May 11, 2025 • 22 mins
Ready to land your dream job? In this episode, we’re diving into job search tips, interview hacks and how to confidently advocate for yourself at work while living with blindness or low vision.
If you’re ready to crush your career goals, this episode is for you.
Special guest speaker: Kimberley Nean, from Grant Thornton and Vision Australia.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:05):
Hi and welcome to season two of the Vision Australia podcast,
The Career Path. Today we're exploring some tips and tricks
to help you land your dream career. We'll cover different scenarios,
debunk common myths, and help you approach the hiring process
with confidence. I'm Sam Culley, your host and Vision Australia
(00:28):
Radio's community assistant for national programs. I'm thrilled to be
part of this series where we'll be helping people in
the blind and low vision community feel confident, capable, and
ready to crush it in their careers. This episode will
be recorded, so feel free to hit pause, take a breather,
(00:48):
and come back to it whenever works for you. You
can find all the episodes by searching Vision Australia's The
Career Path on your go to podcast platform. Today I'm
excited to be joined by Quality Living graduate Kimberley Kneen. Welcome, Kimberly.
S2 (01:06):
Hi, Sam. How are you?
S1 (01:08):
Not bad at all. Now, Kimberly, just to start off with,
what does a job search process involve and what unique
challenges or opportunities exist for people living with vision loss?
S3 (01:22):
So for most people, the job search is going to
be pretty much the same process as it is for
just about anybody who's looking for work. So decide what
you want to do. Get the qualifications or training that
you need. That sort of thing is all exactly the same.
I think though, some of the unique aspects of that
for blind and low vision job seekers is it's kind
of possibly more of a possibility to engage with our
(01:45):
disability community, sort of, you know, there's a lot of
people like to sort of work within the community to
support each other, and that's definitely something that I think
is often encouraged, because that lived experience is really it's helpful.
It's very it can be really useful for people to
help support each other within the community. But one of
the other things as well is that you can actually
engage with a disability employment consultant. So somebody who actually
(02:07):
has experience with helping people who are blind and low vision,
which is a really helpful service because I found when
I went mainstream through an employment service, it was really tricky.
They really struggled to know how to support me in
the kinds of jobs to support me to go for.
But when I went through disability employment consultant who actually
knew what it was like or had experience with people
with low vision or blindness, it was a much smoother process.
(02:29):
It was a lot more fulfilling. So that's one aspect
that is actually more it's a positive aspect, I would say.
That's been my experience. It's also one of the other
things as well, is whether or not you choose to
disclose your low vision beforehand, whether you need to, whether
you want to. That's something I know is quite unique
for a lot of job seekers who do experience low
vision or blindness. So that's one aspect I think is
(02:51):
quite unique for us in this community as well.
S1 (02:55):
Yeah, I'd definitely agree with that perspective about the different
disability employment services. And they do have that extra bit
of understanding and some of them do have lived experience
of disabilities, especially those of the job seekers they're working with.
And that just does give them that extra understanding and
(03:17):
really helps them point people in the right direction a
bit better than otherwise. But let's some have a bit
of a chat about shifting mindsets while people are in
the job seeking process, and they're getting a bit down
and a bit, got on a few rejections and it
is an uphill battle sometimes. But how can adopting a
(03:39):
growth mindset help someone pursue job opportunities and feel successful
and fulfilled in their career?
S3 (03:47):
That's a really interesting one. And I think a big
thing about this is, is remembering that you're not alone
in not knowing everything. For me, when I realized that
I didn't know everything, but neither did anybody else, that
made a really big impact on me, and I was
able to shift my mindset a little bit to kind
of go, right, well, it's okay to learn on the job.
It's okay not to know absolutely everything. When you're going
(04:09):
into the job. It's okay not to be an absolute expert.
Most of us actually aren't an expert, especially sort of
early in the career, midway in the career. It's not
something that I think a lot of people realise that
we do allow it to hold ourselves back to go.
