Job Searching: the Importance of Personal Contact

2013-11-20-Job Searching

Seminars@Hadley

Job Searching: The Importance of Personal Contact

Presented by Lauri Dishman – Owner, Your Inner Focus

Moderated by Larry Muffett

November 20, 2013

Larry Muffett Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I’m a member of Hadley’s Seminars team and I also work in Curricular Affairs. Today’s seminar topic is Job Searching: The Importance of Personal Contact. Our presenter today is a familiar one to many of you who are regular participants. Lauri Dishman is the owner of Inner Focus, a private mental health practice helping those adjusting with vision loss. For over a decade Lauri served as manager of counseling services at Second Sense Chicago where she developed and managed the counseling center. She is also a licensed clinical professional counselor and an adjunct professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Today Lauri will be sharing

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 1 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching her insights with you on the importance of establishing a network, building contacts, and how those relationships can lead to greater career-related opportunities. So at this time let me welcome Lauri and I’m going to turn the microphone on over to her. Welcome Lauri.

Lauri Dishman Well thank you Larry. Thank you very much. I am again excited to be part of Seminars@Hadley. I always enjoy myself when I do these presentations. What I often like to do too is make my presentations a little bit interactive and so what I would like is for folks to take a moment and think about somebody who they’ve met, not a family member, but somebody who they’ve met, maybe it’s a really good friend or somebody of significance to you, and think about where you met that person. If you feel like it, if you’re willing to be public, I’d love for you to share where you met that person in the chat box if possible. We’re going to go back to that and we’re going to talk about that in a little bit.

The first thing that I want to talk about is the black hole. Many of you are probably very familiar with the black hole, especially those of you who are active job seekers. It’s that black hole that sucks up your resume the moment that you hit send on your

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 2 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching computer, for those of you sitting on monster.com or careerbuilder.com. Often times many clients will come to me and they say I have sent out dozens, probably hundreds, of resumes online and I’m not getting any response and I don’t understand what it is; I mean I feel I have great qualifications but for some reason I’m just sending them out and I’m not getting anything, maybe a nibble or two for a telemarketing job, but nobody is really noticing me, and the question is why is that. Well I’m sure that this is something you’ve probably heard of but obviously we probably all have heard of career builder or monster.com or indeed.com or many of these highly commercial job searching websites, and so if you’ve heard of them chances are hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people have and so they’re on those websites looking at the same jobs that you are and sending out applications. Chances are when you are applying for a position on these websites your resume is in competition with hundreds if not thousands of other people who are trying to go for the same job or vying for that same position. So if you think about your odds they are pretty slim that your resume is going to be one that gets noticed. It’s kind of like you go to the casino and you think well why would I want to play that machine if my odds are pretty slim.

One thing that might increase your odds and something to think about is something called the hidden job market. I talk about this often in seminars and you may have also heard about this. There are many sources, whether it’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Society of Human Resource Management, that can confirm that anywhere between 60% to 85% of jobs are not necessarily found through the internet through these online websites. They are found through direct recommendations through coworkers or managers or outside referral sources, people who say man oh man we’re looking for a new secretary do you by any chance know of anybody, or you know I’ve got a neighbor who has been working, she was working for a doctor’s office for 20 years, she’s fantastic, let me give her a call and see whether or not she’s interested. This is how many jobs are found, through direct referral, through direct recommendation, from people who have witnessed or have seen the work of other people and have said wow they really are good I think I would really like to recommend this person for this particular position. That’s how between 60% to 85% of jobs are found. Granted that does leave anywhere between 15% to 35% of jobs being found through other sources and that does include the internet and it does include things like recruiters and job placement folks and people who just simply walk

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 4 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching in the door and ask hey are you looking for a job. In fact, I had a client who had diabetic retinopathy, she was visiting her endocrinologist on a fairly regular basis, and noticed that the office was incredibly chaotic and she had over 20 years of office management experience. She had worked for some ophthalmologists and she said it seems like things are a little stressful, I have 20 years of experience, I’m wondering are you ever looking for an office manager? Just through that question conversation sort of ensued and the next thing you know she had the job.

