I am person with disability. My resume is sent to multiple companies but I hardly receive any calls for interviews.
Understand Why
- I have seen this mostly happen due to a non-updated, old fashioned and boring resume than not having the skills.
- Recruiters glance at every resume only for 5-7 seconds and most of the resumes are not built in a way to catch that attention.
- At times, PwD resume have grades and marks on the first page than talking about any acquired skills.
- Resume does not talk about the skill, not well formatted, contact details are not clearly mentioned and so on.
- Resume also does not mention any accommodations needed or not needed while interview and on-boarding.
- Basically, not having a right resume is the most common cause for not getting attention.
Possible Solutions
- In your resume, clearly mention if you need/do not need any special arrangements needed for your interview. This really helps organizations and does not leave any room for confusions. Formats of Great Resume for Person with Disability
- Clearly mention your latest and always reachable phone number and professional email address on top of your resume. If you are a person with speech and hearing impairment (Deaf & Mute) and reachable only on WhatsApp/chat, clearly mention that.
- Make sure your resume is always updated. Your professional skills and latest experience is updated. Understand All About Preparing a Great Resume.
People ask for experience but without that first job, how can I get experience?
Understand Why
- This is true, cracking first job is really difficult. One reason, there is no internship, hands-on-experience gained during education.
- You might not have started searching for job early enough before completing the graduation.
- Your resume, profile is not available anywhere for head-hunters to reach out to you.
- Your college/NGO is not inviting companies for campus hiring.
Possible Solutions
- During your graduation/diploma, even if you are not getting any internship opportunity, you can do some projects on your own by self-learning. You can create blogs, create websites, create apps for very minimal cost or for free. Understand How to Gain Hands-on Experience Without Job.
- Prepare your resume and create your profile on multiple job sites at least 6 months before you complete your graduation or diploma.
- Even if you are undergoing training in a private coaching institute/NGO, still prepare resume & create profile on multiple job sites. Learn How to Create a Great Resume and Good Job Sites to Create Profile.
- Talk to your college professors, dean, coaching institute coordinators, NGO coordinators and ask them to proactively reach out to companies to know the openings even before the course is complete.
- Connect with HR people, People with disability evangelists, PRIDE evangelists on LinkedIn and let them know about you, your college or institute and why they should reach out to you. Learn How to Connect With Right People on LinkedIn.
My family/friends/NGO/Coaching Institute is asking me to take up any job. Should I do or wait for right opportunity as per my education?
Understand Why
- You will obviously have this questions after sometime is passed and you did not find any job. This problem is tricky as well as one side you have financial implications, second you want to make career in certain field and have different interests.
- Others are pushing you to take up any job to be financially independent and to gain some experience than sitting idle.
Possible Solutions
- Possible resolutions to this depends a lot on your field of education as well. If you are a computer science graduate or diploma, you can take up many small self-employment options as well which are connected with your field while you are looking for job. Self-Employment Options for a Person in Software/IT/Computers
- If you are good in some subjects, you can take up tuitions for children. There is a lot of demand for few subjects.
- If you are good in your graduation subjects, you can also take up coaching for adults in the same field as your graduation. Initially your target audience can be people with disability & underprivileged can not afford expensive coaching. This way you are connected with your field as well as earning.
- If you are good in writing, you can take up content writing in your own field. This way you are learning more about your field and earning as well.
- There could be many more options, Explore Ways of Self-Employment
- There could be many ways to earn living while looking for job. Explore Ways to Earn a Living While Looking for Job
My education is in my native or in sign language and I have never been good in English however all employers ask for good written and oral communication in English. How can I improve?
Understand Why
- Most of the companies in India operate in English including the documentation. Even in retail sector like in malls, food-court and theaters etc. customers communication in English. Most of the private and public schools have English medium hence it is obvious that companies do ask for good communication in English.
- If you are a person with Speech and Hearing Impairment then your primary language might be “Sign Language” however all other people do not know sign language. Unless you have good written communication skills, there is no mode of communication between you and others. If you say, Why others can not learn sign language? Yes, it is possible but teaching sign language to a majority of the population is lot more difficult than teaching English to few.
Possible Solutions
- Unfortunately, we can not avoid English communication as it is so vast and deep routed in India.
