A Blind Job Applicant Experience

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blind and low vision  •  Employer  •  Insights

I’ve been fortunate overall, but I’m also very realistic about the realities of finding work when I have a disability.

Kelly Ford

Back in 1995, Kelly was in between jobs and money was starting to get tight. He had an opportunity to do technical support for a company. He worked a lot with technology and I was pretty good at it.

So he decided to disclose it upfront and make it a strength. He wrote in his cover letter that he would use his blindness and his screen reading abilities as a strength for the role.

At his phone interviews, he reiterated his blindness. Then at the final interview, he got called into the office and the interviewer was surprised to see a blind person walk in. He asked him “You’re blind, how are you going to use a computer?”

Kelly was devastated. He was taken aback by the comment and it shook his self confidence. He didn’t even hold the interview because he felt that he wouldn’t be able to change the interviewer’s mind.

Today Kelly is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft and is Teaching a free Programming Class on Fable Pathways

This course is extremely helpful if you are visually impaired, but if you’re not, you’ll appreciate how blind individuals are able to navigate programming and code.

Learn how to navigate Visual Studio Code while listening to Kelly Ford’s training. The training is fully accessible. It is subtitled, you can hear the voice over, learn shortcuts to navigate, and adjust the speed of playback. There is a transcript available too.

Fable empowers people with disabilities to participate, contribute, and shape society. They provide opportunities for people with disabilities to advance their careers in the tech sector through paid work and free learning opportunities. Fable Pathways created these free, accessible, on-demand courses, taught by professionals with disabilities.

Jobs for Humanity partners with Fable Pathways to widen the reach of their high quality free courses made by people with disabilities for people with disabilities, but that actually benefit everybody.

Kelly Kalcevich teaches how to excel at management from a hearing impaired person’s perspective

This course is for people with disabilities who are looking to get into management role. Maybe you’re not sure if you’re ready or if management is right for you. Every Conversation has 2 sides: If you are listening you need to make sure you’re really understanding what’s being said to you.

A great manager is a coach: you’re helping people discover solutions to problems instead of telling them what to do. In this course, you will learn to use your superpower, managing your own stress, prioritization, getting organized and then advocating for accommodations.

4% of the world is visually impaired
4% of the world is hearing impaired

Both communities are worthy of being represented in you organization. So take the step to educate yourself on how to include them.

Kim Donaldson
Kim Donaldson
is the Pathway Lead at Fable. She is a retired international athlete who loves a challenge and strives to exceed goals in all areas

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