Obviously there are different ways that jobs can be found and different ways to kind of put yourself out there. What this means is that when you’re job searching you want a job search plan that is integrated. What I mean by integrated is that you know that there are various channels or various ways that jobs can be found and that does include the internet, it includes recruiters, it includes networking, it includes a lot of different things, but you want to make sure that you are well prepared and that you have a very well planned out marketing plan or job search plan that is really going to get people’s attention. If we’re going to think about doing an online job search you definitely want to make sure that the profile you create online, whether that’s through monster.com or

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 5 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching even your Linked In profile, is well targeted and well thought out using the skill set, using the accomplishments that relate directly to the kind of position that you’re looking for, that you’re using examples of your work that are going to relate directly to the kind of job that you want. So you want to make sure that the collateral that you create, your resume or your profile, is well thought out. Also…a cover letter. Many of these online websites do allow you the option to write a cover letter. They also allow you the option to opt out of it too but I truly believe that the cover letter is such an important piece of communication because it is your first opportunity to talk directly to the company or directly to the organization and say hey look at me, notice me, these are the skills I have, these are the qualifications that I have, this is what I have very much thought out in terms of evaluating your company, the customers you serve, the problems that you solve, and this is the way that I can help you do that, this is the way that I can enhance your value as an organization, so the cover letter is your place where you can answer that question why should we hire you. Here’s a forum where you can think it through all the way on your own and do it all by yourself or do it independently and have a lot of time to think about what it is that you’re going to say. If you are going to focus online make sure you have a very well targeted resume and

The point is that the whole idea is to think about quality, not necessarily quantity. You can send out a thousand resumes but if they don’t speak directly to the employer they’re just going to go out the wayside. If they’re going to have grammatical errors or spelling errors or they’re not going to relate directly to the position they’re just going to be knocked out. They’re just going to go by the wayside, and you can apply until the cows come home and you’re really not going to get much of a response. The idea is to think about quality. Don’t worry about cranking out a hundred resumes, think about cranking out maybe ten good resumes in a week as opposed to a hundred resumes in a week because it’s the quality that’s going to stand out, not necessarily the quantity. Again, getting back to this idea of networking and the question is well how do I increase my odds with landing a position and to getting back into this game, if I’m going to be at a casino and I want to get into the 60% to 85% chance of getting a good job, the question is getting out there and meeting people.

At the beginning of this seminar I had asked folks to go into the chat area and I’m going to see if I can get in there to see what people had responded to. It says

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 7 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching here “As a recruiter I can tell you cover letters are very important. We scan the resumes but we read the cover letters.” That’s very good to hear that. It looked like really nobody had responded to the question of where you met somebody or where was a very unique place that you met somebody. I can tell you one thing. Larry had mentioned that I had worked at Second Sense, which was the guild for the blind in Chicago and that I was an adjunct professor through the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Both of those jobs came to me through the hidden job market. I did not have to send out a formal resume to get those two jobs. This job at Second Sense came actually through a friend of mine that I met through an old boyfriend. She was a person who I befriended and we remained friends for a very very long time, I mean obviously not with the boyfriend anymore, but I am still friends with this person and she knew me through graduate school and she knew that I wanted to be a career counselor and so she was working at Guild for the Blind or Second Sense at the time and she said by the way we’re starting up a career-related program, would you be willing to help us get it started and run it, and I was flattered. I said absolutely I would love to do that and so at first it started out as a volunteer position, gradually to part-time and then eventually a grant came in where they were able to hire me full-time and I was there for ten years and it

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 8 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching was a wonderful experience. The same thing with the position through the Chicago school. This was from an old cohort that I met through my masters program who knew that I was into career counseling, had witnessed my work, she and I had partnered together on projects in school, and she called and said would you be willing to teach and the next thing you know I was teaching. It’s really all about not only people getting to meet people but it’s about getting people to witness your work and to witness what it is that you do and to demonstrate to them your passion and to demonstrate to them how well you do what it is that you do, whether it’s passion or whether it’s a practical skill that you’ve honed, the idea is to get yourself exposed to other people because that exposure is what is going to get people to directly recommend you to a hiring manager or to somebody who could lead you to a hiring manager.

