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2012-12-12-Success at Work

Seminars@Hadley

Ensuring Your Success at Work:An Inside Look at the Hiring Process

Presented by Lauri Dishman – Second Sense

Moderated by Larry Muffet

December 12, 2012

Larry MuffetWelcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry Muffet. I’m a member of Hadley Seminars team and I also work in curricular affairs here at Hadley. Today’s seminar topic is “Ensuring Your Success at Work: An Inside Look at the Hiring Process.” It’s my absolute delight to introduce your presenter. Your presenter today is Lauri Dishman.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with Lauri on a couple of projects, and just found her to be absolutely delightful, and I think you’re really going to enjoy today’s seminar. She’s the manager of Counseling Services at Second Sense in Chicago. Lauri is also an adjunct professor at the Chicago School of

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Professional Psychology, where she teaches career development and counseling. Today Lauri’s going to pull back the curtains and give you an inside look at what employers do in the hiring process and what you can do to improve your chances of success. So now let me welcome Lauri and I’m going to turn the microphone over to her and let her get started.

Lauri DishmanWow, Larry, thank you so much for such a great introduction. I was very excited when Larry asked me to do a seminar on workplace etiquette. It immediately made me think about my first question that I wanted to throw out there, and I would love for if you guys would love to participate, to put your responses to my question in the chat section and we’ll get back to them in a little bit.

What I want you to think about: What are some of the top reasons why people get fired from their jobs? If you think about what are some of the top reasons, go ahead and start, if you want to put a response in the chat box, I’d love to hear what you guys have to say and we’re going to get back to that in just a minute.

And you’re probably wondering, why am I asking you, why do people get fired when we’re supposed to be talking about a seminar that has to do with workplace



etiquette? Well, there are two reasons why. First, by understanding why people get fired, we can understand what not to do when we’re in a workplace, and so by understanding what not to do, we can sort of get a sense of what the proper etiquette could be in a workplace situation, so that’s one reason why. By understanding why people get fired, we’ll kind of have a little bit of a heads up in terms of being an asset to an organization.

Secondly, by understanding why people get fired, you can get an idea of why the hiring process or why the interviewing process is set up the way it is, and why employers ask certain questions or set up certain scenarios or certain situations in order to get an idea of how to screen their clients to assure that they’re bringing in the top quality within their organizations, because let’s face it. Employers are afraid of you.

You’re probably wondering, what are you talking about? Why do you mean, “they’re afraid of you?” Well, they’re afraid of, just some of the things that I’m seeing pop up on the screen: “Are people going to be dishonest?” “Are people going to have inappropriate sexual conduct?” “Are they going to have poor attendance?” These are all things that employers fear. They fear this in their employees, bringing them



in, because let’s face it, they want to be as productive as they can as an organization.

So the first thing we can do to sort of understand the proper etiquette and to understand sort of what employers are looking for in the hiring process, is to first go over a few givens, a few sort of uncontrollable variables in the hiring process, and in the nature of organizations and companies.

For one, companies and organizations really are concerned about the delivery of their service, or really the bottom line. To make sure that, if they’re a for profit, that they’re going to make a product, or if they’re a nonprofit, that they are adequately serving their clients and meeting their goals in order to be able to get additional grants and additional money to keep functioning. So that is the main concern of a company or an organization. When it comes to the problems of their employees, that’s the last thing they’re going to be concerned about.

Your problems are the last thing that they really want to be able to deal with. So for example if you’re going through a divorce, or you’re having a rough day, or you’re sick, really the employer, for the most part, and I should say there are definitely exceptions to this rule but for the most part your problems are the last thing



that they really want to think about or be concerned about. They just want you to come in and be a productive employee and do what you need to do to forward the mission of the company or the organization. So that’s the first variable that’s sort of out of our control.

The second variable is that you can’t pick your coworkers. It’s almost like your family. You really can’t pick your family. You can pick your friends, but you can’t really pick your coworkers. So getting along with each other is a very very big part of an organization’s idea of having an ideal flow in the workplace.

So, good fit, are you going to fit in with the organization, is one very key element that organizations are really screening for. Are you going to fit in with our culture? Are the jokes that we tell going to go over your head? Is the language we’re going to use going to have to be constantly explained? Is it just going to feel right to have this person within our organization? So, you can’t pick your coworkers, is a very big part of it, and getting along is a very big part of the hiring and the screening process.



The other variable that’s really out of our control is that people are going to judge you more subjectively than objectively. No matter what we try to do, they’re going to have immediate opinions by perhaps the way we dress, or the way we look, or the way we smell, or whatever. These are things that are just givens, and sometimes it’s hard to control that, although if you’re conscious of what you wear when you go into a workplace or into an interview, and how you conduct yourself and how you answer your questions in your interview and how you conduct yourself, that’s going to give you a little bit of a leg up in that process, in the interviewing process, so first impressions are incredibly important.

Now, when you get on the job, the next variable is that you’re going to be expected to figure out how to do your work rather than be given explicit instructions. Yes, there might be some training in how to use, say, a certain software that a company might use. Or, say if you’re in customer service, the particular system of handling calls and so forth, but they’re not going to teach you how to be a customer services representative.

