Hi. I fill out these type of forms a couple of times a year. I work for the government an they are always checking numbers. I found that it just works best to fill out the form honestly. Even though I hate having to fill out the forms. Greg B. -----Original Message----- From: Jackie McBride Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2019 4:11 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Re: Affirmative action forms Just put you decline to answer on every 1 of the questions. Having said that, though, perhaps it is better to be up front about a disability. If their company culture isn't conducive, you won't be considered even w/an interview. 1 thing I would suggest is to try to start attending local meetings of I T professionals or in some way getting to know & interact w/people in the field. The preferred way for employers to hire folks is to get them via referral, & if you can find folks you can get to know on a professional basis, the more likely that is to happen. On 8/24/19, Billy Irwin wrote:

Hi Sam,

I too feel your frustration in this arena. I found a job back in the fall of 2017 and was promoted to I.T. Manager for the entire company. Suddenly the company was sold in August of 2018. I was only there 9 months. I enjoyed my job a lot. I've been back in the market since then and haven't had any luck either. I am in South Carolina and the job market here for I.T. is mostly temp agencies and MSP's. You are likely not going to have any success with MSP's as most of them use ConnectWise which is totally inaccessible. I've had several interviews as well and no luck. One company is so desperate to hire me right now for a role checking their accessibility, but I am an infrastructure person. I am not a Software Engineer like they are asking for. My Associates degree is Network Systems Management. I am considering getting the Microsoft suite of certs, but Pearson view isn't accessible. I wish I had some sort of idea of what to do to make this all better, but I am just not sure at this point. I too hate filling out the affirmative action for jobs, but it is better to be honest. You don't want to force anyone to hire you as it will make it much more unpleasant.

Best,

Billy -----Original Message----- From: Samuel Barnes Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2019 2:26 PM To: Blind sysadmins list 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 _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org

-- Subscribe to a WordPress for Newbies Mailing List by sending a message to: wp4newbs-request@freelists.org with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by visiting the list page at http://www.freelists.org/list/wp4newbs & check out my sites at www.brighter-vision.com & www.mysitesbeenhacked.com _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Ouch! Getting laid off after just 9 months sounds terrible. A similar thing almost happened to me before I changed careers. I was a bilingual customer service rep in a call center. I started out as a temp getting paid OK for my very first job out of college. Then they switched us to another temp agency that paid peanuts. The quality of the staff they provided suffered massively as a result. You couldn't know week to week who would be in. The director of the department convinced the board to hire us part time and then full time a year later. Surprise surprise, the quality got better. It was nice having actual benefits. But then a few months before I left to go back to school the board of directors considered a plan that would basically make us temps again. Because we were government employees whoever took over had to maintain our salary for one year, but I don't think I ever got a clarification on whether our benefits would change. You probably know how expensive eye specialists can be. Anyway, the day the board voted on the proposal we were all watching the live stream of the meeting on the side as we took calls. When they voted not to farm us out the whole floor started cheering. If you’re considering Microsoft certs maybe try taking classes at a community college. They might issue you a certificate that says you passed the classes. I got a couple of those when I got my IT degree. It’s probably not as weighty as an actual MCSA or whatever you’re looking to get, but at least its something. Pearson Vue is pretty bad. It’s a nightmare getting accommodations, and most of the time they don’t actually work. Not to mention they keep shrugging off my ergonomics related requests like sitting at a computer with a monitor arm that I can bring close to my face without leaning over. That’s a huge deal if you’re sitting there for two hours. On Sat, Aug 24, 2019 at 1:52 PM Billy Irwin wrote:

Hi Sam,

I too feel your frustration in this arena. I found a job back in the fall of 2017 and was promoted to I.T. Manager for the entire company. Suddenly the company was sold in August of 2018. I was only there 9 months. I enjoyed my job a lot. I've been back in the market since then and haven't had any luck either. I am in South Carolina and the job market here for I.T. is mostly temp agencies and MSP's. You are likely not going to have any success with MSP's as most of them use ConnectWise which is totally inaccessible. I've had several interviews as well and no luck. One company is so desperate to hire me right now for a role checking their accessibility, but I am an infrastructure person. I am not a Software Engineer like they are asking for. My Associates degree is Network Systems Management. I am considering getting the Microsoft suite of certs, but Pearson view isn't accessible. I wish I had some sort of idea of what to do to make this all better, but I am just not sure at this point. I too hate filling out the affirmative action for jobs, but it is better to be honest. You don't want to force anyone to hire you as it will make it much more unpleasant.

Best,

Billy -----Original Message----- From: Samuel Barnes Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2019 2:26 PM To: Blind sysadmins list 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 _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org