Tool 6 - Getting Talent: Recruiting and Hiring People with Disabilities
The Communication Tools to Support Disability Inclusion Toolkit includes 11 templates to help managers with disability inclusion:
- 1. Why this matters
- 2. Setting the tone
- 3. Building trust
- 4. Defining disability
- 5. Working together
- 6. Getting talent
- 7. Disclosing a disability
- 8. Federal contractors
- 9. Accommodation at work
- 10. Our manager resources
- 11. Our employee resources
What’s Tool 6 About?
Disability issues during hiring can be complex. This topic addresses the role of managers and supervisors in hiring in the simplest way possible.
Because managers and supervisors are usually not directly involved with recruitment, we have not included recruitment sources in these message templates. However, if you wish to include disability recruiting information for your managers, here are some resources you could provide them:
- Your local universities/colleges. Contact the Career Counseling Center or the office for disability student services.
- GettingHired connects employers to a vast database of qualified candidates with disabilities.
- OurAbility enables employers to find and connect with applicants with disabilities.
- State vocational rehabilitation agencies is a free service to employers that can provide consulting and job placement services for people with disabilities.
- Workforce Recruitment Program enables employers to source college students and recent college graduates with disabilities.
You can copy and paste the template text below into a word processor and customize it for your organization.
Getting Talent: Recruiting and Hiring People with Disabilities
About the hiring process
At (COMPANY NAME), we aim to hire the best talent available, whether or not this talent has a disability. Here are some quick points we'd like hiring managers to keep in mind:
- To ensure that our hiring process is open to all applicants, we provide accommodations for applicants with disabilities who request or need them to go through our hiring process. To support an applicant wholly in the hiring process at (COMPANY NAME), contact (COMPANY CONTACT INFORMATION).
- Assess applicants on their competence, education, and experience. At (COMPANY NAME) we do not assume an applicant is less qualified or less able to perform the job just because they will need an accommodation if hired.
- During one-on-one interactions (such as during an interview), never ask an applicant whether she has a disability. This includes questions related to disability, such as: Have you been hospitalized recently? What medications are you currently taking? Do you have any back injuries?
- (If your organization is a federal contractor) (COMPANY NAME) is a federal contractor. Please encourage all applicants to respond to the self-identification request that addresses disability, reminding them that their answer to this request will be kept confidential and will not be seen or used during hiring decisions.
Want to learn more?
For more about this topic, visit northeastada.org or call the Northeast ADA Center at 800-949-4232.If the above text pastes into Microsoft Word with uwanted gray shading, select the text and use the Paint Bucket tool to choose No Color for the fill. Or, when pasting, try choosing Edit > Paste Special > Formatted Text (RTF).