Can you take an ADHD hyperfixation or autistic special interest and turn it into a career?
I didn’t actually intend to become a vice president. It happened accidentally.
When I look back at my career, I can see how my hyperfixations and special interests helped me build transferable skills. Video production led to broadcast journalism. Journalism led to social media, podcasting, publishing, leadership, and eventually the work I do now around autism and ADHD in the workplace.
Can a hyperfixation or special interest become a career?
It can contain transferable skills that may apply to paid work. The place to start is by breaking the interest into the individual things you’re actually doing and identifying the skills inside them. When I look back at my career, I can see how much of it was built by following the things that interested me, learning as much as I could about them, and then carrying those skills into whatever came next.
For as long as I can remember, whatever was interesting to me was where I wanted to put my energy.
If you have a special interest, a hobby, a hyperfixation, or something you know an enormous amount about, it may not currently be your career.
But you can start by looking at the skills inside it.
How Do You Turn a Hyperfixation Into Transferable Skills?
I recently heard someone use organizing Dungeons & Dragons games as an example. Think about everything involved in doing that. There’s planning. There’s coordination. There’s getting everybody onto different schedules and setting everything up.
Those are transferable skills.
The same can be true of something like writing fan fiction or another interest that doesn’t immediately look like formal work experience.
What we’re looking for are the individual tasks you’re actually doing. Those are the things that can help you explain to an employer: I can do this. I can perform these tasks. I have experience doing these kinds of things. Then you can explain how those skills translate into the job or role they’re hiring for. That matters on a résumé. It matters in a cover letter. And it matters during an interview.
How My Video Hyperfixation Became a Career
When I was in junior high and high school, I was obsessed with video production. I wanted to figure out how to film, edit, work with audio, and do everything involved in producing video.
This was long before YouTube or social media.
My high school had a video-production team with its own cable channel, TV studio, cable truck, and field operations. We would go out and produce Friday-night football games for the community. I wasn’t particularly interested in football. But I was interested in directing. I liked producing, video editing, running cameras, and running audio. I wanted to learn every part of it because I was hyperfixated on video.
Eventually, that became a career in broadcast journalism. Once I got into a newsroom, I learned how to do every job I could. Each one gave me more skills that I could eventually take somewhere else.
What Gives Me Energy—and What Drains It
I’ve learned that if I’m not doing things that interest me, I become overwhelmingly tired. I get exhausted. I get slow. Task initiation becomes harder. Not being able to complete a project or see something through drains me. That’s why I created the Drains and Sparks Workbook: to help late-diagnosed ADHD or autistic professionals look at what gives them energy and what drains their energy.
For me, the questions became: What excites me? What brings the dopamine? What does my ADHD get excited about? And then: How do I build a career into that?
One Interest Led to Another
I spent about 12 years in broadcast journalism. Eventually, I was getting bored because I was doing many of the same things over and over again. At the same time, social media was beginning to emerge. So I became my TV station’s first social media manager. I learned digital content strategy and social media strategy. I taught other journalists how to use social media. Suddenly, I was doing social media on top of everything else I already knew how to do: broadcast production, video editing, filming, writing, producing, audio, and teaching other people how to do those things. Podcasting was beginning to emerge too. I was interested in that, so I taught myself how to do it. Through all of these different interests, I was creating multiple possible career paths.
From Journalism to Publishing
Eventually, I decided I was ready to leave the newsroom. I found my way into a social media role at an educational publishing company. I used the skills I had developed in the newsroom and figured out how they could work in a completely different industry. Then I became curious about publishing. I learned traditional print publishing while also building digital content strategy and a digital footprint for the business. Over the next 12 years, I continued learning. I even accidentally became the publisher for our professional books and media product line. This combined the business of being the publisher along with the work I grew in content and media strategy.
I kept getting hyperfixated on one thing after another. I kept trying things. I leaned into my curiosity. I started getting leadership training and continued receiving promotions. Eventually, I became a senior director. Then I became a vice president. And I had never set out to become a vice president. That was never the goal.
From the outside, it may have looked like I was ambitious or chasing a title. I wasn’t. In my very AuDHD way, the title gave me more freedom to articulate my vision and continue doing more of the things that interested me. The content interested me. The topics interested me. Working with authors interested me. The mission of the work interested me.