You have to come into your job already trained, or if you’re going to come in as a mental health counselor, you have to have that training in order to be able to



come in on the job. There’s not going to be a lot of on the job teaching of you to be whatever it is your career goal is going to be set, so you kind of have to already come in with the skills, with the knowledge, and so forth, and the savvy to also be able to learn additionally on the job as things come about, because you’re going to run into problems.And that runs us into our fifth variable, which is that obvious solutions to problems that you face on the job aren’t going to be directly in front of you. That we have to be resourceful and we have to know and figure out how to get those answers to those questions, so having the common sense to know who to call or who to contact if you run into a particular problem, or what resources we may need to have in order to do your job.

And so, these are all of the things that are sort of these unspoken variables that are on the job and so therefore the screening process, with interviewing, is going to sort of focus on these five variables. So by understanding what’s really not in your control we can understand what aspects of the interview and what aspects of workplace etiquette we can control so that we can be and strive to be a better asset within an organization.



So now, let’s get to your responses in terms of the chat room. I asked you, “What are some of the top reasons why people get fired?” And this is great. A lot of the folks that answered were very right on and spot on with some of the research that I did. I did a lot of google-ing to find out, you know, what are some of the top reasons why people get fired from their jobs? I see things like poor attitudes, or being not courteous to customers, not knowing how to act for an accommodation, excessive tardiness, habitually late for work. Some employers may not want to hire someone with a disability. These are some of the things that were listed in some of the research that I did through google.

The number one reason that I found through my research was absenteeism, and I think several of you mentioned that in your listing, was absenteeism being one of the top things. Not showing up for work, or even being chronically late, these are all concerning to a company or an organization, because let’s face it, companies think of their employees as an asset, and we talked about that.

But if an employee starts to show up late or they don’t show up at all, that person actually now becomes a liability, because now they have to maybe pay others to do the work that you or the employee was



supposed to do, and now you’re spreading your resources thin. The quality of work could suffer. They may have to bring someone else to do the job that the employee who was chronically late had to do. Maybe a project isn’t going to get finished on time, so you have to make sure as an employee that you do everything in your power to get to the job on time every day.

So, obviously for folks that are blind or visually impaired, this can be a challenge, because let’s face it, we can’t get into a car, and we can’t drive to our jobs, and so we don’t have the same time of control of sort of planning out our routes or being able to get in the car at a certain time and knowing that we’ll get to our destination at a certain time. We have to rely on other means of transportation.

I come from Chicago, which is a wonderful city for public transportation. Many of my clients use public transportation as their means of travel, and they can travel similarly as their sighted peers to get to and from their jobs, and so it is often recommended that if you have great mobility skills, and you live in a major metropolitan area, to learn to use your public transportation system, and learning multiple routes to get to your main destinations, and that includes your job.



Because let’s say one day that the line you take to get to work is down, the train line that you take. If you know buses that are also available to take you to that same destination, you can use that route instead, and it’s already something that you are familiar with. You know it. You don’t feel as anxious about getting to work.

So if you live in a place with a great public transportation system, try to learn to use it. Work with a mobility instructor to try to learn to use the public transportation system as well as you can. Now we also know that not everyone is able to take public transportation, and not every area provides public transportation.

Some folks do use a Paratransit service, and oftentimes that has been a reliable source of transportation, but I know for other folks that I work with, many times their Paratransit service isn’t always reliable, may not pick you up the time that they say they’ll pick you up, or they may drop the person off at a later time than was originally scheduled, so it can be a little bit erratic and unpredictable, so a way to get around that is obviously scheduling rides earlier to get to your destination earlier, and therefore being able to



guarantee that you’re going to get to work at a certain time.

Other options is that I do have some clients who work who have a driver, who may, for example, if they’re in sales and it’s hard to get to different sales calls in destinations that are nor familiar or may be new, having a driver can sometimes be a way of getting over that. Now obviously not everyone can afford a driver, but oftentimes that can be an option.

There are some taxi cab services in certain communities which can also solve the problem of transportation. Other times you can set up a carpool service with a friend, perhaps, that might be traveling to a similar location. Perhaps you chip in for some of the gas, so there are ways of trying to overcome the idea of absenteeism, because that can be a tough situation for people that are blind or visually impaired in finding reliable transportation.

For some of my other clients, there’s also additional health issues. I do have clients who have diabetes, and they have diabetic retinopathy, and so with that can be additional health problems. There could be neuropathy in their hands and feet and they’re not able to stand up for longer periods of time, or they



may get fatigued faster than perhaps someone who might have a different condition.

So really having an honest conversation with yourself about your condition, perhaps other health issues, and thinking about, well maybe I can’t manage a full time job but maybe I can manage a part time job, or maybe only working a couple of days a week, or perhaps only working a few hours a day may also help to offset the chance of you being absent because of illness for some reason. So again, this is sort of an honest dialogue that needs to happen with yourself about what you realistically can manage if you do decide to pursue employment, and obviously absenteeism being something that you do want to avoid.

So the second thing that was listed in my research as far as why people get fired or why people get terminated from their positions is poor performance, or poor work performance, and these are some of the reasons why many of my clients got terminated from some of their jobs. For example, transposing or misreading numbers, or not being able to read their computer screens anymore. Dosing the wrong mediation. I’ve had many clients who have worked in the healthcare profession as nurses, and accidentally provided the wrong medication to a client.