And do I know enough do am I ready to
do this? And I think that's important to kind of go, right. Well,
(04:29):
not everybody knows and it's good. It's a good thing
to learn on the job. And if anything, you can
mold yourself to the career or the job that you've
chosen to do. And they can also do the same
for you. They can mould you to be the best
worker for them as well, if that's something you're willing
to do. So I think shifting mindsets is it can
be quite a positive experience. It doesn't have to be
quite as negative as some people think.
S1 (04:50):
And how can jobseekers with vision loss overcome the fear
of not being hired? And what steps can they take
to showcase their strengths to potential employers?
S3 (05:01):
That's a good one. So if we break that down
into a couple of different things. So to start with,
by showcasing your skills to employers like think outside of
the traditional box. So traditionally we sort of say what
we would get a job and then we get to
no experience and we kind of go from there. You know,
there's other options. You can volunteer, you can do internships
and graduate programs depending on what careers you want to
(05:24):
go into. These things are out there to give you
some experience. You could try something like a mentoring program.
Those sorts of things I think can be helpful to
kind of really showcase the fact that you're actually quite
capable of doing the job. And this is the other
thing as well, is I'm talking from my own experience.
Confidence grows when you see yourself making some small successes,
(05:45):
and then you can build on those. So doing a
little bit of work experience and volunteering, finding a way
to actually do that thing that you want to be
able to showcase that you can do, gives you that
confidence in seeing yourself actually doing that, which will then help,
I think, to shift your mindset to say, well, no, no,
I can do this. And so really, I've just got
(06:05):
to find that person who says, yeah, I'll give you
a go because I can see that you can do that.
So I think just doing it, thinking outside the box
and finding a way to do it, even if it's
not in the traditional way, goes a long way towards
shifting your own mindset of, yeah, I can do this,
and I can show people that I can do this.
S1 (06:23):
Certainly. And a lot of that is around, you know,
people who are just starting off in their careers. They're
trying to get a bit of that foothold and forge
a bit of a path and decide what sort of
path they want to go down and pick that path
and follow it and all that sort of thing. But
how can vision loss open up new career opportunities, and
(06:45):
what tools and accommodations make jobs across different industries accessible?
S3 (06:51):
Okay, so there is a range of tools and technology
and things like that out there these days. It really
make jobs more accessible depending on what you're doing. So
things like screen readers have revolutionized how we can access
computers over the years. Somebody who can't see the computer,
it's no longer an issue. You can use something like
screen readers, jaws, Nvda. All of those sorts of things
(07:13):
can be loaded on so you can access computers just
like sighted colleagues can. There's a whole range of things.
There's apps, there's technology. You can access services through organisations
such as Vision Australia for workplace assessments and things like that.
To be able to go into a workplace or if
you've had a change in your vision, your current workplace
and things to really kind of find out what accommodations
(07:35):
might be useful for you, whether it is okay. Right.
I need to move to using a magnifying system on
the computer, or I need to move to using a
screen reading system on the computer. And these things are
available to us. There's different pathways. You can if you've
engaged through a disability employment consultant, they can help you
to access a workplace assessment. They can help you to
access programs, funding programs like job access, where you can
(07:57):
get some of these tools to help you maintain a career.
If you're already in the workforce and you've had some
changes and you need some accommodations nowadays. So there is
places to go for those sorts of assistance.
S1 (08:10):
And this next point, it's about people, job seekers out
there or people who've gone through employment programs and those
sorts of things. They might have heard the phrase job
readiness or being job ready. So what does being job
ready really look like? And how can someone overcome that
common mindset of I need to develop more skills before
(08:33):
I try? I'm not quite ready. I don't know if
I want to jump into this sort of thing. I'm
not quite sure what sort of tools would be best
to overcome that.
S3 (08:43):
Yeah, that's a great one, Sam, because I think job ready.
Nobody really knows, do they? It's so subjective.
S1 (08:51):
It is certainly.
S3 (08:52):
Yeah. I know for myself, every time I've gone for
a new job or a career change or something like that,
it's like, oh, can I do this? Am I ready
to do this? I think there's a couple of things.
Knowing what you want to do, hopefully you've done the
research into what qualifications or trainings you might actually have.