For example, the Social Security Administration has a program I know in the Chicago area and I’m sure it is nationwide, but they work directly with many employment networks that work with job seekers who have disabilities and they have sort of a direct line in to these employment network to say if you want to cross a candidate who you feel has wonderful qualifications who can meet our requirements, meaning that they’re very good problem solvers, they

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 9 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching have great people skills, they have resilience to micromanagement, that they are very analytical and can really demonstrate that they can hold their own in a call center, by all means please refer them on and we actually did refer several of our folks on and a couple of them did get hired on to the Social Security Administration, but it was because we had witnessed how well these people conducted themselves and how well they were able to manage their day to day activities, how well they worked the computer, knowing that they had the basic skills to be able to manage their day to day activities. The more that you can get yourself exposed to people who can witness your work the greater your chances of getting a recommendation or getting a referral or getting yourself into this hidden job market into the 60% to 85%. One of my coworkers at Second Sense she was somebody who came through our employment program and she just stood out and when an opening came up we just immediately recommended her. This is how most jobs are filled are through this whole idea of getting people to recognize your work.

It looks like some folks here have responded in the chat area. Somebody mentioned that a really good website is Linked In and I would definitely agree. I think Linked In is probably one of the ways now that a lot of hiring managers and recruiters what they’re

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 10 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching using now to search for candidates and getting endorsements and getting recommendations. Again, that is just a reinforcement of how the job search market right now is really emphasizing this idea of accountability of being able to prove your work and to showcase your work based on your skill set. I’m curious and I think what I will do is open the mic. I know Larry has also been kind of monitoring the chat area to questions as well as I would love to hear stories that you have about maybe an interesting way that you got a job or an interesting connection that you made with someone and perhaps how that might be able to help other folks here that are tuning in for this particular seminar. Larry I’m going to let you kind of manage the chat.

Larry Muffett Well there’s a couple of really interesting ones here. Kevin says I got my current job indirectly by playing on a sports team, which I would love to hear that story, and Kristine says in response to your question I did a radio show with a person and she has her own company and now she is working for that company, so a couple of interesting stories there if those people would like to elaborate on those.

Lauri Dishman

Do we have a shy group today? Would anybody else like to? I guess not. I guess I will just go ahead and move on and again if you have questions raise your hand or let Larry know. We’re going to move on here and what I’m going to do is I want to talk about some of the things that you can do to get your skills out there. What are some steps that we can take to really think about how do I do this? Yes I can get exposure and I understand that but what is it that I need to do to start that process, you know I’m feeling confused or lost where do I begin?

The first step that I often talk about is to really develop your skills, and working with somebody to figure out what career path or position or type of role that you want to take can be helpful, but if you have a general idea and you know what direction you want to take, it’s really understanding the tools you need to do your work. We’re not talking about the specific physical tools that you may need, things like the computer or the phone or the pottery wheel or whatever it is that you use or need to do your job, but it’s also the politics of what happens within that industry. It’s also understanding the nuances and personalities that might work within that particular type of job and just sort of understanding the lingo that people use within that kind of work and just really immersing yourself into that and really understanding what is necessary.

If you’re going to become a virtual assistant and maybe doing accounting for a client here or doing spreadsheets and cover letters for someone over here or whatever it is that you choose to do as a virtual assistant, really understanding the technology, the computer that you might need, how to use a word processing program inside and out or a spreadsheet program inside and out, so just really understanding your tools and how it all works over the internet, how to use social media, how to use internet and chat and email and all that to be able to effectively communicate with your clients, so that’s just sort of an example of what I’m talking about.