Another reason is that I had a person who worked in a daycare center and she lost track of a child, and so because of that, she was terminated. She wasn’t able to see and keep track of the children in the daycare center very well. I had another gentleman who finally realized that he couldn’t drive anymore, and he was white-knuckling his way behind the wheel of a delivery truck, and realized, “I can’t do this anymore.” So these are all reasons why people, and this is directly related to vision loss, why people have gotten terminated from their positions.

And I have a question I noticed up there. Somebody who asked a question is, “At what stage should you disclose your disability?” And so the idea here is, when do we talk about this? If we start to notice that our vision loss is affecting our performance on the job, when do we bring this up? When do we disclose this?

And that leads to the next reason why people get fired from their jobs, and that is dishonesty. And I’m not saying that vision loss is dishonest. It’s just that, if an employer perceives that a person is being dishonest, even though someone may not be, but if there’s a perception and they may think that a person is trying to pull the wool over their eyes in some way, they’re



going to get suspicious, and that might start a termination process.

And this relates to vision loss in the way that, even though you may think you can pull it off or you think you might be able to get by with the vision you have, but if you start making these kinds of errors, transposing numbers, mis-dosing meditation, losing track of a child at a daycare center, these are not just mistakes that are affecting you but they’re mistakes that might be putting other people in danger, and that’s where you need to start to be honest with yourself. Are you costing the company money because of your impairment, or are you putting people in danger?

And that’s where you might want to start thinking about the process of talking to your employer about your vision loss if you are working. This might be the time when you start to talk to HR, and you come into the room not only knowing about the nature of your condition, and what the progression may be or may not be, but also being aware of ways that you can accommodate yourself on the job.

For example, if you are in the healthcare field, and say you are a nurse, maybe you may not be able to work with patient care and do direct patient care, but



you certainly can work in an administrative capacity, perhaps managing filing and paperwork or doing consulting and triage work in that way rather than administering and doing direct work with the patients.

So that’s just another way of sort of re-thinking about the position that you might have, or if you’re someone who is starting to transpose numbers, and you can’t see very well. Say you’re an accountant. I actually have been working with a client who’s an accountant who’s been working with Zoom Text and has finally realized that he can’t do his work anymore.

We’ve now introduced him to the idea of using JAWS and using Jaws with excel and starting him on training with that to see if he can still manage doing the accounting work with JAWS instead of using a screen enlargement program, and so again, coming in with solutions already to your employer is incredibly important.

I’m not sure if anyone here has heard of the Job Accommodation Network, but they’re a really great source not only for you to do some research and do some homework, especially if you’re new to your vision loss, but they’re also a great resource to refer your employers to for ideas and resources for how to accommodate people on the job, and so by



understanding what’s available to you is a good first step, but then also testing different software, different aspects of technology, visiting a low vision or a blindness rehab store, can often allow you to test our different products, to figure out ways of solving the problems you might be facing with your job.

So understanding ways of accommodating yourself can be incredibly important. So poor performance is one thing, and then this idea of the potential for dishonesty or being able to communicate to an employer, because obviously if you try to get away with it, employers are going to find out. They’re going to see you holding a piece of paper close to your eyes, or they may see you stumbling down the hallway or tripping considerably or they may see you becoming disoriented more often than usual.

You can maybe get away with sort of hiding it for only so long, but eventually employers are going to find out. Another good solution to hopefully finding ways of solving some of the problems you might face on the job is to also talk to a certified vision rehabilitation therapist.

A CVRT is a professional who is specifically trained to help someone solve the problems they may be facing in their everyday lives, and this includes the



workplace, so if you’re facing a problem of how to keep your desk organized, or how to keep your Rolodex organized and to keep your contacts in order, a CVRT is someone who can offer you some solutions, specifically to people who are blind or visually impaired in terms of how to maintain and how to be functional within the job. So these are just some advice.

The next form of dishonesty, or the next reason why people get fired, is misuse of office provisions, thinking that their property is your property, and I will be honest with you. I had a client who felt that – she worked at a call center – and she felt, “Well, I’m having some down time, so I guess I can pick up the phone and start making some 900-level calls,” and at this point the client didn’t realize that this was a problem, that there was anything wrong with this. “Oh, I was bored. They didn’t give me enough to do, so I thought it was okay for me to go ahead and use the phone for 900 numbers.”

This is obviously an extreme example, and I think we all have the common sense not to do that, but this is what is realistic, that this can happen on the job, but something that is realistic is using the phone say, for personal calls, or sending personal e-mail from the office e-mail or the office machine. Even though it



seems pretty innocuous, it seems like it’s something that happens every day, there are some employers who monitor the e-mail activity and the phone activity that someone does. So making sure that you’re careful about what you’re doing and who you’re sending information to and e-mailing and so forth is important to be mindful of.

The same thing with innocently taking home office supplies, can also be viewed as thinking that the company’s property is available for your taking. If people notice this, if people are sensitive to this, especially managers and so forth, that might be a reason to think that this person isn’t respecting the company, and may think of that as a reason for poor performance.

Okay, I’m going to take a break. I know that Larry said that after about 20 or 25 minutes to take a little bit of a break to see if anyone had any questions, so I’m going to go ahead again, if anyone has a microphone or whatnot, or if they want to type in your question, I will let you do that.

Larry MuffetThanks, Lauri. There are a couple of questions in the textbox that I think we should go back and capture. Jack would like to know, concerning your resume,



how do you handle gaps in your work experience on your resume? Which I think is an excellent question.

