Finding Disability Employment Sources Online, A Few Tips in 2020
Setting out and trying to integrate yourself into the American workforce is a daunting task, doubly so for someone looking for disability employment.
Not only do you have to manage whatever is already going on with your life, but you have to do so while incorporating a pursuit that will most likely take up a considerable amount of time out of your daily routine: job hunting.
Finding a job – any job – rarely happens overnight. It is a process that will most likely require you to develop patience, resilience, and resolve. However, it is a worthwhile endeavor that can quickly help you establish healthy patterns and be more productive in your life.
That being said, finding the right spots online where you should focus your job seeking efforts can be tricky. Especially when we talk about disability employment since it is easy to continually stumble upon sites focusing on the unemployment rate problematic and less-than-encouraging statistics that do little to help improve the situation.
So, to address both issues, I’d like to first echo a couple of disability employment-related statistics that actually showcase a different outlook on the situation, which I think both, job seekers and employers, should be aware of.
Then, we’ll go over a couple of resources and organizations that focus mainly on assisting people with disabilities to get into the job market.
Facts and Statistics about disability employment in the U.S.
•Low cost and high returns in job accommodations: Back in 2003 we already saw studies that these costs tended to be extremely low, but even as recently as 2017, the JAN released studies revealing that not only job accommodations for disabled individuals remain at very low costs, but they positively impact the workplace environment in many ways.
•Better retention rates: Several studies have addressed the fact that companies report that employees with disabilities have better retention rates, which reduces the high cost of turnovers. One particular survey showed that the retention rate of employees with disabilities is as high as 85%
•The rate of success in self-employment is higher: People with disabilities tend to have higher rate self-employment and small business experience that people without them.
While the disabled community does deal with the fact that they face higher unemployment rates, it is also important to keep in mind that many are successfully employed and fully integrated into the workforce, which is the ultimate objective of those looking for disability employment.
There are plenty of avenues and organizations you can and should explore to achieve this, but in case you are having trouble knowing where to start, here are a few sources you should look into.
Resources to find disability employment online
Students and the recently graduated
Several great programs are explicitly focused on placing students and recent graduates with disabilities in career-appropriate jobs both in the public and private sectors.
Two of those such programs are the Workforce Recruitment Program and The Pathways program. The former is co-sponsored by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Department of Defense and focuses on connecting postsecondary students and recent graduates with disabilities to positions in the Federal government. The latter provides paths for students and recent graduates, including those with disabilities, to internships and careers.
Disability employment-focused job markets online
As the public awareness on the disability employment issue increases, more and more sites, both big and small, catering specifically to the vast pool of talent represented by people with disabilities looking to integrate themselves into the U.S. workforce.
Sites like disABLEDperson.command Ability Jobs are making huge strides in providing an exclusive market where job seekers and employers alike can meet and contribute in the efforts of bringing jobs offers geared for people with disabilities to those with the skills to fulfill them.
Governmental Resources
Most federal agencies have a selective placement program coordinator and or a program manager for employment of adults with disabilities, whose sole job is to help recruit, hire and accommodate people with disabilities into that agency.
Here’s a great tool to help you find a selective placement contact coordinator, you can narrow your search by state and agency, and you can also find a lot of useful links and resources in the government’s disability resources page that will help make your job hunt more manageable.
All in all, finding a job can be difficult and discouraging at times, but you should always keep in mind that there are thousands of useful resources online, with many more popping out every day, specifically geared to make your search a lot easier.
The most important aspect of any job search is to keep focused and motivated, the right job for you is out there! It’s just a matter of time before you find it.