[nabs-l] If or where to include center training on a job application.

[Brice Smith]

Cindy,

The only way you can begin to answer this is to ask yourself what you
would want to see if you were hiring someone with an 11-month gap in
their resume. Put yourself in the employer's situation. How would you
want a potential employee to handle this?

Let's assume that attending a training center for blindness skills is
not something an employer or HR manager understands or wants to see on
a resume. In this situation, there probably is NOT a short way to
convey that you went to a great center and learned great skills.
You're going to have to get innovative and creative.

You said you could not have worked very much if given the opportunity
while living at BLIND, Inc., but I disagree. I'm sure you've gained
some transferable skills during the past 11 months even if not in an
office setting. Does BLIND Inc. require their students to do some sort
of community service activity during their training? If not, and you
didn't volunteer or become active in the community during your year of
training, maybe you held a position in the NFB's student division. You
can work with this experience to fit a resume and show recent
experience. For example, under "Work Experience," you might list
"President" or "Secretary, Association of Blind Students." Then you
can use bullet points to show, not tell, what you did: "Developed a
website for students to interact with others." "Increased
participation by 55% through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Email
postings." "Researched venues and helped plan a three-day conference
in San Diego." You get the idea. You only need mention blindness in
passing here, and this does not automatically indicate that you are
blind yourself. Instead, this show's that you've been actively doing
something during the past 11 months and counts as experience without
mentioning blindness training. You may have to rework the headings a
little on your resume to make this fit, but this fill's a gap in your
resume. You never want giant gaps in a resume, but it's possible to
fill gaps with something relevant, even if that something seems
irrelevant or far-fetched to you.

I think you dismissed the cover letter too soon. Your cover letter
narrates your resume in more detail and can be used to tell a story
about something you might not otherwise want to discuss. Your cover
letter can address your qualifications for the position and your gap
in employment at the same time. Depending on the organization, the
company culture, the responsibilities of the position and the person
most likely to read your resume, your cover letter can (briefly)
mention blindness training and how increased training and confidence
will help you adequately meet the expectations of the position.

Don't just tell them you went for blindness training. Explain to them
that you made the decision to learn quality travel skills as a blind
person because you understand this job requires extensive travel and
that your training taught you to independently and efficiently
navigate airports, train stations and hotels without vision. This can
be tricky and it's more likely to work with small organizations rather
than large corporations, but it is not impossible to show in your
cover letter that attending a blindness training center helped you
identify and develop skills needed for the job. If you're working with
an online application system that does not allow you to upload
supplemental documents, weaving blindness training into the body of
your cover letter and not including it on your resume might be your
best option. Your resume can highlight your volunteer experience
you've held during the past year and your cover letter can touch on
the blindness training. Also, reconsider your use of supplemental
documents at all. Why do you think they're necessary? If I were an HR
manager, I'd rather someone creatively demonstrate their work gap or
disability without asking me to slog through additional information.
If resumes and cover letters spend only a few moments in front of
someone, how much time and attention do you honestly think additional
and unnecessary documents are going to receive?

The bottom line is to avoid the blindness training as much as
possible, not only because blindness can be a hindrance when finding a
job, but because BLIND Inc., unlike your university education,
probably has nothing to do with the job you are applying for. If you
feel like you can't avoid the center because you didn't gain any other
experience during your year of training, creatively work your training
into the cover letter or resume by either explaining how your training
helped you develop skills for the job or by explaining what you did
during training that kept your skills relevant and up-to-date. If none
of this works, or if you think the organization would be receptive to
your training, you could fully disclose your training and boldly
discuss how you maturely recognized the need to gain total proficiency
in blindness skills so you could effectively handle all the
responsibilities of the job.

These same types of suggestions are used by students who travel abroad
after school. If they don't write travel blogs and stories or actually
volunteer internationally, they can modify their experience to fit a
resume: "Developed budgeting and planning skills while interacting
with citizens from over a dozen foreign countries." "Cultivated
language and communication skills through contact with people around
the world." The idea is to be sincere and completely honest while
showing creativity and initiative. The difference is that blindness
comes with a negative stereotype and travel usually does not. But you
can make this work. You just might need to brainstorm to figure out
how.

Brice

On 7/20/12, Cynthia Bennett <clb5590 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am currently job searching and running into a quandary.
>
> If a stranger looked at my resume, it would appear that I ended work
> in August of 2011, and that I have not worked since. When in reality,
> from September to April, I was attending BLIND, Inc. and could have
> not worked very much even if given the opportunity.
>
> Sharing the blind thing before appearing at an interview has always
> been a tossup for me. I always love giving my first impression in
> person so I have more control over the first impression than allowing
> some HR assistant’s mind to marinate in all of the possibilities of
> bad stereotypes only to throw my application out because of some
> “excuse.”
>
> But I am starting to think that maybe this gap on my resume is hurting
> me more than including blindness training as a part of my education.
> But therein lies another problem. I do not have nearly enough space on
> my resume to properly explain blindness training. I have included
> supplemental documents sometimes. If I feel it is appropriate for a
> certain job, then I go ahead and divulge it. I provide a plethora of
> information and give the website and contact information if they are
> so inclined to learn more. I definitely do this when gaps in
> employment require explanation.
>
> But right now, I am working with an online application with no place
> to upload a supplemental document. There is just one place for a
> resume, and in my cover letter, I want to focus on the job
> qualifications rather than explain 8 months of unemployment. Normally,
> I would submit my application and be done with it, but as I keep
> submitting more and more unanswered applications, I am always
> wondering what I could be doing better.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> If there is a short way to convey that I went to a great center and
> learned great skills, what is it?
>
> I know that we could go on for volumes about whether blind people are
> still discriminated against in the workplace, good job finding
> strategies, etc. but I would appreciate if direct replies to this
> message pertained to the question at hand and that emails regarding
> other blindness and job related issues be introduced with another
> subject line.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Cindy
>
>
> --
> Cynthia Bennett
> B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
>
> clb5590 at gmail.com
> 828.989.5383
>
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-- 
Brice Smith
North Carolina State University, Communication - Public Relations
Brice.Smith319 at gmail.com