- Best option is to learn. Learning or improving in English language will definitely open a lot more doors for you.
- You can learn English on your own. If you want to improve the vocabulary, read English news paper and keep a dictionary. Both of these are available online as well.
- If you want to learn grammar and form sentences, that can be learnt online as well. Self Learn English Online in Various Stages for Free
- Do not hesitate to speak or chat in English even if it is not 100% correct.
I have completed by graduation/diploma but do not have any professional skills/hands-on experience or direction. Are there any free trainings available which can help me to start earning?
Understand Why
- This is a common problem of all graduates & diploma holders from colleges which do not offer internship etc. in the last year of the course.
- Without any experience and practical knowledge it is tough to complete with students who have internship, hands-on experience and have professional experience.
- You lack direction as there are so many options and you do not know which field has more job opportunities for a no-experience person.
Possible Solutions
- There are many trainings and hands-on options available but first you should identify your interest and strengths. For example: Ask yourself if you are a creative person, are you a logic driven person, are you good in writing, are you good in selling etc.
- Picking up the right profession, skill & training is very important as you cannot keep on doing endless trainings to understand what works better.
- Take Up Personality Test to get an indication of what might work better for you.
- Refer Free Trainings and Certifications in Multiple Fields and understand what works for you.
- Software and IT industry has lot of options: You can be a programmer, website developer, web producer, content author, content writer, digital marketer etc. Possible Jobs in Software and IT Industry with Free Training.
There are many professional skills to develop and if you don’t have any specific preference then focus to learn those skills which have options of job, self-employment as well as freelancing. This will open up opportunities even if you are struggling to find a job. I define some of these as evergreen roles.
Definition of Evergreen roles are:
- Which can be done from office or home or from anywhere else as well.
- Which have long term opportunities
- Which has wide variety and good deal of demand
- Which can be learnt easily
- Which has a lot of help available on internet
Falls under a Industry which itself is evergreen and will always be in demand - Which has few related areas to learn additional skills to later become SME in that industry/area/field
How Should I Prepare for Interviews?
- First you should prepare a good resume. Please refer here for doing one.
- You must remember everything added in your resume.
- Recall and practice to answer the key programs which you have done. If you do not have experience, then you must do some projects on your own to gain experience. Refer to the Projects Here.
- Revise the key skills.
- Keep trying out online assessments to make sure that you can finish the tests on time.
- You must practice aptitude tests and online technical assessments.
- You must do the case studies to improve your solutioning and logical reasoning. Refer to the case studies here.
How can I connect with employers and recruiters?
- You do not have to wait for employers and recruiters to reach out to you. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn. Check here how.
- You can also create your profile on various job sites. Check here how.
- You should ask your college to pitch to employers for campus hiring. It can be done easily with colleges writing emails to employers and even contacting on LinkedIn.
Is networking and online presence important, will it really help me?
- Yes. It is really important. Please understand that without knowing about you and know that you exist, how companies can reach out to you.
- If you are available on LinkedIn and your profile has good keywords related to your skills, you will appear in searches done by recruiters.
- Also, if you are available on job sites with a good profile and keywords related to your skills, people will be able to search you there as well.
Is there difference between interview process for freshers and experienced?
- Yes, it can be.
- In some companies, freshers are hired via campus hiring. Process might include aptitude test, tech online test, tech round and HR rounds. There could be multiple tech rounds as well.
- If there are many candidates applying, aptitude and other written test will be considered as filtered criteria hence you must perform good.
- However, a PwD college can pitch for exception and directly go for interviews.
What are the minimum qualifications to apply for any position?
- Minimum qualification depends on the company and the role. Most of the time for an MNC it is graduate.
- At time companies look for engineering graduates because these are available in great number but non-engineering should not be showstopper.
- If you are fresher, you must request your college to pitch to the company. Most of the time, companies are very flexible to consider non-engineering streams like MCA, B.Sc., M.Sc., B.com. as well.
- Most important thing is for your college is to connect with companies.
- For experienced candidates, mostly experience is considered along with any graduation in most companies. There might not be a need for special considerations even.
How do employers find candidates for their companies?
- For freshers, a lot of MNC hire via campus. Hence it’s very important for your college to pitch to companies.
