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From: pjr@murdu.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (Peter Rayner)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: EMPLOYMENT
Message-ID: <13548@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 90 19:08:58 GMT
References: <13509@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: pjr@murdu.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (Peter Rayner)
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Index Number: 9857

In article <13509@bunker.UUCP> Bill.Koppelmann@f666.n104.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Index Number: 9827
> There are those who say that a blind person
>should let a possible employer know about his disability in either
>the cover letter or the resume. What does your gut feeling say to
>you about that?
>bk.
Ok, I'm in the middle of applying for jobs at the moment.  I am totally
blind and fairly early in an academic career.  This means that, despite the
fact  that my professional group is small I am unlikely to be individually
known.  I have taken two steps to deal with this problem.  Firstly I have
included the information that I am blind in a letter, preferably to the
person who will be conducting the interview.  Secondly I have brought the
two most important tools I use when meeting them (it's rarely a formal
interview, academic jobs don't seem to go like that).  So I show them the
PC and I show them stereocopier output to indicate that graphics is
manageable.  Then I deliberately try to deemphasize the issue.  Lastly I
will prompt my referees to comment on the extent to which they have
interacted differently with me than with other employees/students.  

I realize this is the upfront strategy and not the high moral ground.  I
should perhaps just stand on my academic record which is adequate.  Any
employer though deserves to know how I will do the job.  There are other
reasons too, particularly in an interview.  Their reaction to all this
stuff seems a good predictor of how much they will make an issue of my
blindness in the future.  If they're any good they will say something like
"hey wow, that's neat stuff now about that paper you wrote ..." and that
will be the end of it.  

Now does the strategy work:  Can't tell.  Have missed one job so far but
that was to one of the most saught-after places on the planet.  We'll see.
Hope this helps
Peter Rayner