This also relates as well to the adaptive skills, your technology, what you can do when you’re faced with a particular dilemma or particular challenge, that you’re aware of the technology or techniques that are available to help you maybe overcome that challenge or to approach that challenge from a creative way so that you can move forward and to do it more effectively and more efficiently. What I’m talking about is that you are finding something, some kind of a skill, whether it’s an interest or whether it’s a practical skill, that you are ready to continuously perfect it, or use it in various ways so that you’re ready to get others to notice you, that you can do it publicly and not feel embarrassed or feel

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 13 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching uncomfortable where when you are in front of others and you do it that you actually do it better than if you do it say by yourself. This can be anything, being a barista to typing documents to being wonderful on the phone.

I had a client who just was so wonderful at handling conflicts and negotiating and working with people in such a way that she was asked to volunteer for another nonprofit organization that works with visually impaired in Chicago and eventually was asked to head up their youth program, just because she was great on the phone and she developed relationships with other agencies, with other vendors, and they noticed how good she was at doing this and so they just said we don’t want you to just be a volunteer we would like for you to also work for us as well. It’s really honing something, that you feel confidence, that you can build a confidence so that when you’re performing it or when you’re doing it in front of others you actually really shine and you actually really do it well, and sometimes that takes time and if you don’t shine in front of somebody when you do it it isn’t the end of the world but that your heart is really into it, that you really show that you want to genuinely do a really good job because when your heart is into it and when you’re genuinely approaching it it’s going to come forth that your intentions are in the right place

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 14 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching and that’s what many employers really want to see, is that the work that someone does, that their efforts are really in the right place. That also shows that by being someone who is visually impaired that you’re open to the technology, that you’re open to the techniques, that you’re comfortable with who you are and that the visual impairment is just simply a part of you and that your heart is working to overcome the challenges that might come about but not hold you back from reaching your own goals and reaching your dreams, so that’s definitely some very important things.

The fulcrum of much of this is this idea of networking, and I really really want to emphasize this so much because again yes you can develop these skills and yes you can be comfortable in front of them but if you don’t have a network of people to demonstrate what you do you’re not going to be exposing your talents to other people. I think what it means is that it means for many people is to get outside of your comfort zone and I know that it can be very very uncomfortable and I know for many people where travel can be a challenge that that can create an additional sense of anxiety, but it does mean that you might have to push yourself just that much more to get people to notice you and to recognize your work. It means getting off the computer. It means getting out of your chair. It

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 15 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching means getting out the door, whether you get in the paratransit bus or whether you take a fixed route or you get a ride or walk to wherever it is. It means getting out and finding opportunities to prove your skill set, to prove your talent, and to get people to witness your work and connecting with other people.

What I am going to talk about is just some basic ideas of what you can do to build your network and I often equate this with the idea of nurturing a plant, nurturing a garden if you will, where the base of course is the soil and the soil is you, that you’re the foundation, that your skills, your expertise, the qualities that you have that set you apart from the other folks that might be vying for similar positions. The seeds of your garden are your efforts, your marketing plan, the messages, the elevator speeches, what you say during networking events, what you say to others about your skills, examples of your work might be examples of the seeds. The water and the sun is what you do to keep your network going, whether that’s booking lunches, informational interviews, attending networking events, keeping up with contacts on Linked In, reviewing the list of people that you have connected with and kind of going back and reconnecting with them. What this means is as you are nurturing this plant and you’re planting your seeds and as your booking these guests eventually you

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 16 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching have a network, you have a bunch of people that you do connect with that you might meet with on a regular basis who might say to you one day “Hey Joe you just seem like a really neat guy and it’s great to hear about your work. We have an opportunity at our organization, it’s a one night thing but we’re looking for somebody who can MC our program. Would you be willing to come up? We’ll pay you $75.” Whatever it is that can just get people to recognize your work. Or we have a project and we need to send out one thousand letters to our donors, would you be willing to head up the operation to get the letters out, printed, sealed, out and off and on their way. Again, these are just getting people to recognize your work. It looks like the chat room is active so I’m just going to check in with Larry to see if there is anything I need to address.

Larry Muffett I would say a couple of people have mentioned both volunteering and internships as ways to build that network so you may want to touch on both of those if you haven’t already built that in.

