I’ll be honest, I’m in new territory. This week I had the opportunity to work with two amazing graduate students who are just entering the job market. They couldn’t be more different. One is a masters student focusing on nonprofit management and leadership while the other is a PhD student at the final stages of music theory program. One wants a social impact career and the other wants to teach music and music theory. They couldn’t be more different but there’s one thing they have in common: both are graduate level job seekers with disabilities. One is in a wheel chair and the other legally blind.

They have stretched my thinking and approach to the job search to consider it from a new perspective. My goal as a career coach is to find strategies to streamline the job search process for my clients. The core of my approach is the same and now I’m adding new strategies to keep the process relevant and even more streamlined.

Here are some of my early learnings and findings:

I’m learning a lot about how websites are built and that deeply embedded  pages make it difficult for those who are not sighted to navigate and for software to find and read the pages.

I found a leadership development and training program that trains disabled job seekers for the world of work and make connections to employers.
http://www.limeconnect.com

I’ve found websites and job boards tailored to job seekers with disabilities.
www.usajobs.gov
http://weconnectnow.wordpress.com/job/ 
http://www.rileyguide.com/abled.html

Do you know of any resources or techniques for job seekers with disabilities?

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