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

Sat Jul 21 22:02:48 UTC 2012

What a great post! I no I learned from this post about being creative. Thanks, Brice!

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 21, 2012, at 5:35 PM, Brice Smith <brice.smith319 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> 
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