Lauri Dishman Absolutely. I think that especially there are many places where volunteering is incredibly important. I know at Second Sense where I used to work a

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 17 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching majority of the work that was done was done thanks to the help of volunteers, and these were just people that would pick up the phone and call our volunteer coordinator and just say hey are you by any chance looking for volunteers. These are the skills that I have, I have great computer skills, I’m really good on the phone. There were opportunities for people to run our front desk. There were opportunities for people to do research online. There were opportunities for people to send out our newsletter. With that, that’s when we as an organization would witness our volunteers’ work and make those recommendations if there were job leads that came up. We would be able to witness the work and say hey Jane is fantastic at such at such, let’s recommend her for this position. Again, finding those opportunities.

I believe in Chicago there are websites, volunteerchicago.com, and I believe not on simplyhired or indeed but there’s another nonprofit website that not only has paid listings but they also have internship listings as well or volunteer listings as well, and often times you can sort based on the type of organization, are you working with animals, are you working with individuals, is it financial planning, what kind of organization you want to work for, and these websites can help filter the opportunities that are available. The Chamber of Commerce also is a great

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 18 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching resource of a place where you can call and just say hey I’m looking for volunteer opportunities, the list of companies within our community, do you know if any have mentioned that they’re in need of volunteers or can you send me a list and perhaps that will allow me to contact those who I feel might be worth my while to volunteer for, so the Chambers of Commerce are also very good resources to use when trying to find volunteer or internship opportunities. Larry was there anything else?

Larry Muffett Well Janette is really giving us some great stuff here and she works in our recruitment field so she is giving us a lot of insights and a lot of insider information here. One thing she mentioned was having business cards printed up for yourself and making sure to go to job fairs and to the chamber and networking events and passing those cards out so that might be something else to discuss.

Lauri Dishman Absolutely. Having something that will get people to remember you, a business card is a great tool and they’re real cheap. There’s a website, vistaprint.com, I think you can get like 250 cards for $10 and basically putting your name and contact information and just simply a tagline that shows an expertise in

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 19 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching something, whether that’s expert office manager or database expert or whatever it is that your expertise is in having something that just has two or three words that point out your specific skill or your specific talent is going to get people to remember you, plus when you’re at job fairs not only do you want to network with the recruiters that are there and the companies but network with the individuals that are there as well, hand them your business cards, because these are folks that eventually will be working and if you strike up a connection and you strike up a relationship with these folks and you can keep up with them, if they’re working they might go to their employer and say you know I met this person at a job fair who I really connected with and she’s fantastic and I would love to bring her in; I notice we have an opening here for an accountant and this person has great skills I would like to recommend that person, so I completely agree with Janette that the whole idea of finding ways to again get people to remember you with cards and so forth is really going to be a wonderful way of doing that.

There was something that was a tool that was sort of being passed around, this was maybe five or six years ago, I don’t know how popular it is anymore, but it’s something called a handbill. A handbill is geared more towards your peers and if you’re somebody who

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 20 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching goes to job networking groups or you go to job fairs or you just go to job clubs and that sort of thing and you’re meeting with other people that are networking it’s a sheet that you hand out that just says this is the kind of job I’m looking for, these are the skills that I have, and these are the companies that I’m trying to target and hand these out to folks that are also in the same boat because they might look at that company target list and say hey I know somebody who works at Time Warner or I know somebody who works at AT&T, let me connect you to them, and I know Linked In has kind of replaced this idea and Linked In again is a fantastic tool for being able to look at the connections that you’re Linked In network has and asking your connection to say hey can you link me in with so and so who works at AT&T because I would really like to have an interest, so anything that you can use to get that exposure is really really important.

Just to kind of finish up my plant analogy, again the plant being your labor of love in your network, but don’t forget, like you do with a plant, you do have to prune every once in a while, meaning that you don’t have to keep up with every single person. You want to keep up with those folks where there is a wonderful collaborative give and take relationship where there is a benefit to both of you. If you are with folks who are just taking, taking, taking from you and you’re really

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 21 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching not getting any benefit out of it there’s nothing wrong with reducing the contact you have with that particular individual, so pruning your network also is something that you also want to keep in mind.

