[blindlaw] inaccessible employment qualification test

[Aaron Cannon]

Hi all.

I am rather frustrated, and I'm wondering if folks can offer any input
on a situation I am having.

I recently had a job interview that I feel went very well.  The
employer seemed reasonably impressed by my qualifications, and seemed
to have no issue with my blindness.  As part of the hiring process,
they asked me to take a PHP test (PHP is a programming language).

This test, along with many other employment qualifications tests are
offered by a company known as PreVisor.  Anyway, I went to take the
test, but as you might have guessed, it was not accessible.  The exam
was actually just fine for the first couple of questions, but on one
of the questions, I was asked to look at a section of source code, and
the source code was unreadable by my screen reader.

Here's what I suspect happened.  In order to preserve the security of
the exam, they thought it would be a good idea to make the source code
snippet into an image.  They likely did this so you can't just copy
and paste the text.  Otherwise, I can think of no other reason to do
that.

Now, my employer has been really great about this.  They have been
working with me, and I'm sure we'll find some alternative means for me
to show them my PHP skills.  However, the inaccessibility of PreVisor
really disturbs me.  What's worse is their seeming complete
disinterest in fixing the problem.

When I contacted them about it, they basically told me that there was
nothing that could be done.  That's just how it was.  When I asked if
they would give me a little extra time to answer each question so the
source code could be read to me, (normally you get only 3 minutes) the
answer was again, "no."

What really upsets me is these people are in many instances the
gatekeepers for jobs.  For a lot of folks, they determine whether or
not a person gets hired.  How many people are going to be shut out of
jobs, or at the very least not considered on the same level as their
sighted co-applicants because of this companies apathy?

I don't know if anything can be done about this, legally or otherwise,
hence my email to this list.  I just know that it seems very wrong to
me, and is something that is likely to harm the job chances of other
blind folks in the future.

As a side note, their testing services appear to be used by many
different companies and organizations, including by the government
(which branch or at what level, I don't know).

Anyway, any thoughts or ideas on this situation would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Aaron