Awesome Jobs For Disabled Person

Today, all over the USA, people with disabilities can enjoy the same employment opportunities as the non-disabled. Over the years, legislative efforts have ensured reasonable accommodations in the workplace. And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to jobs for disabled person in the modern world.

People with physical and psychiatric conditions are succeeding in careers previously thought unattainable. Conditions like blindness or autism are no longer limitations to personal and professional success. And with a little imagination, no condition stands between you and a rewarding occupation.

Every year, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities decreases. Workplaces become increasingly inclusive and digitized as society begins to realize the amazing potential of disabled people. Jobs for the disabled person are now expanding across multiple industries. The digital and technological advances of this era have opened many doors as well.

But things haven't always been so easy. Throughout history, the difficulties faced by disabled people adapting to workplaces were endless. The overtly physical nature of most labor, social stigma surrounding disability and lack of information and resources definitely didn’t help. Yet many were too determined to let their disabilities stand in the way to their dreams. Such individuals provide inspiration with their trailblazing courage.

Disabilities don't mean a lack of competence, and there are many ways in which a disabled person can shine. Across history, both ancient and recent, many noteworthy men and women have set such examples. Their contributions to their fields are significant, but their most significant legacy is as role models. Abandon your preconceptions regarding jobs for disabled people, and let yourself dream big.

Astrophysicist: Stephen Hawking

One of the most renowned theoretical physicists, he had a notorious career spanning over 40 years. A prolific author, Hawking wrote over 200 books and publications. His public appearances turned him into a veritable celebrity as well. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. And that was only one of his many awards and achievements. He was severely disabled by a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was diagnosed with motor neuron disease when he was 21. Doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years, but he proved them wrong, and then some!

Composer & Musician: Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven is known as one of the greatest composers in history. He gave his first performance as a pianist at the age of 8. He studied in Vienna under the guidance of Mozart. By his mid-twenties, he was considered a virtuoso because of his brilliant improvisational skills. At the age of 26, Beethoven started losing his hearing. Despite his progressive disability, he created some of the greatest works in the history of music. Among them is the 9th Symphony, the 5th Piano Concerto, and countless classical masterpieces.

Athlete - Marla Runyan

Marla Runyan is a 3-times national champion in the women’s 5000 meters. She is also a 5-times gold medalist in the Paralympics. In the year 2000, Marla became the first legally blind Paralympian to compete in the Olympic Games. She also holds many records such as 20000 Road (2003), All-Female Marathon (2002), and the Heptathlon (1996). At the age of 9, Runyan was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a form of macular degeneration. But she's always been able to see her goals through.

Mathematician - John Nash

John Nash was an American Mathematician and Nobel Laureate. His work spans many branches of mathematics and is widely thought of as revolutionary. He advanced differential geometry, game theory, and partial differential equations, among other topics.

From a young age, he performed scientific experiments in his room, pursuing his deep passion for understanding the hidden patterns of nature. He studied Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Mathematics at the Carnegie Mellon University. In 1959, Nash started showing severe signs of paranoia.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after being involuntarily admitted to a hospital. Following treatment, he checked himself into a facility and received electroshock therapy for nine years. He gradually started recovering during the following decades. His work earned him awards and recognition such as the John von Neumann Theory Prize (1978) and the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (1994), a testament to what can be accomplished by people with even the most debilitating disabilities.

So, next time you start thinking of jobs for disabled person, take a minute to think outside the box. Focus less on what you can’t do, and more on what you’re truly good at. When you’re doing something you really shine at, you’ll find the world seems to accommodate to your needs. Not to mention the rewarding feeling of knowing you’re doing something you’re great at.

5 Work at Home Jobs for Disabled Persons

For many people living with a disability, it is difficult to commute or even work for extended periods of time. But this doesn’t mean that they can’t have a productive work life. In that case, there are many jobs for disabled persons that can be carried out at home. These jobs are ideal for those who have chronic conditions that require special environments or for those who have physical limitations that make it difficult for them to fulfill their responsibilities in a traditional workspace.

Below, we present a list of 5 jobs that people with different disabilities can do at their own pace without the need to leave their home.

1.Online business owner

There are different ways to go about becoming an online business owner. The most common one is selling products on platforms such as eBay, Etsy, or Amazon.

Another way is to set up an e-commerce website and sell products from there, or if you have a specialized skill or knowledge sell your consultant services through a website.

Another way to make use of the internet to make a living is through affiliate marketing.

These types of dentures require that you market your products or yourself in order to be successful, which will take a lot of time and effort in the beginning. The advantage of this is that you can do it at your own pace.