The one thing that I also wanted to talk about was the idea of informational interviewing. I mentioned this as part of the way that you keep your network going and you nurture your network. Informational interviewing is instead of you waiting for a company or an organization to call you in for a formal interview you are being more proactive in this process. Now it isn’t a means of asking somebody for a job or giving somebody your resume, it’s simply a means of trying to connect with people and to gather information. It’s an information gathering tool as well as a tool to start building that network. What it is is as you start to build this network and you might meet someone at a coffee or you might meet someone through a job fair or you might meet someone at some kind of a job club, is that you then sit down and you ask them do you know anybody who works in such and such a field that I can talk to about what they do? I’m interested in work in this particular area but I’m not 100% sure or I’m pretty sure this is what I want to target but I’m really interested in learning more about this particular company or organization, but I would like to get it from an insider’s point of view.

The one thing that I wanted to talk about and if I’ve already said this forgive me, but informational interviewing is a fantastic tool to use to build a network and it’s also a great tool to use for gathering information, especially if maybe you’re somebody in career transition or perhaps you’ve been out of the workforce for a while and you want to get back in to whatever it was that you were doing, but you want to make sure that you kind of have all your ducks in a row before you start the search, and that is to find individuals who have information that you can gather and you can pick their brain. It could be somebody that has a job that you’re particularly interested in and you want to learn more about what it is that they do, or they work for a company that you are interested in and you want to learn more about that particular company, or there’s somebody perhaps that has gone from one position to another and they have a type of position that you’re interested in, maybe not necessarily the company but maybe they’re a marketing manager and you’re interested in learning more about that. It’s about asking can I sit down with you and just talk to you about your job? Can I talk to you about what it is that you do because I’m interested in this, this is a possible field that I want to go in to, or this is a company that I might want to try to network in to but I would really like to learn more, and

Many people are often very willing to talk about what it is that they do. They are very willing to talk about themselves. What I often recommend is, through your network, somebody might say you should really talk to so and so about their job because I just really think that the two of you would get along or what not, so if you get this connection ask the person who’s connecting you what’s the best way to reach out. Often times like just recently actually I had a connection who wanted to introduce me to someone for the potential for me to work on a project, so what she did is she emailed her friend or her colleague and then emailed me with a cc to her colleague saying dear Lauri we have an opportunity that we would like to talk to you further about. The person who is in charge is so and so. I would really like for her to talk to you. The same approach can be used in an informational interview and is perhaps to ask your friend to send an email to their connection introducing you to them and then from there you can kind of set up a time for you to talk to them. What I did when I got out of school is I sent out cold letters to people, actual snail mail letters, and said dear so and so I’m a recent graduate from the Adler School of Professional Psychology, I’m interested in career counseling, and I

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 24 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching want to learn more about what environments this is done and so I sent letters out to several folks and several people responded and I sat down and we made an appointment and you treat it very similarly as a job interview in terms of your professionalism and being on time and all of that, but you’re there to ask them questions, not them asking you questions, and you just have this opportunity to talk to somebody for fifteen minutes or half an hour. I’ve done them by phone, I’ve done them in person, I’ve done them over email, but it’s really just you’re there to ask them questions and sometimes they lead to opportunities.

Now some cardinal rules about informational interviewing is you’re not asking them for a job. You don’t say I’m here can you get me a job and you don’t hand them your resume outright and say can you take this and pass it out to your colleagues, because that’s going to kind of sabotage the relationship that you’re trying to develop. Often times in these informational interviews sometimes they do say hey did you by any chance bring your resume I’d like to look at it, and if that happens then you know then that you can say well can you look at it and can you give me some pointers on what is it that I’m lacking in order to be a viable candidate for this kind of job. Often times they will give you that candid advice of what you can do, other training that you might need or other experience

