for all.

In five years, we have placed over 600 autistic people in meaningful employment. We started the Microsoft, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg, IPG Mediabrands, CAI, IBM, PwC, Willis Towers Watson, ETS, Capitol One, The Precisionists (TPI), Hill Top Preparatory, Landmark Education, Currey Ingram Academy, NYU Nest to name a few.

We have a collaboration with Vanderbilt Kennedy Center to create an online curriculum, already approved under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, call the Workforce Readiness and Preparation (WRaP) course, aimed to train Pre-Employment Transition Teachers with the skills they need to have their autistic students become "work ready" and on a path to meaningful employment.