Overcoming Your Fears of the Job Search

The key to conducting a successful job search is to focus, not on what you can’t do, but on what you can.

By Tom Scott

Individuals with disabilities face numerous barriers to employment, including accessibility, transportation, and health care issues, lack of training and education, and discrimination. Other factors include limited job opportunities and a lack of employment agencies that assist in the placement of people with disabilities into the workforce. The psychological effects of these barriers may cause fear and anxiety and prevent many people within the disabled community from seeking employment.

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies and labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. Although the ADA has improved the employment rights of people with disabilities, statistics demonstrate that the unemployment level of the disabled population still greatly exceeds the national level.

A 2004 Harris Poll shows that over 65% of working-age adults with disabilities are unemployed and nearly one-third earn an income below the poverty line. In addition, recent trends reported in the Current Population Survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and the National Health Interview Survey, reveal that employed people with disabilities work fewer hours and earn significantly lower wages than the able-bodied population.

According to research conducted by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization, the most frequently cited barriers to employment for people with disabilities include:

• No appropriate jobs available
• Family responsibilities
• Lack of transportation
• No appropriate information about jobs • Inadequate training
• Fear of losing health insurance or Medicaid
• Discouraged from working by family and friends Fear of the ADA

Another major factor impacting disability employment is that many employers nationwide, especially smaller companies, are unfamiliar with ADA employment guidelines, or the common barriers that people with disabilities encounter when searching for a job. This has been a costly problem. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2004, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that it received 15,376 charges of disability discrimination. EEOC resolved 16,949 disability discrimination charges in FY 2004 and recovered $47.7 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals (not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation).

The U.S. Department of Labor lists numerous “attitudinal barriers” that lead to discrimination of people with disabilities in the workplace. Some of these barriers include the false perception that individuals with disabilities are inferior, incapable of performing basic tasks, and given unfair advantages in job tasks. Many able-bodied people are also uncomfortable interacting with people with disabilities and may avoid working with them or hiring them.

United Spinal has made great efforts to educate the able-bodied public on the proper ways to interact with people with disabilities through its well-established Disability Etiquette publication. Over a quarter of a million copies of this publication have been distributed nationally.

People, Not Barriers

One company that understands the obstacles people with disabilities face when searching for a job is California-based WorkNet Solutions (www.worknetsolutions.com). WorkNet instructs employment specialists on how to motivate candidates, help them overcome employment barriers, market candidates to employers, and help candidates become valuable employees. More than 6,500 employment specialists across the U.S. and Australia have received training from WorkNet in the last two years.

Elisabeth Harney, president of Worknet, explained that the focus of the company is not merely on job placement and retention, but economic self-sufficiency and methods to help people with significant barriers to begin and succeed in careers that lead to economic independence and career success and satisfaction. Worknet has spent over 20 years of research and development on its Model of Career Development and Job Placement for People with Barriers. “We discovered a long time ago that no one hires the disabled . . . they hire people, who they think can do or learn the job, who they like and think will fit in, and who happen to have disabilities. This is true for felons, welfare recipients, at-risk youth, and so forth. Employers don’t hire the barrier, they hire the person, so it’s important that everything we and the candidate do to market them allows them to be a person first,” Harney said.

“There are many negative assumptions about people with disabilities, but they are not always malicious. Sometimes it is unintentional. But many are not seen as individuals. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a person with a disability (or a felon, or a single mother, or a whatever) will convince an employer that all people with disabilities are hardworking, willing to go the extra mile, deal with great adversity in their daily lives and therefore bring a creative, positive attitude to every project on the job,” Harney added. “But an individual with a disability could certainly convince an employer that these things are true about them. They may be the one and only person with a disability that the employer has ever met. Challenging the mythology, bias, and negative assumptions about people with disabilities and stepping out of the box as an individual is enough for the candidate today to get the offer. By showing what they’re made of and that they are the ‘exception to the rule’ can make way for other people (who can do or learn the job, who will fit in, and who happen to have disabilities).”

Harney said that one of the biggest reasons for the high unemployment rate among people with disabilities is candidate fear. “Candidate fear plays a huge role and can create self-sabotage that stymies the process, and candidate lack of confidence and ability to market themselves to employers causes problems too.” It is here, in dealing with candidate fear and lack of confidence/ability to market themselves, where Harney believes Worknet has the most influence and success. According to Harney, the quickest way to reduce fear is by helping candidates choose career directions that tap into their fascinations. “We also connect them with people with similar life situations who are moving forward. These messengers can say in mere moments what we can’t get across in weeks, if ever,” Harney added.

Abilities Count

Action’s “Working World” columnist, Tamar Asedo Sherman, helps people with disabilities find jobs through The Employment Connection (www.theemploymentconnect.com/), a full-service resource of the United Cerebral Palsy of Suffolk, Long Island. Sherman, who has multiple sclerosis, understands the common barriers to employment that people with disabilities face, because she has also faced them.

Sherman evaluatesindividuals with disabilities whoare unemployed and pinpoints the types of jobs that would be most suitable for them. She says that lack of self-esteem is one of the biggest barriers many must initially overcome. “The fear that people with disabilities experience toward employment arise from constantly being told that they are totally disabled. And this is not the case.

We help individuals overcome their personal fears by focusing on their abilities as opposed to their disabilities.”

What is true for people with disabilities is true for everybody—in a job search, it’s your abilities that count. By increasing the education and training of employers, the general public, and job candidates with disabilities, the barriers to employment will begin to crumble.

For more information on WorkNet Solutions visit www.worknetsolutions.com, e-mail: worknetts@aol.com, or call 626-810-4447. For more information on The Employment Connection visit www.theemploymentconnect.com, e-mail: info@theemploymentconnect.com, or call 631-232-0976.

Tom Scott is editor.