eSight Careers Network

• Career Services
• Job Search & Retention
• Writing an Effective Cover Letter
• The Nuts and Bolts of Preparing Your Resume
• For Employers
• Best Practices for Interviewing A Blind or Print Impaired Job Candidate
• Three Constructive Approaches to Disability Employment
• Small Business Resources
• Writing a Business Plan
• Accessible Record Keeping for Small Businesses

Home > Services & Assistance > Career Services > eSight Careers Network > Job Search & Retention > Addressing a Prospective Employers Concerns About Your Disability

Selling yourself to an employer during an interview usually requires turning your disability into a positive.  To achieve that requires preparation – asking yourself questions that a non-disabled job candidate never needs to consider:

1. How can I look at my disability as a strength instead of a weakness?
2. How do I describe that strength in a way meaningful to a prospective employer?
3. How can I get the whole disability issue out of the way early in the interview?

The good answers you develop should be short and sweet -- rolling off the tip of your tongue naturally – and, if you can manage it, should be dealt with early in an interview. That way, you can move on to describing your work skills so the interviewer can focus instead on what you can do for the employer, not vice versa.

Key to the “good answer” are reasons why your sight restrictions should not concern the prospective employer because, one, they further qualify you for a particular job, or two, overcoming them has helped you develop skills/knowledge that the employer needs – such as resourcefulness, planning skill or persistence.

Some examples of “good answers” that turn a presumed negative into positives:

From an online content editor:  “My visual impairment has become more of a help than a hindrance because I use computer screen magnification and screen reading software to proof text and can pinpoint little things in the text that my sighted supervisor misses.”

From a carpooling worker:  “I usually volunteer to keep track of weather and traffic reports so we can avoid delays in making site visits – also the rides’ costs. I do this with the screen reading software on my laptop and, in doing that, have learned a lot about team work and group problem-solving.”

From the manager of a communications department: “I talk with some difficulty, but this has not (limited my functioning) because I know how to delegate and recognize excellent performance, so I’ve developed strong teams and future leaders for my employers.”

Each of these “good answers” quickly turns a specific disability’s assumed negative into a positive, thus enabling a convenient  transition into a discussion of the advantages that hiring this job candidate will provide an employer.

Follow: Share: