Pursuing a Paycheque

By David Redmond and Alar Prost

(After decades of effort and a myriad of government-sponsored initiatives, people with disabilities are taking small steps toward the reality of employment and socio-economic integration. In this second instalment in a series of articles stemming from the Canadian Abilities Foundation’s landmark Neglected or Hidden study, David Redmond and Alar Prost look at how Canadians with disabilities are finding work.)


In the spring, the Canadian Abilities Foundation posted the findings of its nationwide Neglected or Hidden study on its website, www.enablelink.org. Some 1,250 Canadians with disabilities and over 100 employers and non-government organizations that provide employment-related services to job-seekers with disabilities had participated in the study. Neglected or Hidden found a major disconnect between employers, job seekers with disabilities and the service providers who help these individuals enter the workforce. All the same, people with disabilities are still finding jobs.

While future articles will look at how to overcome this divide, this instalment focuses on what people with disabilities can do and are doing today to find work.

People with disabilities face many well-known barriers to employment. While most Neglected or Hidden study respondents believe they have the skills that employers require, almost half think they lack enough practical work experience for successful employment. Some 57 per cent also agreed that the severity of their disability limits their work options (including almost three-quarters of those who rated their disability as severe).

Despite these difficulties, over half of the study’s respondents were employed, and their successful job search efforts may well serve others who are still looking for work. There is an important caveat to these findings: over one-quarter of all employed respondents worked part-time, and another 12 per cent were self-employed.

People who have been successful finding work have used many sources and methods to look for jobs, including personal contacts, community organizations, newspaper ads, employer job competitions, government employment centres, the Internet, contacts with employers and volunteering.

Although traditional sources of employment information such as personal contacts and newspaper advertisements still are very important, job-seekers with disabilities are turning more and more to the Internet for their information. Almost 10 times as many respondents now go online for job information than the number of employed respondents who found their job through the Internet.

Looking to the future, a large majority of survey respondents indicated that they are likely to use major Internet sites for job seekers when looking for a job. The same high percentage said they would use the websites of specific employers that include information on job opportunities. Over two-thirds of respondents would use Internet sites designed specifically for job seekers with disabilities.

The Internet has become an integral component of the labour market and an almost indispensable tool for the successful job seeker. Many employers, including most large organizations, are now using their websites to present employment opportunities and to recruit new workers. For the smart job seeker, a potential employer’s website can provide more than just information about job opportunities. These websites can provide information about the employer’s activities, its products, even its culture, all of which can be used to increase the chances of success in a job interview. Demonstrating a clear knowledge of the employer organization and where an applicant might fit in makes a favourable impression on an employer and can spell the difference between success and failure in a job competition.

Electronic job searching can be effective and even fun, and should certainly form an important dimension of today’s job search plan. Nevertheless, it is but one approach in a repertoire of strategies, and focusing on it alone is not in the job hunter’s best interest. With hundreds of web navigators, search engines and career sites, electronic job searching can be very time consuming – particularly for the novice Internet user. It is important to dedicate some time to learning about Internet job searches, how to load résumés onto various job banks and how to search job banks before beginning. And, most importantly, some of the more traditional and still effective job-hunting activities should not be allowed to fall by the wayside.

Personal contacts topped the list of ways respondents found their current job.
Many people with disabilities rely on personal contacts, which topped the list of ways that the study’s respondents found their current job. Almost one-quarter of employed respondents found their jobs through friends, family members and other personal contacts. Personal contacts matter even more to people with a significant disability, with almost one-third of these workers finding their job through a friend or family member. Developing and maintaining a network of contacts who are active in the employer community, and who are familiar with the job seeker’s qualifications, has clear advantages. This is reflected in the fact that over 80 per cent of the study’s respondents rated personal contacts as the most useful source for leads about possible jobs.

Community organizations play a crucial role as employment service providers to job seekers with disabilities. Over half of the study’s respondents indicated that a community organization providing employment services has helped them in some way to prepare for, find or keep a job. For people who are currently looking for a job, 45 per cent have had some assistance from a disability community organization – and almost three-quarters of these job seekers rated the help from these organizations and their employment counsellors as at least somewhat useful. Among respondents who are employed, 20 per cent found their job with the assistance of one or more of these organizations.