Lauri DishmanAbsolutely, and this is very common, that people have this issue, especially if you’re someone who had to take time away from a job to adjust to the vision loss, to become comfortable, and now are ready, what do you do? Well, oftentimes if you are someone who has been volunteering, whether that’s in your church, at your children’s school, at another nonprofit organization or whatever, that is valid work experience.

Even though you didn’t get paid, you are still utilizing very similar skills that you would if you were in a work place, so treating any volunteer opportunity like a work opportunity is a fantastic way of bridging some of those gaps, and really outlining any achievements you made – how much money you might have raised in a fundraiser, how much you were able to bring in in terms of say new membership or whatnot, somehow that you made a difference in that volunteer opportunity, could be a great way to bridge that gap.

Also, if you have done any kind of training, anything to better yourself, put that down on your resume to show that you weren’t just sitting idle and you weren’t just



doing idle, that you really were doing something to better yourself. Maybe even if you took a sabbatical, and you traveled or you did something. Mentioning that in your resume is often a way to show that you’re doing something to better yourself, and that’s really what it’s all about, so I hope that helps.

Larry MuffetFantastic. We have another question I thought was quite good. [Miley] would like to know your opinion on disclosing prior to the first interview.

Lauri DishmanThat is always the $20 million question. That is often very personal. It’s a very personal decision in terms of when someone wants to disclose, or when it is often suggested to disclose your disability. What I often suggest is that if you walk into a job interview and you have a cane or you use a guide dog, you are already disclosing that you are visually impaired, so it’s already on the table.

So what I often suggest is to be upfront about it during that first interview, because the person across the table is obviously intuitively thinking, “How is this person going to do the job? This person has a white cane. I’ve never interviewed anybody who’s blind before, nor have I ever worked with anyone who’s



blind before,” so those are the thoughts that are running through this person’s head.

They’re not necessarily ready to focus on your skill set at the time, so by openly and honestly talking about the disability, even though the ADA says that they can’t ask questions. If you’re comfortable enough with your vision loss, and hopefully you are before you walk into a job interview, you will be willing to take questions from them. Even if they may be ignorant questions. And being honest and saying, “I know you’re probably wondering, here I am walking in with this cane. You’re probably wondering, can this person do this job?”

And you can say, “That’s a legitimate question to have. You’re also probably wondering, how did I get dressed today? How did I make my breakfast? How did I get here? These are all legitimate questions.” And it’s almost like an opportunity for you to educate the person across the table about how you have learned manage your practical life, and also how this has prepared you to do this job, and how you have researched the basic responsibilities of this job, and what you’ve done in the past to mange that job, or how you plan to manage that job in the future.



Talking about any potential accommodations that you might need on the job, being able to openly and honestly talk about it in a very businesslike and in a professional manner, but also remembering to focus on the skill set, throwing in any accomplishments you’ve made along the way while you’re talking about how you’ve managed to do it as someone who is blind or visually impaired.

So having that honest dialogue, and that honest conversation, and allowing the employer to ask questions in a very open environment can be a way of offsetting that awkwardness right away, because there’s really a white elephant, or we could say a white cane, in the room, and we really need to address it. You can’t pretend. You can’t hide, and so by being upfront, that’s really the best sort of approach to take.

Now again the variable that’s in this room is that we have no idea how the person across the table is going to respond. You might have some people who are going to be incredibly open and want to have this dialogue and be very open-minded about bringing someone in who is visually impaired.

And also let’s face it, there are going to be people who right away are going to make up their mind and



say, “I don’t want to work with someone who’s visually impaired,” and already they’re going to try to find a way to get you out the door. In all honesty the question is, do you want to work for someone with that particular mindset where it may be a challenge? And this is very tough. This is a very difficult part of the interviewing process.

This is what makes interviewing for someone who is blind or visually impaired or who has any visible disability very difficult, because there are stigmas attached to vision loss from the mainstream world that we have to try to offset through the demonstration of our strong mobility skills, our strong ADL skills, by not letting it phase us, and being comfortable in our skin as someone with a disability, as someone who is visually impaired, because that comfort is going to translate as confidence in the interviewing room, and that’s going to speak volumes to the employer that’s incredibly open-minded.

And that often is what sort of transcends the threshold for someone who can do that persuasive process in the interview. So I hope that answers the question. Any other questions?

[Vally Nelson]



Lauri, this is Vally Nelson. I’m studying to be a preacher, and preaching is a job because it’s a job for the lord. Now I’m in the Internet Biblical Seminaries. It’s a partner with the Force of Light Ministries. I have a physical disability as well as a mental illness. You go to pastor a church now, I don’t know how you feel, but some churches say, “If you’re serving God the way you should, you shouldn’t have a mental illness.” I don’t know, because, what should I do if once I become a pastor, because some churches. I know in scripture it says you’re not supposed to be a pastor unless you’re married, or something, but I know some pastors who are single.

Lauri DishmanWell, Vally, that’s a really good question. It sounds like it’s a matter of your values versus the church’s values. It sounds like you have a very strong faith and a very strong belief in God, is to really tap into God, and to really think about what it means to you in terms of being a pastor, and what it means to you in terms of the message you want to convey, and how you want to deliver God’s message to your parishioners.

