I think the best idea would be to act like any other person. So, before you are accepted don't tell them about your disability if it is not necessary and if they don't ask. Tell them about your disability before going there in order to not be rejected in the first day, but only as something auxiliary, not as something important for your job. For example, after you are accepted (if you will be accepted without a face-to-face interview), ask them for some more details about their building, about its placement, or who you should contact, or where is the office X, adding that you have a sight problem and you want to find it as easy as possible. I found that it is usually less shocking to not tell them "yes, I am totally blind" right at the beginning, but to tell them about a sight problem, and if the discussion continues tell them the full story, but this depends on the real situation. But if you are accepted without a face-to-face interview and don't want to go there for nothing, make sure that they understand what you are saying and not just be happy that they seemed to not have any problem with a person that has sight problems, because maybe they weren't listening too carefully and they will be still shocked that you have those problems when you'll be there. The final idea is that you can't cheat them. So just don't shock them, but don't hide too much your disability because if they reject you right away means that they are the type of people that don't want to work with a disabled person anyway. --Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Granados" <scott@granados-llc.net> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 8:59 PM Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Blindness and customer consulting question
Here's a non technical but job related question I'd love to get input on.
BACKGROUND I am in the job search again. I'm employed but looking for a change so I've been out there shopping myself around with some great results. One of the possibilities is being a resident engineer for Juniper which would be a real feather in my cap not to mention one of my favorite vendors. The entire interview process has been over the telephone. I've gone through some extremely in-depth technical screening and tested above all the other candidates. The assignment would be a year gig with a city government in Florida as the Juniper consultant on the job. I'd help with the implementation and migration from another vendor to Juniper across their network and it's a small network compared to what I've managed before but something like a large campus environment. There may be a face to face meeting with the customer ahead of time which would solve my problem because obviously at that point they would know my disability and it would remove the shock factor. However, there's a possibility that I could get an offer never having met anyone in person.
QUESTION Question is, what if anything should I say about my disability? Clearly I have the technical chops for the job but do I really want to sign an offer letter and just show up at the job site? On the flip side, it shouldn't matter and I know the legal arguments but many people just aren't open minded. What would you all do and how would you approach this? I have a 20 year work history but never been hired or interviewed exclusively over the phone before. Should I bring it up? Keep in mind I'd have to relocate for this job so I'd rather not show up on day 1 and get shown the door.:) What do you think?
Thanks Scott
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