After personal contacts, community organizations are the second most frequent way employed respondents found their jobs. These organizations played a particularly important role for workers with a mild disability, one-third of whom found their current job with their help.

The employment counsellors who typically work for these community organizations play a very important role in the provision of employment services. As job coaches, job developers and support group facilitators, they provide a valuable bridge to practical work experience, employment and greater self-sufficiency.

While the Neglected or Hidden results confirm the important and positive role in the labour market played by disability community organizations, we also found some shortcomings in the employment-related services they provide. The most common weakness is a lack of contact with employers. Organizations offering employment services generally emphasize client preparation, working on such areas as interest testing, skills identification and upgrading, job-search techniques, résumé writing and job-lead identification.

In large part, limited employer contact is attributed to scarce resources, incomplete human resources capabilities within organizations and an inadequate understanding of the benefits of close working relationships with employers. Few organizations have taken the extra step of reaching out to employers and building relationships with them. Without this direct and ongoing contact, the organizations are left to speculate on employer human resources requirements and the type of candidate most likely to succeed in their employ.

Where these relationships have been established, community organizations have become very familiar with the employer’s needs, preferences and culture, and are able to present the most suitable candidates for employment consideration. In return, employers have developed greater confidence in the candidates recommended by the organization and look favourably on a long-term relationship with the organization.

As long as help wanted ads have appeared in newspapers, job seekers have turned to the press in their efforts to find a job. And, not surprisingly, the study’s respondents also turned to newspaper advertising in their search for work – with mixed results. Almost three-quarters of all respondents looked at newspaper advertising during their search for work, and a majority of these job seekers (63 per cent) found newspapers ads to be useful. Employment success through newspaper ads, however, has been limited. Only about one in 10 of those who are employed found their job through a newspaper ad.

Given that a large majority of jobs filled are never advertised, and competition for positions that are advertised can be extremely stiff, it is little wonder that few job seekers with disabilities actually found work through this medium. Speciality newsletters or journals targeting people with disabilities play an even smaller role in the labour market. Fewer than one in five respondents reported that they used ads in disability newsletters, and only a few employed respondents – just over one per cent – found their current job through ads in this more specialized medium.

Mainstream employment services also play a limited role for job seekers with disabilities. Although a majority of survey respondents used mainstream employment agencies to look for work, few found their services useful in actually landing a job. Only eight per cent of employed respondents found their current job through a posting at a government employment centre, while five per cent found their job through a personnel agency.

Often touted as an effective means for linking job seekers to jobs, job fairs targeting people with disabilities received a very low usefulness rating. Only one per cent of employed respondents found their job through a job fair.

While most job seekers’ handbooks stress the importance of identifying and contacting employers whose activities are generally in line with the job hunter’s skills, most respondents looking for work are not making direct contact with employers. Just over one-third of job seekers have made “cold calls” to employers during their search for work. And given their fairly low rate of success – just five per cent of all employed respondents actually found their job by making a cold call – reluctance to spend time contacting employers may seem understandable.

Yet most employers expect job candidates to come to them through their regular recruitment and hiring channels. Despite the goodwill of many employers interviewed for the study, they rarely make an effort to reach out to potential workers with disabilities. Indeed, few employers even know where to turn in the disability community to broaden their recruitment horizons and strategies.

Neglected or Hidden’s findings illustrate that community organizations that have built mutually beneficial relationships or that have established human resources-related partnerships with employers are also generating very positive employment outcomes for job seekers with disabilities. Employment counsellors understand employer needs and are better able to ensure a good fit between the job seeker and employer, while job developers continue to seek out new opportunities for collaboration.

In future instalments, we will look more specifically at how community organizations and employers can work together to increase employment among people with disabilities in ways that benefit all stakeholders involved.

(Alar Prost and David Redmond are Ottawa-based researchers and consultants who led the Neglected or Hidden study.)