- Some companies might hire for entry level positions via job fair as well. You must participate in Job Fair via your college or individually. Few NGOs conduct job fair few times in a year.
Do organizations provide mentorship to prepare for interviews?
- Yes, some organizations offer mentorship for needy candidates. However, reaching out individually might be challenging and people might not consider.
- A lot of organizations run small to large scale volunteer programs.
- If your college and NGO approaches companies with few candidates who need mentoring and guidance, organizations can run this as volunteer engagement programs which would be preferred and can definitely happen.
- As candidate, you should take initiative to be regular in mentorship and be proactive to connect along with completing the assignments.
Do organizations hire only certain disabilities?
- Most of the organizations do not restrict on hiring only certain disabilities, it is mainly based on skills.
- However, hiring certain disabilities could be faster because there is more awareness about it. For example: people with vision impairment, people with locomotor disabilities.
- However, there is need to raise awareness about less known type of disabilities, jobs which these people can perform well.
NGOs should also come forward to train, promote and push the hiring for other disabilities as well.
Do organizations relax their hiring criteria for people with disabilities?
- It depends. Some organizations can relax their criteria for example: These might skip aptitude & other online tests. These might hire only based on technical interviews.
- Some organizations might do online tests but might not consider the results of it and still give chance for tech interviews. Organizations might do it as changing the policies will be very complex.
- However, tech interviews are must for hiring.
Important point is to make sure that your college and organization reaches out to organizations, inform about candidate’s positions and close the negotiations.
Reasonable Accommodation Related FAQs
What are the reasonable accommodations and what are some examples of the same?
There could be many examples depending on the disability and the degree of the disability. For example: If you are a person with 100% Vision Impairment and need to work on computers:
- You need Screen Reader Software to be installed.
If you are a person with Low Vision and need to work on computers:
- You might need a magnifier. There are different types of magnifiers.
If you are a person with Speech and Hearing Impairment and need to attend virtual meetings:
- You might need a Sign Language Interpreter.
- You might need captions to be enabled.
- You might need people to speak slow if you do lip reading.
- You might need more infographics & visuals to understand few presentations.
If you are a wheel chair user and need to travel to office:
- You might need special cab
- You might need someone to pick you up from wheel chair, place in the cab, fold the wheel chair etc.
As a person with disability, do I need to pay for accommodations while in job, if I ask for it?
- If you are getting into a company, you don’t have to pay for it unless it’s a paid service. Companies are moving towards diverse & inclusive culture and they should be providing such accommodations.
- Some of these could be special requests. For example: If some company does not provide cab facility, then they specially need to arrange for it.
- Some companies generally charge employees for cab services and in that case you will be charged as well.
If needed, can I ask for accommodations during interview itself?
Yes, you can ask for it but you should give enough heads-up for the same when it is arranged.
- You must confirm from the coordinator if these are arranged before the interview day and must keep these communications in mail. It will be waste of time for interviewer and you if you both are not able to start/complete which might end your candidature.
Some examples of accommodations which might be needed for interviews:
- Person with Speech and Hearing Impairment might need Sign Language Interpreter.
- Person with Speech and Hearing Impairment might need to use video calling options which have captions like Google Meet. Now Zoom meetings also have captions enabled.
- Person with Vision Impairment for a Tech Round might need Screen Reader on the Computer if asked to do practical or coding.
You can suggest alternate ways of interviews. For example:
- If you are a person with locomotor disability and want to avoid travelling for in-person interview, suggest to have it on video call.
Should I mention that I need reasonable accommodations in my resume?
- Yes, you should mention the accommodations needed in the resume.
- This avoids surprises for the employer and is appreciated. Employer can think that you are thinking ahead and providing solutions for the employer.
Will I loose job opportunity if I ask for accommodations?
- Most of the time employer hesitate to hire person with disability because they do not know how will you work, do they have right tools and products which you can use to work etc.
- Hence if you mention all the details before-hand, it actually can increase your chances of getting hired than reducing.
Can I provide suggestions to employer/hiring manager on how some accommodations can be met?
- Yes, why not. This definitely will help the employer in yours as well as in future hiring.
- Employer will definitely appreciate your proactive skill of not only identifying a problem but providing a solution as well. This will definitely work in your favor.