However, it takes time to start earning money, and income won’t always be steady as sales and services purchasing tend to vary seasonally.

2.Virtual assistant

Virtual assistant jobs differ in the type and amount of responsibilities required from the person, and it can be done on a freelance basis or under an employment contract. Responsibilities for virtual assistant positions vary from simply replying to emails, to administrative and bookkeeping duties. Some other common responsibilities include:

• ü  Online research
• ü  Data entry
• ü  Making presentations
• ü  Email managing
• ü  Social media management

3.Freelance professional (writer, editor, designer, programmer)

If you are a creative person and/or have specialized or technical knowledge in design or coding, you can offer your services on freelance platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, Textbroker, Scalable Path and others.

4.Translator/ Over-the-phone Interpreter

If you have advanced knowledge of a second or third language, you can become a translator or an over-the-phone interpreter. There are platforms specialized in connecting translation/interpretation professionals with clients, but there are also many translation agencies that hire the services of remote translators and over-the-phone interpreter. Bear in mind that to be a successful translator you need to have excellent writing and reading command of the other language or languages you are looking to offering your services on and in some cases companies seek for certified translators/interpreters.

5.Transcriber

This job consists of listening to audio or video files and copying what is being said following specific guidelines. To become a transcriber, you need to sign up in one of the many pages that offer transcribing jobs, pass the tests they require and voila! You are ready to start making money.

The downside of transcription jobs is that it is not a steady income as most of these companies do not guarantee that there will always be work available. So maybe you want to consider this option as a way to make some extra cash, instead of as a potential full-time job. Some of the more popular transcription jobs sites for beginners are TranscribeMe, Scribe, and Rev.

Nowadays many companies are hiring virtual employees worldwide. Among these, we can mention Amazon, Apple, Humana, Phillips, Xerox, and others.

If you don’t feel comfortable working on your own, and prefer the sense of security provided by full-time or part-time employment, there are many companies hiring work-at-home employees that might have an opening that suits your skills set and knowledge.

The most important thing is to define what type of work you are able to carry out from home without compromising your health and well-being, and how you want to develop your professional life.

If you want to get more information, contact us.

4 Tips on Landing Jobs for Disabled Adults

Finding and getting a job can be hard for anyone. Add to that the fact that you are a person living with a disability and it becomes outright daunting. Even after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, advocate organizations such as the National Organization on Disability, have been collecting data and their research shows that, unfortunately, the unemployment gap has not substantially improved since the 1980’s when they started measuring. And this is not because they cannot perform well due to their disability or because there aren’t any available jobs for disabled adults.

The good news is that the laws are in your favor, and companies cannot discriminate against a disabled person who has all the qualifications to do a job. What’s more, the most recent legislation requires companies related to the federal government to aim to have at least 7% of their staff be made up of employees with disabilities.

So we are here to give you some encouragement and a few tips on how to get jobs for disabled adults and some approaches to handling the interview.

1. Identify the right Industry and field for you

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” This phrase has been attributed to different prominent people, but it is constantly repeated for a reason, and it is no less true when we talk about jobs for disabled adults. There is nothing more encouraging than working for something you are interested in. If you match your work with something that you are deeply interested in, this will give you the motivation to be perseverant, improve, and carry out your job with gusto.

2.Have clear goals

Without a specific objective, people tend to take any role that they can get and this reflects in their interview. Potential employers want to hire people who are excited and genuinely enthused about the position they are applying for.

If you are having trouble choosing a specific field, you can focus on a particular skill you would like to hone, or something you are interested in learning more about. Having clear goals shows a potential employer that you are serious about finding and sticking to a particular market need and making a contribution.

3.Market yourself

How do you decide between brands of cereal when you go to a supermarket? Easy. Marketing! Those products with the best marketing campaigns cause the best impression on buyers. The same thing applies to interviewees for a job. It might sound a bit strange, but truth be told, if you can’t sell yourself to your interviewer, chances are they will choose someone who can. There are several ways to do this. For example, you can learn all you can about the company, its culture, the type of employees they want and then highlight your skills and experience in a way that matches what you learned.

I, for one hand, am not very good at job interviews, but I love designing and as a content writer, creativity is a crucial point, so I created my CV in a way that catches the eye. How? Well, for starters, it has a purple background instead of a white, grey, or beige one. This alone makes me stand out from the rest, and it also serves as an icebreaker for the interview. This works for me, but what works for you or your potential employers might be slightly different. The key is to make yourself and your skills set you apart from the rest.

