------------------------------------------------------------------ "ATTENTION: Cet courriel provient de l'extérieur du ministère. Ne cliquez pas sur les liens ou ouvrir les pièces jointes provenant de des sources inconnues. // CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the department. Do not click on links or open attachments from unknown sources." ------------------------------------------------------------------ This reminds me of a job I applied for in my recent past. My roles have changed to where I no longer do any hands on work with desktops, servers, switches, routers etc. There is no need for me to visit sites since there are teams of people that take care of that work now. In fact I no longer have a travel requirement, because as long as there is Internet and cellular services I can work from anywhere. If the software tools are accessible my accommodations requirements are simple, I just need a reliable screen reading text to speech program. This job for which I applied was within my qualifications and experiences. When I was going through the process I came across portions of the applications that I could not access using JFW or NVDA. Even different browsers didn't provide me with a work-around. The poster had contact information to be used in the event of requiring any accommodations; they boasted about being an affirmative action equal opportunity employer. What they did is force me to require an accommodation to complete the job application process. If they practiced what they preached, their online procedures would have been accessible to most people using adaptive or assistive software. And the job functions were more or less the same as mine now, where my disability wouldn't be a factor as long as the tools were accessible and I had a good screen reading text to speech package on a computer. I continued the process, raised my concerns to their HR department and haven't heard anything since. And I don't expect to and I am not going to follow-up since everything is working out nicely where I am now. Vic Pereira Project Manager, Network, Security and Digital Services (NSDS) Shared Services Canada, Government of Canada vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca / Tel: 204-781-5046 Gestionnaire de Projet, Réseaux, sécurité et services numériques (RSSN) Services partagés Canada, Gouvernement du Canada vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca / Tél. : 204-781-5046 -----Original Message----- From: Samuel Barnes <samuellbarnes@gmail.com> Sent: August-24-19 1:26 PM To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Affirmative action forms When filling out job applications I often come across affirmative action or diversity forms that you must fill out in order to complete the application. These include sections relating to disability. The dropdown menus usually include an "I decline to answer" option, but you can't just leave it blank. I feel like this is forcing me to shoot myself in the foot in terms of my chances of getting an interview. Here's why: If I explicitly indicate that I have a disability, they won't consider me. Yeah yeah I know the standard response: "But discrimination is illegal, and they're incentivized to hire disabled people." There's zero chance of me proving I wasn't considered due to my disability vs any other reasons a candidate is filtered out. As for incentives. If they're going to hire a disabled person, they'll hire a book keeper in a wheelchair or something else where the disability has absolutely no effect on how the person does their job. If I say that I don't have a disability than I've lied on the job application, and it'll be obvious when I walk into the interview with a dog. If I say "I decline to answer" (this isn't the same as leaving the field blank, you usually can't continue until all fields are filled.) then I feel like not only will they know I have a disability, but I have one that I want to hide from potential employers. No able bodied person is going to decline to answer the question. There's no downside for them to say they don't have a disability. I've had four interviews in the last two months. Two of them went very badly. One was for a night shift at an NOC where the guy flat out told me I couldn't do the job. The other one crashed and burned because they wanted someone with a drivers license. (that's a frustratingly common requirement for these MSP and K-12 school jobs). Another interview was super short. They asked me a few boilerplate tech questions that anyone with an A+ could answer, and that was pretty much it. I don't think it was even 15 minutes. Sorry this turned into kind of a rant, but I wanted your opinion on these affirmative action forms. Am I crazy for thinking this? _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org