My Career Made More Sense After My AuDHD Diagnosis
Eventually, I discovered that I have autism and ADHD, AuDHD. And suddenly I started to understand my career differently. It explained the hyperfixations. It explained the monotropism. It explained these different career paths and why I needed to be in work that excited me, leaned on my hyperfixations, and gave me energy. I started thinking about how my career had been impacted by autism and ADHD even when I didn’t know I was autistic and ADHD. There are downsides to that as well. But I could also see the skills I had leaned into and how autism and ADHD had been part of how I grew in my career.
Leadership Became Another Interest
Over time, I realized there was something else I loved doing. I enjoyed coaching teams. I liked helping other leaders emerge and helping managers become the best managers they could be. I became interested in helping people with their jobs, workplace situations, and understanding the workplace.
Then I was able to put that together with the content strategy, video strategy, social media strategy, leadership training, and equity training I had already been doing. That eventually became AuDHD Boss and the work I do now. I talk with companies about autism and ADHD in the workplace. I create resources like the Drains and Sparks Workbook. I coach late-diagnosed ADHD, autistic, and AuDHD professionals around workplace issues. And I try to help managers better understand autism and ADHD.
What Transferable Skills Can Come From a Special Interest?
Podcasting is another example. “Podcasting” can sound like one thing. But break it apart. You’re scheduling people. You’re coordinating. You’re coming up with interview questions. You’re writing an introduction. You’re writing. You’re editing. Those are individual skills that you may be able to take into other careers. The challenge is learning how to explain them clearly on a résumé, in a cover letter, and when talking about your experience. Sometimes a career coach, colleague, or another person sitting alongside you can help you think through those connections.
How Do You Explain Hyperfixation Skills on a Résumé?
I’m doing this myself right now. I’m taking jobs I’ve had over roughly the last 25 years and breaking them down. Sometimes cramming all of those experiences together without a clear narrative makes it harder for an applicant tracking system to see my skills. It can also make it harder for a recruiter or hiring manager to see them. So I have to break those experiences down and be direct about what I can do. If you have a special interest or hyperfixation, you can try the same process. Look at the individual things you’re doing. Break them down. Identify the skills. Then think about how you would explain those skills to somebody who doesn’t already understand the connection.
Skills are skills
You may not immediately jump into the highest-ranking position in a new kind of work. But you can start building a career foundation from the skills you already have. And going through that process may help you figure out what the next thing could possibly be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a special interest or hyperfixation become a career?
A special interest or hyperfixation can contain transferable skills that may apply to paid work. One place to start is by breaking the interest into the individual things you’re actually doing and identifying the skills involved.
What are transferable skills?
In this context, transferable skills are things you know how to do in one area that you can explain and potentially use in another job or industry. Planning, coordinating, scheduling, writing, editing, interviewing, producing, and teaching are examples from my own career and interests.
Can a hobby give you job skills?
The hobby itself doesn’t necessarily need to be the job. Look at what you’re actually doing around the hobby or interest. If you’re organizing something, you may be planning, coordinating, or scheduling. If you’re writing, producing, editing, teaching, interviewing, or managing something as part of an interest, those are individual skills you can identify and talk about.
How can I explain these skills on a résumé or in an interview?
Break the experience into specific actions. Instead of assuming a recruiter, hiring manager, or applicant tracking system will understand everything contained inside an interest or previous job, explain what you actually did and how those skills connect to the role you’re pursuing. That’s a process I’m going through myself as I look back at years of different jobs and experiences.
Start With the Skills You Already Have
My career wasn’t a straight line toward becoming a vice president. I kept getting interested in things. I learned them. Those interests gave me skills. And I kept finding ways to take those skills into whatever came next. If you’re trying to figure out what you want to do next, it may help to start with the things you’re already doing.
What interests you?
What are you doing when you’re engaged with that interest?
What individual skills are involved?
And how would you explain those skills to somebody else?
Skills are skills.
If you want to explore what gives you energy at work, what drains you, what you wish you were doing, and the strengths you may want to use more, you can find the AuDHD Workplace Workbook: Drains and Sparks.
About Brett
I’m Brett, the AuDHD Boss. I have more than 12 years of leadership training and experience at the corporate level, and I have a formal diagnosis of autism and ADHD.
These days, I consult and advise around more neuro-inclusive workplaces, speak about autism and ADHD in the workplace, and work with late-diagnosed autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD professionals through coaching.