Teaching Job Interview Skills Through a Positive Psychology Framework: a Pilot RCT

The job interview is a challenge for autistic youth, as they can have difficulty identifying and discussing their strengths in a strategic way. In this pilot randomized controlled trial, we examined the preliminary efficacy of Kessler Foundation Strength Identification and Expression (KF-STRIDE), a positive psychology-based training program designed to build awareness of personal character strengths and facilitate expressing them to a potential employer. Forty autistic TAY were randomly assigned to either receive KF-STRIDE (n = 20) or services-as-usual (SAU; n = 20). Two primary outcomes were examined: job interview skills (measured using a video-recorded mock job interview) and employment. Secondary outcomes included self-reports of knowledge of one's own strengths, job interview skills, interview anxiety, and work readiness. The intervention group showed greater improvement in interview skills than the SAU control group (p = 0.01). The intervention group also showed greater improvement in self-reported knowledge of one's own strengths (p < 0.001). An analysis of participants who sought employment revealed a higher percentage of individuals in the intervention group (54.5%) became employed in the 6 months following the intervention compared to only 12.5% of the SAU control group. This pilot RCT suggests that KF-STRIDE may lead to improvements in performance-based job interview skills, knowledge of one's own strengths, and potentially employment. A fully-powered clinical trial examining the effectiveness of KF-STRIDE will be an important next step to evaluating KF-STRIDE's impact.