Where and How to Look

With a tight job market, one in which skilled, dedicated workers are hard to find, it is important to look everywhere for talent. Recruiting should extend to nontraditional sources, including individuals with physical, mental, and communication disabilities. Employers may successfully recruit applicants with disabilities through job announcements, advertisements, and other recruitment notices. Include information on the essential functions of the job. If "good oral skills" are not essential for a vacant position, listing this criterion in a job announcement may misrepresent the job and unnecessarily discourage individuals with speech disabilities from applying for that position. Employers may indicate in job notices that they do not discriminate on the basis of disability. Employers should also make all information about job openings accessible to people with different disabilities. For example, to access people with visual or other reading disabilities, make job information available in Braille, large print, audiotape, and computer disk. Get a TTY (Text Telephone) and list its number on all your recruiting notices - doing so says your company is sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities.

You can obtain help in reaching this talent pool from rehabilitation, independent living, social service, and education agencies who know people with disabilities in careers that could coincide with your business needs. You can obtain a list of some of these agencies, including the services and programs they provide, by contacting the resources listed at the back of this book.

When reviewing each agency's services, ask these questions:

1. Does the agency evaluate its clients' work potential? If so, how?
2. Does the agency provide skills training? If so, what type?
3. Are there additional incentives for hiring the persons the agency represents (e.g., tax credits or training grants)? If so, how do these work?
4. Does the agency provide on-the-job training? Coaching? Follow-up?
5. Does the agency offer "awareness" training for supervisors and managers? Ask the agency about its placement record, including placements in specific jobs, retention rates, etc.
6. Do the agency's representatives seem to understand my needs as an employer?

Once a relationship is established with one agency, you will find that other agencies with similar services will contact you. Just one successful placement will open other avenues of opportunity.

A student with cerebral palsy obtained a work-study position as a mower with the landscape crew at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Concerned that because of his motor disability the student could not safely operate a push mower, his supervisor made a reasonable accommodation by assigning him other tasks, such as mulching, weeding beds, and picking up litter. Had the student been a full-time employee, though, the supervisor would have purchased a riding mower for him.

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