Of course the last thing I always say another cardinal rule for informational interviewing is always ask the question well is there anybody else that you can refer me to? Is there anybody else you know that you think I should talk to who might be helpful and beneficial in my quest. I really think that informational interviewing is a wonderful way to build this network and with that when you’re finished send a thank you, obviously get their contact info, and who knows. I have built so many wonderful relationships with people through informational interviews that have some led to job leads and I had somebody say to me will you please put your resume in the pool for this opening and it ended up that I got the job at Second Sense before this position was available but it was wonderful just to be considered, for somebody to recognize that I have a passion for something and that they wanted to encourage me to move ahead. I see that the chat space is active. It looks like here somebody is saying body language and tone, somebody is mentioning that. Larry I’m going to let you tell me what’s going on because it’s moving so quickly. Do you see any other questions or any other comments?

Larry Muffett

A couple of things. Number one we’ve had a couple questions about you. Are you on social media? Are you on Linked In and Facebook? Number two I believe it was Nancy that had a question about helping people that for whatever reason, whether it’s a vision issue or some other issue, that they can’t use their previous skill set and basically have to transition in to a new career field and some pointers on getting that kind of networking started.

Lauri Dishman Yes I know that that’s often a challenge for folks where their eyesight or the loss of vision or loss of visual impairment can pose a challenge to being able, especially jobs where vision is such a very big piece, if you’re someone who was working in construction or working as a contractor or I have somebody who was working in quality control and so forth and it was tough for them to manage and maintain their jobs. What I often do when I coach people is to first look at the elements of the job that they did and what they were good at, and looking at okay well what can you still do and what can’t you do, and then to think about well are there other ways to apply what it is that you’ve done to other field and to other industries and that may not necessarily always be the hard skills, it may be the soft skills, the management, did you manage others, did you have to organize and keep

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 27 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching track of things, were you doing a lot of online networking or whatever it is, and finding ways to take that passion and turn it into something else.

For example, I had a client who was a stenographer. She did cardiopulmonary stenography, taking EKGs and things of that nature. She managed the entire office. The one thing that she loved about her job was the passion in working with the clients, the passion in wanting to help those individuals and sort of being a catalyst in connecting them to resources and to getting the results to them and to comfort them while they were going through whatever the testing process was, and so with that she decided to go back to school and now she wants to go back in to rehabilitation counseling so that she is there to support and still work with clients and use that same sort of nurturing capacity but in a way that’s a little bit more realistic to the skill set that she can offer and what adaptations are available for her to be able to do it. It’s a complex process but it is often done. With that then once you kind of have an idea of what it is that you want to do then maybe connecting her, now that she’s interested in rehabilitation and rehabilitation counseling, finding other rehabilitation counselors that she can talk to and network with and to talk to about their jobs and what they do and how they’ve adapted,

As far as my presence on social media, yes I am on Linked In and I would love to link in with anyone who is interested. I am on Facebook. I do have a professional site on Facebook as well and my practice Inter Focus I do have a webpage for that. My website is yourinnerfocus.com, so if you ever want to look up my information I am there. I do have a career site to me as well and that website is www.ledcareer.com.

Larry Muffett Well this would be a good opportunity. I think I’m going to release the microphone here and if people want to jump in let’s see if there’s some questions out there and if not I’ll go gleaning through the text box again. I’m going to turn the microphone loose if anyone wants to jump on.

Caller Can I contact you by email?

Lauri Dishman Yes I do have an email. It’s [email protected]. Any other questions?

Larry Muffett Lauri Ashley says what do you recommend about assistive technology. In my experience internship sites and volunteer sites are hesitant to let me install Jaws.

