A recruiter diagnosed with ADHD at 28 explains how restlessness, impulsivity, and high energy help him handle volume and multitask in sales. He acknowledges downsides like anxiety and overthinking, but says the advantages outweigh the costs in his fast-paced work.
I'm not broken, I'm just different. You could have a diagnosis. I got mine at 28, but I was really— I always knew I was slightly different. What made you get that then? I just thought, tell me, go on, tell me what I already know, right? Validate me. I need to be validated. It costs— it's loads of money, it's like £1,500 to have it. Tell me there's something different about me and then I can understand it. And I thought it would help me understand it.
No, no.
So I got diagnosed and nothing changed. Next day I carried on exactly the same. There are points when I get out of a meeting, I need to run around the room, right? I need to busy and I can't think before I speak. I will get myself in trouble because I just exude passion and energy and I just throw myself into things. And I need to explain that sometimes. You say, listen, I've got ADHD. I actually occasionally can't help it. When I get out of this room, I'm gonna need to run around. I'm gonna need to like sprint, right? I'm gonna have to do some stuff to burn off this additional energy. And it comes out in moving, shaking, and such a weird thing. But what a superpower for a salesperson or a recruiter. I could not handle the volume or the pressure or the plates I have to spin, which is the best recruitment analogy to describe. I'm doing this all day without ADHD. So I absolutely credit a lot of my success to being capable of handling what people without ADHD or people without that level can do. But we've probably all got something a bit different about us, and it's how we harness these superpowers and turn them into stuff for us. And yeah, I don't like some of the negatives, like the overthinking, the worrying, the not being able to sleep at some nights, and like all the bad bits of ADHD. I dislike that stuff, but I wouldn't trade losing all the skills and the superpowers I generate from it to get rid of some of the bad stuff. So I just have to apologize more often.
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