And so with that, in my opinion, and granted this is just my opinion, you know who you are and you know what you believe in, and sticking to that belief is



incredibly important, and finding a church that’s a good fit for you is going to be part of that, a church that has similar beliefs and a degree of faith that has similar beliefs and similar values as you, and is open to having you as part of their family.

I have a feeling that if you are in a situation where there’s resistance, or there may be a feeling that you may not meet the criteria in your value system, that it could really be a challenge for you. That may take a lot of prayer on your part, but it’s also going to take a lot of honesty in terms of where you want to do your work, because I think that’s going to make a big difference.

Any other questions?

Larry MuffetI’m going to feed you one more question, Lauri. Then we’ll get back over to you to get started again, but Suzanne had an excellent question speaking in the whole round of disclosure. She said, “We work with employees with disabilities, and some of them also have criminal backgrounds, so what are any tips or any feelings about disclosing that kind of information to employers?”

Lauri Dishman



The idea of disclosing the criminal background in a similar way as disclosing the disability, but also recognizing that it’s a mistake that someone made in their life. That’s the criminal background part of it, and because if they do a criminal background check they’re going to find it. So I think it’s better to find it from the person talking about it, talking about what happened, but most importantly, what was learned as a result of it, and saying, this is what I’ve learned. This is what I’ve done to move forward beyond it. It was a mistake, and I recognize that in my life, and obviously what I’m just hoping for is a second chance to move on and move forward.

There also some tips in terms of where to potentially or how to get someone started back into the workforce, and that is, there are employers that are designated to be open to hiring people with a criminal background, but often what I suggest is to have these folks first work within a network of familiar people that know him or her, and their integrity, and their work ethic, and to see if that maybe they can get a job through their immediate network to build that sense of trust, to build a work history again. It may even require doing things like starting a lawnmower business, mowing lawns or raking leaves of shoveling snow, doing odd jobs, being able to at least get some kind of work history under that



person’s belt, so they can start to develop a sort of longevity within their workplace. Then with experience, they’re able to go into an employer with a list of accomplishments and achievements through the jobs that they’ve had and hopefully to move up in that way.

But yes, criminal background is tough, because chances are that if a criminal background check is made, that is going to show up on the background check. If someone can get it expunged or get it expelled or whatnot, fantastic, you may not even need to mention it, but there’s always a chance that it still shows up, and just sort of being honest about it is I think a good suggestion, so obviously I can address that further a little bit.

But moving on. We talked a little bit about what are some of the reasons that people get fired. So now what I wanted to talk about is, now that we know some of the fears are and some of the reasons that people get fired, the thing is, how does this apply to the interviewing process? What going on in an interview to try to offset some of these fears that employers have?

For one thing, filling out a job application online is one way that an employer sort of starts to what they call



“standardize the process.” This means that they can, by having the candidates fill out the same exact application, an employer can now look at an application and compare apples to apples, and so what this is going to do is it’s going to bring out those gaps in the employment. It may also test your computer skills because there are many employers now that are putting their applications online, which is a great thing for people that are visually impaired, especially if you have great computer skills.

However, it does test your ability to get through it quickly and accurately. If you can fill out that application form quickly and accurately, it will be reflected, because many employers are now starting to time the process. You may only have 45 minutes to do the entire process, and if you can’t get through the entire application within this 45 minute period, they’re going to see this person can’t do it fast enough.

So they will time you, and they are going to see whether or not you have the skills, especially if computer is a very big part of those skills, they’re going to test you, and they’re going to try to make sure you’re capable of filling out a simple form, because let’s face it, if you’re doing a customer service job, data entry, these are all positions that



many people who are visually impaired seek out. If you can’t fill out the application online, that’s going to show up right away. And again that’s the fear, Can you do the job? Do you have the skill set? So that’s one way of offsetting that question.

They’re going to review your resume and cover letter obviously, during the process, and employers are going to look for gaps. They’re also going to look for poor writing and presentation. How well you represent your skills. How well you represent your accomplishments. The one thing about resumes that is the biggest pet peeve for employers is when the information, the skills, the jobs that are reflected on the resume, do not at all reflect the job that the person is applying for.

So for example, if someone was a truck driver, and all of a sudden they’re applying for an accounting position, the question is what is going on? Is this a mistake? Why is this person trying to pull themselves off as an accountant when they were a truck driver? I mean that’s an extreme example, but many people do that. Many people think that if they send it off, if they see my experience, even though it has nothing to do with the job, the employer’s going to pick on that right away.



So making sure that when you’re writing out a resume, the skills and qualifications that you choose, even though the job may itself not be related, if you can pick out the skills and the tasks that you did on the job, the accomplishments that you made, as closely as they can relate to the job that you’re applying for, those are the responsibilities that you want to list on your resume and in your cover letter. Again, trying to relate the resume as closely as you can to the job, so again, they’re going to see, if you’re trying to apply for something that is not related, that’s going to immediately sort of take you out of the running, so again your resume and your cover letter.

Now the interview. The interview is probably the biggest place where employers are going to essentially grill a candidate for some of the reasons why we just listed, to find out about their social skills, to get a sense of their professionalism, to find out is this person going to show up? Are they going to be reliable? If you show up 15 minutes late to the interview, is this going to be a reflection on what this person is going to be like when they come to work every day? Am I going to expect this person to be here 15 minutes late?

