[nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled

[Tracy Carcione]

I once interviewed for a job, taking a bus, a train, and walking several
blocks in Manhattan, only to find the interviewer could not be convinced I
wouldn't need someone to lead me to the bathroom.  Grrrr.
Tracy



-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 11:03 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: John G Heim
Subject: [nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/upshot/fake-cover-letters-expose-discri
mination-against-disabled.html

I think I have talked on this list about wanting to commission a study
similar to the one mentioned in this article except with a blind applicant
applying for IT jobs. The study has people with spinal injuries and
Asperger's Syndrome applying for accounting jobs. They found disabled
applicants were 26% less likely to get a call back. Of particular interest
are some of the comments.

"Given two candidates of roughly equal qualifications the rational decision
would be to hire the one without disabilities. It's going to be less
expensive, on average . [...] So statistically, a disabled job applicant
would need to be sufficiently better qualified for the job to overcome the
disability to be the 'correct' choice."

Long time readers of this list will know I've speculated about this effect
for years. My guess is that this factor is much greater for blind applicants
than it is for the types of disabilities in the study. A blind person does,
in fact, have greater challenges to over come. But I suspect that even worse
is the lack of understanding about just how much a blind technologist can
do. A perspective employer once flatly refused to interview me when she saw
that I was blind. She essentially accused me of faking my resume and simply
would not believe a blind person could use a computer.


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