Lauri Dishman You know that is interesting. Again it is a matter of trying to be as self-contained as you possibly can. I can understand because an internship or volunteer position is more of a temporary sense so it could mean that you bring in your own computer or it could mean try to persuade their IT folks that this isn’t going to damage anything internally and this is more of an external program that comes through. I’m not a technology expert so I can’t answer this question really well. Some people that I know just become much more self-contained. The one thing that has become incredibly popular is the use of the iPhone and the iPad and iMac because they are pretty self- contained and they do have the adaptive built in and don’t have to install anything, so I don’t know if anybody is willing to convert over to an apple product but that seems to be a way that many clients are taking in an effort to try to overcome that. There is also what they call an open source. There’s NVDA, which is like Jaws, which I believe you can just simply download and you don’t have to install it so that might

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 30 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching be another option, but again working with their IT departments and even maybe bringing in someone from your department of human services. There’s usually a technology expert who can maybe talk to them. I know at Second Sense there was a guru David Clement who I know has presented on here. You bring someone like him into the conversation and often times that can convince IT folks to sort of change their minds. I hope that answers your question. Any other questions?

Larry Muffett We have the usual question and it’s a topic that you might want to talk about because this was your previous seminar but the whole idea of the vision issue during a job interview.

Lauri Dishman Oh boy. That’s a whole seminar in itself. I think that disclosing during a job interview is a very individualized process and I do believe that it’s something that if you want to look at the letter of the law through the Americans with Disabilities Act and how if you were to look at it from a legal perspective the recommendation would be to wait until after you get a formal job offer and then you disclose through a disclosure letter and requesting your accommodations and that is one approach that you can take. I think

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 31 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching what makes folks uncomfortable about that approach is that they feel like they might be trying to pull the wool over the employer’s eyes if they try to sneak through because when you go to a job interview if you walk in with a cane or you walk in with a guide dog it’s the white elephant in the room and chances are the employer, especially if they have had very little positive exposure to people with a vision loss, may not know what to say or what to do and they might be more preoccupied with am I going to offend this person and am I going to say the right thing and am I going to get sued than they are with conducting the job interview, so it’s often recommended to simply put it out on the table and find an opportunity to mention the vision loss and to say I’m sure you are wondering how I’m going to do this job, you noticed I walked in with a cane, I have a visual impairment, it’s pretty obvious.

Many people aren’t aware or sure of how people with vision loss or who are blind can carry out the basic responsibilities of the job and now that I am bringing it up we now have the freedom according to the ADA to have a candid conversation about this and I would like for you to ask me questions about how I would do the job and focusing mainly on the job but I also want to talk about too the qualifications and the skills that I do bring to the position, not necessarily always focusing

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 32 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching on the job and focusing on the visual impairment. Being confident with your vision loss and again, going back to what I just said before, being aware of the tools and being aware of not only the tools to do your job but the adaptive tools that you need to do your job and what you need to do to remain efficient is going to be important because that is something that you’ll be able to talk about in the interview with much more confidence and much more certainty because it comes from experience as opposed to being theoretical, so I hope that makes sense.

Larry Muffett Lauri is very modest. I would point out to people that she did a seminar for Hadley previously called Addressing the White Elephant in the Room – When and How to Disclose During an Interview, so I would recommend if you have some interest in that particular topic to go to the Hadley Seminars page, go to the page for past seminars and you’ll find that one archived there and definitely one that you would want to listen to. This seminar, like all of our seminars, will be archived on our website and available for your use any time around the clock. Also each Hadley seminar is now made available as a podcast which you can download to your computer or mobile device. If today’s seminar has got you interested in this topic please check out the Hadley website, the seminar

©2013 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 33 of 34 2013-11-20-Job Searching archives and Hadley’s course list. I would also particularly recommend that you check out Lauri’s other seminars as well as our other recent seminar Insights on Employment. Lauri I thank you for your participation. Your questions were outstanding and the material in the text box was truly added value to the seminar today. Hadley values your feedback. Please let us know what you thought about today’s seminar and please give us suggestions for future topics. One way you can do that is by dropping us an email at [email protected].

Lauri Dishman Thank you all so much for letting me be part of your day. I really enjoy doing these seminars and again please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m on Linked On, I’m on Facebook, and I did provide my email address and again it’s [email protected] and I welcome your questions and comments. Thanks again.

Larry Muffett Thank you Lauri. I want to personally thank all of you for taking the time to be part of this seminar also. Just some fantastic information in the room. Janette, I can’t thank you enough for sharing the insider view on a lot of this stuff.