These are all cues. These are all clues that interviewers and hiring managers are going to be



looking for as they are assessing each candidate. That first impression that we talked about: How well is this person dressed? If you are someone who, for example, uses a cane or has a guide dog, how well are you managing your guide dog? How clean does your guide dog look? How well-behaved is your guide dog?

How confident do you look using your cane? If you have great mobility skills and you’re walking down the hallway like you’re as confident and you know what you’re doing, that’s going to speak volumes to an employer despite the vision loss. So the interview is the big part or the big place where all of these fears are going to be tested.

The same things go for the kind of questions that you’re going to be asked during the interview. So for example, they’re going to be asking you behavioral interview questions, and these are questions that are going to ask you to tap into your past experience and to talk about, for example, the scenario questions. Can you give me an example of a time when you were working with a customer and it didn’t go so well? Can you give me that specific example and what happened and what did you do as a result? They’re going to want you to come up with a specific example of that.



They’re going to ask you for examples of positive experiences as well as negative experiences, because the more that they can tap into your past, the more they can sort of put you on the spot to sort of force you to answer these questions. They’re going to see how you’re going to work under pressure. They’re going to see how you’ve handled yourself in these situations, so practicing your interview skills is incredibly important, and also facing the demons that you’ve have in your work history.

We all have skeletons in our professional closets and we need come to terms with that and to face that and to be okay with that, and also be open to talking about it in a way that says, yes, I made a mistake, but I also learned from that mistake, and this is what I’ve learned as a result of it. So that’s going to show integrity in you as a character, and integrity is incredibly important for being on the job, because being able to admit when you make a mistake, is going to speak volumes than trying to hide it.

This is all that stuff that’s going to try to come out during the interview, where the employer is going to try to allay their fears with the candidates that they’re bringing into the room, so being well-prepared for a job interview is incredibly important.



Another thing that employers do during the job search process is, they might give you a test, to see whether or not you have the knowledge. For example, many office jobs will give you a test in Microsoft Office. They may test your grammar. They may test your spelling, which is why you need to bone up through your Hadley courses, because Hadley does offer courses in all of these things to help you get back into the swing of being able to perform well on the job.

So obviously if you don’t do well on these given tests, they may not consider you for the position. They may think, well, there’s someone else who scored much higher. Why should I hire this person for the position? Even though you may have aced the interview, you came across well, if they’re worried that they’re going to have to continuously correct your work, that may be an issue.

Another thing is that employers may have you actually perform the job before they actually hire you. Before I became a mental health counselor, I was a broadcaster, so any job that I was vying for, I had to audition for that job. I actually had to do an on-air shift before I was even considered for a position. So I had to get up at 6:00 in the morning and do a four hour on air shift to see whether or not I was going to



cut the mustard in their opinion. So having you perform the job prior to being hired for the job is often very, very common, so these are just some things that you might expect in the interview to try to help an employer offset their fears about who they’re going to be bringing into their place of employment.

This is another article that I’ve found, and this is kind of what I’ll wrap it up with, and then we’ll sort of follow up with any additional questions, but this is written by a woman named Heather Huhman. She’s from a company called Glass Door, which is becoming a very hot website for job search and for job information. Its glassdoor.com, but she wrote an article called, “Things Hiring Managers Don’t Want in a Candidate,” and this is just sort of something to walk away with.

Number one is lack of energy, that they’re not clearly enthusiastic about the company or the position. If you really aren’t enthusiastic and you’re just simply showing up for the interview because you need a job, that’s going to show up. That’s going to come through in your attitude in the interview, so lack of energy is one thing that the hiring manager is going to be looking for.

Another thing is inability to use free time. If they see that you have no additional interests or basically all



you’re thinking of is just working and being a workaholic, that kind of throws people off. Like, does this person have a life? Does this person have more well-roundedness than their work identity? Is there more to their identity than that, because that can reflect in how you work with clients or how you deal with customers. Being able to draw up small talk and conversation has to do with our life experiences, so having good life experiences is also an important as part of the job.

The next thing is procrastination, not seeing someone’s work to completion. Maybe starting a whole bunch of different things but not bringing them to completion. Seeing that someone has this sort of ADD tendency may be a turnoff to an employer. Another thing is unpreparedness, and not having a working knowledge perhaps of the company or the position that you’re vying for or you’re applying for. If you walk into an interview or you come into a workplace setting without the desire to become prepared, that’s more work on an employer’s part, and it can be a turnoff in a candidate.

Also, a shaky online presence. If you write sloppy e-mails with lots of misspellings, and lots of grammatical errors. The same thing with perhaps your social media or on your LinkedIn account. If there are



several mistake in your online profile, that’s all going to be reflected when they start to review you as a candidate, and so therefore may think you may not care enough about the position or your career to really want to　pursue that, so really looking into how to have a good presence, how to brand yourself, how to market yourself to employers, is all also an important part of the package.

So that concludes my presentation, and again it looks like we have about 9 minute left, so I will open the floor to questions if there are any.

Larry MuffetThanks, Lauri. We’re a little bit soft on the ending point, so we don’t have to end up exactly at 9 minutes. We have a little extra time here if we have some really good questions going, we can carry this over a little bit, but a couple of things I want to throw out to you to discuss. One of the classic interview questions that gets asked is that the person interviewing you will ask you to talk about your strengths and weaknesses, so I’d like you to comment on that one because I know that can be a trap for a lot of people.