4. Offer only the necessary information.

Talking in-depth about your disability and what it entails is not necessary during the interview, and the interviewer is not legally allowed to ask. So instead, focus on what you can do for the company. Unfortunately, people tend to make assumptions, but you can shift that to your favor by revealing only the most necessary information and turning the attention to your strengths.

We hope you find these tips for getting jobs for disabled adults useful. And remember, the first thing you need to do is start. Start looking for a job that is right for you and that lets you develop professionally and personally, so you can live a fuller life.

Finding Disability Employment Sources Online, A Few Tips

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.

Debunking Some Lies and Misconceptions Regarding Jobs for Individuals with Disabilities

There’s a huge disparity when it comes to unemployment statistics for disabled people.

In 2016, a study conducted by the Current Population Survey (CPS), sponsored by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability, that surveyed around 60,000 households, revealed that disability employment numbers sat around 17.9 percent while the employment-population ratio for people without disabilities was a 65.3 percent. What is even more troubling in my mind, was the fact that unemployment rate for disabled persons – 10.5 percent – had seen almost no change from previous years, while the rate for those without a disability had declined to 4.6 percent.

And even though this is a complicated subject matter where many factors come to play, I believe one of the main reasons for this issue resides in the public’s perception, and several critical misconceptions – or outright lies –about providing jobs for individuals with disabilities.

Hiring manager bias is a real problem which many minorities have to deal with on a daily basis. I believe that addressing this issue, as it relates to people with disabilities wanting to enter or reincorporate themselves into the workforce, is essential as part of the effort to solving the problem. What follows, are a few of the major misconceptions I’ve seen regarding this issue and the studies that prove them to be false.

“Hiring a disabled person costs a lot of money.”

This is just not true.

Thanks to an annual report by the JAN titled “Workplace Accommodations: Low Cost, High Impact” with data updates to only a few months back, we know that workplace accommodations are not only low costs but also positively impact the workplace in several ways.

Workplace accommodations refer to adjustments or modifications made to a job, work environment, or the way things are usually done at the place of work. Things that impact all employees positively and allow an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity not only to get the job but to successfully perform their tasks to the same extent as people without disabilities.

For some reason, there’s a common misconception in the putting such accommodations in place would cost a lot of money, which understandably steers many employers away from the idea. The JAN study shows us this is not the case.

The report revealed that more than half of the requested workplace accommodations cost absolutely nothing for the companies to implement. Some examples of what these accommodations usually entail include scheduling flexibility, allowances in dress code rules, the ability to sit (or remain standing up) when another positioning is customary.

And even when more encompassing additions were required, like making the existing facilities more accessible, acquiring or modifying equipment, and providing qualified readers or interpreters, had an average cost of only $500. Which is more than compensated by the value of lower employee turnover, which leads me to the next common misconception.

“Employees with disabilities are unreliable.”

This is another one I’ve heard and baffles me. Many a hiring manager thinks that having a person with a disability in the workplace might turn out to be a liability, in the sense of them needing to take time off often, not being on time. Etc.

Now, let’s take a look at this study by De Paul university titled “Exploring the bottom line: A Study of the Costs and Benefits of Workers with Disabilities.” It’s a fantastic read on the subject that tackles the most critical aspects of this issue, including the importance of disability employment agencies, the persistence of manager bias, and the actual costs and benefits of providing jobs for individuals with disabilities.

The findings speak for themselves.

Not only did participant companies noted a combination of low absenteeism rates and longer tenures, but they also described their employees with disabilities as loyal, reliable and hardworking. Furthermore, a comparison of job performance made with three levels of measurement (Exceeds expectations, meets expectations, needs improvement.) between employees with and without disabilities reveal nearly identical average ratings (2.30 and 2.31) respectively.

All these numbers start revealing an entirely different picture than what most of the public's perception usually is, however, there’s one more misapprehension I’d like to touch on before we go.

“I’m concerned about the effects on the workplace dynamics.”

This is another irrational insecurity I’ve seen impacting the disability employment statistics.

Many people wrongly think that having a disabled person in the workplace might prove to be too much of a distraction or increase the workloads of those working with them. Once more, when we take a look at the data, it becomes really easy to realize this is simply not the case.

The DePaul study found that diversification in the workplace is nothing but beneficial to a company and its workforce. It cites that diverse workplaces resulted in a more positive and productive working environment, as it improves productivity and morale.

There are many other benefits of providing jobs for individuals with disabilities, things like enjoying tax rebates and a larger pool of talented professionals to draw from, and I might cover those in a future post. But for now, it is vital that we hiring managers to begin to foster awareness of these common misconceptions and unfounded fears regarding this issue and start taking steps to make sure they aren’t affecting our hiring practices.

It is the only way to start solving the problem.