And could you talk about the whole idea of after the interview sending a thank-you note. I know certain



times that I’ve been involved in the hiring process, and somebody sends a thank-you note, it can be the difference if you’re trying to decide between two people and one person sent a thank you note and one person didn’t, it can be the tiebreaker, so a couple things if you can talk about those.Lauri DishmanAbsolutely. Those are all very important things to look at. First of all let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses question. The strengths is always obviously easy. You can talk about your strengths, but always remember that in an interview, when you are talking about any element, when you are being asked about yourself, accountability is a very important word when it comes to an interview, meaning that if you’re going to make a statement like, “I’m incredibly organized,” you need to back that up with a specific example.

For example, in my job in radio broadcasting, I reorganized a music library of 40,000 record albums, and I classified them in certain categories, put them into what they call Schwann catalog order, and ensured that everything was in a particular order. So by backing up your statement with a specific example of what you did, when you’re talking about your strengths, is going to be very important.



The same thing when you’re talking about your weaknesses. Now, they don’t want to hear something like, “Oh, I tend to be a workaholic and I work so much.” That isn’t what an employer wants to hear. A lot of people say, “Oh, take a negative and turn it into a positive.” An employer’s going to know when you’re trying to do that. They really want you to pick an example in your past of something that you know has been a challenge for you, but what you’ve been doing to work on that particular challenge.

So for example for me, as a mental health counselor, one of the challenges for me is managing my paperwork, is making sure I have all my documentation organized, and that I have completed all my case notes, and it’s often the most challenging part of a mental health professional’s job is making sure you’re up to date on that.

And so what I’ve done to try to offset the challenge of that is to create it in a system, where I’ve created some actual premade forms for the intake process so I’m capturing all the right information, that I’m also leaving an extra 5 minutes at the end of my sessions to do the case notes so that I get it done right away. And so to talk about what I’ve done to offset my weakness in that particular instance is important. So again, looking at your weaknesses and being realistic



about them and also talking about how you’ve worked on them is one thing.

And the second question having to do with the thank you note, yes, absolutely it is essential to acknowledge the interviewer right way, to e-mail them and to just say thank you so much, but also to add an element, add a nugget in your thank-you note about something that stood out in your conversation.

For example, I did an interview for my very first broadcasting job in Minnesota．We talked about Chicago. There’s a restaurant down by where I live called the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder. If you ever come to Chicago, you should try it, and he and I were talking about it but we couldn’t remember the name of it. And so when I got back, and wrote my cover letter expressing my thanks and how much I know I can do the position, I also slipped in that, “Oh by the way, that restaurant is called the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder. Here’s the address if you’re ever in Chicago.”

And I think that was something that stood out to that gentleman, and it was always something that we laughed about when we saw each other, and it was a way for him to remember who I was. So it could be something innocuous as that, and it could also be



something about a project that you worked on through a mutual company, or you knew a mutual friend, or some kind of connection. Somehow including that in your thank you note is a great way for that hiring manager to remember who you are. So hopefully that helps.

Larry MuffetWe’ve got a couple of questions sort of related to each other, the whole idea of social networking. Should people be getting involved with LinkedIn? Should people be careful what they put on Facebook? So could you talk about the whole idea of social networking in the hiring process?

Lauri DishmanI would love to. I’m a huge proponent of LinkedIn, because I have been reading increasingly that employers are using LinkedIn as a screening tool to hire employees. In fact, I was reading an article yesterday about even how recruiters, their jobs are slowly becoming eliminated because employers can basically just go on to a LinkedIn profile and get very similar information as a recruiter would basically assess or take in during that initial interviewing process.



So a good, strong LinkedIn profile demonstrating accomplishments, and also trying to get as many endorsements through LinkedIn, through your connections as possible, is incredibly important. So having a very well put together package on LinkedIn is going to be incredibly important for you. So I talked about branding yourself. Like Oprah is a brand. People who when you think of that person, you think of what that person has to offer. They’re sort of an intuitive thought about an individual and their brand.

Same thing with Martha Stewart. She has this sort of brand, and thinking about what is your unique brand, what is it that you bring to the table? I mean no, we’re not all Oprah and Martha, but we all have something we can talk about as a unique strength and a unique asset, that we can sort of thread through our LinkedIn profile, so that is incredibly important.

Having a very strong LinkedIn profile is good, as is being careful about Facebook. I have heard about some employers who in the interviewing process say, “Okay, I want you to log into your LinkedIn and I want you to log into your Facebook, because they want to look at your profiles. That has been a common practice, though there has been a movement within Human Resources and just within hiring practices in



general, to get away from that, talking about it in an ethical perspective.

But people can still find you through Facebook, so if you’re posting pictures of you chugging a beer bong, that is not necessarily going to be a good reflection. The same thing with political views and so forth. If a company is incredibly liberal, and yet you’re posting things that are incredibly conservative or vice versa, things bashing politicians or bashing public figures, that might not reflect so well. So if you are actively job searching, you might want to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because that could really be detrimental.

In the teaching position that I have, I heard about an incident where a student was posting things defaming a teacher and defaming other students in the school, and the school got wind of that, and basically brought that student into a disciplinary process. So it can bite you, so just be very careful about what you put on social media.

Larry MuffetMiley’s got an excellent question. She said, “If a job offer is made, what’s the best way to ask about a company’s policy on making accommodations?”



Lauri DishmanWell, obviously through the Americans with Disabilities Act, if the company has greater than 15 employees, then they fall under the ADA, so with that, what’s often suggested is once a job offer is made, to write an accommodation letter. And that accommodation letter basically is a thank you letter for, I’m very excited about the opportunity to work for XYZ company in this capacity. As we have discussed in previous interviewing situations, I am a client with a disability, and these are the accommodations that I am requesting.

And again, your homework and your research is incredibly vital in order for you to know exactly what accommodations you will need, so stating that in your accommodation letter so that it is in writing, is incredibly important. And so you send that letter to HR, and then the company does have to provide you with a reasonable accommodation, so in a way it’s a negotiation process.

So　you may say request JAWS on your computer. So they may come back and say, “We can’t do JAWS, but we’ve heard about NVDA, which is a free software that can be downloaded. Perhaps we can work with you that way?” So it is a negotiation process. It is going to be about prices and about cost, but putting it



in an accommodation letter, and once you reach an agreement in terms of what the accommodations are going to be, then you write a follow up thank you to say, thank you very much, I’m very excited, and again these are the things that we’ve agreed upon.

You sign it, and send it registered mail so that you have documentation of receipt of the letter, and then therefore it’s in your file. It’s in writing, and it’s sort of a contract between you and the company, and therefore it removes any ambiguity if everything is done in writing, so hopefully that helps.

Larry MuffetWe have time for about one more question, so I’m going to turn the microphone loose here. If anyone has a question, this is a great opportunity to get it in. We have a real expert in the field here, so let’s take advantage of it.

CallerLauri, I heard you say that you should send it registered mail. I’m just wonder if for expedience, like if they say can you start in a week, if it would be okay to e-mail that accommodations letter?

Lauri Dishman



I would say yes, that it would be okay, and in fact many e-mail carriers or if you have a feature where you can record or it will send you a message to say when that message was opened on the other end. So let’s say you send a message to Jane Smith in HR. As soon as Jane Smith opens that e-mail, you receive a message saying, “This message was opened by so and so.” And most e-mail services as far as I know do have a feature like that, so if you can utilize that and capitalize on that, that can substitute for the registered mail, because you have again that documented date stamp that showed when the letter was opened and received.

Larry MuffetI was going to try to wrap this up, but Jay just sent a really excellent question and I think we should use this as the wrap up for today. If you’re totally blind, how do you find out about a company’s culture? For example, the dress code?

Lauri DishmanJay, that’s a really good question. Especially with the dress code, it is tough. Even if you can’t see fashion or you can’t see styles, one think you can do is you can go into a department store that has a career section for both men and women, and just simply talk to a sales representative or a salesperson there to



have you feel fabrics, to talk about the styles, to talk about what is sort of in in terms of career apparel, and that’s going to give you an idea of what is sort of hot.

Another thing to do is to talk to a career counselor, because a career counselor is very knowledgeable about dress codes within certain industries, and it varies. It really does. For example, my husband is a computer animator. He’s an artist, and he works in basically a garage. It’s a studio that looks like an old garage, and he goes to work in jeans and a t-shirt, and if he were to show up to a job interview in a suit it would be incredibly awkward.

So usually what’s the norm in his industry is to show up in some decent khaki pants and maybe a button-down shirt, and that’s it. Sometimes even un-tucked, looking kind of artsy and so forth, so really understanding the industry that you’re interviewing for is also going to be important, and so a career counselor is sort of tapped into that and can give you some advice on what to wear based on your interview, but for the most part a good suit, a good tie, conservative pants if you’re going into the corporate world or the nonprofit world, is often a safe bet, but definitely talking to a career counselor can help.

Larry Muffet



Wow, this is some fascinating and really worthwhile information, and it’s really great to get this sort of information from someone who really has their finger on the pulse of the employer network right now, so Lauri I really want to thank you. I want to let everyone know that this seminar like all Hadley seminars will be archived on our website and available for your use any time around the clock. Also, each Hadley seminar is now made available as a podcast which you can download to your computer or mobile device.

If this seminar has you interested in hearing more about this issue or related issues, please check out the Hadley website, the seminar archives, and the Hadley website. Lauri and I thank you for your participation. Your questions were outstanding, and we really feel that it added a lot to the value of the seminar. Hadley values your feedback. Please let us know what you thought about today’s seminar and please give us suggestions for future topics. One way you can do that is by dropping us an e-mail to [email protected]. Another way to share is by completing a short on screen service I will post as we conclude today. I’m going to hand the microphone over to Lauri for some brief closing comments. Lauri.

Lauri Dishman


mailto:[email protected]


Well, thank you so much Larry. This was a really great experience. This was only the second time I’ve done a webinar and it was great, especially having such an enthusiastic audience asking some really insightful and really important questions. Thank you also to you guys for making this a really great program. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Larry MuffetAnd thank you so much for doing it for us. I certainly hope that those of you who had a chance to attend today will tell your friends and coworkers and have them listen to this, go through the archives or download it as a podcast, because there’s some great information on here. Please take the opportunity to give us some feedback. It’s greatly welcome, and I want to thank everyone for participating today and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all.


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