So hopefully you've got those already. But I mean, once
you've done those, it's about having self-confidence. And I know
(09:12):
that can be really tricky for people, especially people who
are kind of used to being told no, to sit
there and go, well, I want to advocate for myself
and say that I can do this, and I know
I can do this, and I've done this training and
I've done, you know, whatever it is that you've actually
needed to do. Job ready is such a subjective thing
because I think everybody, whether they have a vision impairment
(09:32):
or not, at some point, a lot of people feel
something along the lines of imposter syndrome. Can I be
doing this? Should I be doing this? I'm sure somebody
else could be doing this better. But the whole point
of the growth mindset that we were previously talking about,
I believe, is that if you go in with confidence,
you go in with honesty and negotiate it with your manager,
your employer and say, I want to do this, let's
(09:54):
do this together. I'm confident I have this skills, these trainings.
I can do this according to your position description. I
can definitely do these things. I feel, you know, I
might not be confident. You know, I'd love to be supported,
continue with my professional development, those sorts of things. But
I definitely I believe very, very strongly that employers and
employees can grow together because as I said, you know,
(10:17):
job ready is so subjective. I think if you want
that job, then you're job ready, provided you've obviously got
the training that's required. You wouldn't want to be doing
electrical work if you don't have your electrical license. So,
you know.
S1 (10:29):
Those.
S3 (10:29):
Sorts of things.
S1 (10:30):
Within reason. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it's interesting. You say
job ready subjective and people might feel job ready. They'll
jump into a certain job, they'll do it for a
little while and think, oh, this isn't quite for me.
This isn't what I was hoping it would be. This
isn't really what it was cracked up to be, but
(10:52):
now I have a bunch of transferable skills that I
can use to pivot to another area of the workforce,
and that's where matching jobs to skills really comes in.
And having those transferable skills and different things that they
can do so. How can people adapt both their current
(11:13):
and pre vision loss skills to the workplace and identify
new opportunities to use their strengths?
S3 (11:21):
That's a good one. And it's a really good point
Sam that you've brought up that so many of our
skills pre and post vision loss are transferable. And to
be fair with you, Sam, it's something that when I
went back into the workforce after losing my sight, I
hadn't actually considered this. I really hadn't given any thought
(11:41):
to the skills that I had prior to losing my vision,
and how that I still have those skills, and maybe
a few of them. I needed to find different ways
to implement them. For example, I knew how to use
a computer, but I could no longer read the screen.
So I had to learn a screen reading program so
that I could go back to using the computer. Once
I knew how to use that screen reading program, it
(12:01):
was super easy for me to relearn modern computers. It
had been about ten years for me, so it's really
important to kind of get creative with recognizing what you've
done before and how you can use those same skills,
post vision loss and going back into the workforce. It's
amazing when you really sit down and think about it,
how many of our skills are actually transferable? I did
(12:24):
a really interesting experiment when I went back into the workforce,
and I kind of to meet my colleagues, I went
around and I asked them, what's the thing that you
love the most? What's the thing that you don't love?
And what's the thing that you thought you were going
to do when you left school? And it was really
interesting how very, very different every role was. Every person was.
And do you know what, Sam? Absolutely. Nobody was in
(12:46):
the role that they thought they had set out for
themselves as a career path, but they had, in actual fact,
used all of those skills and transferred them to other
roles and other career paths. So it was really interesting
to realize just how transferable our skills can be. And
I actually encourage you, if you can't think of them yourself,
it's really it can be hard to think about it
for ourselves and kind of think, oh, I'm good at
(13:07):
this or I'm good at that. Especially here in Australia.
We don't really like to pump ourselves up too much.
But ask your friends. Ask someone you trust. Ask the
people around you. What do they know as your strengths?
What do they know as skills that you are really
capable in, and kind of brainstorm other ways that those
same skills can be used. And I found that to
be quite helpful for me to realize, hey, I do
(13:29):
have the skills. And that gave me some confidence. Then
I started to use them and then it sort of
snowballed from there.
S1 (13:35):
Well, Kim, that's where the next topic comes in, where,
you know, you have to sell yourself and put yourself
out there and say, hey, I'm good at X, Y,
and Z. Here's why you should hire me. And it's
a huge topic. It's creating a job application, an effective
job application. And people may not have done that for years.
(13:58):
They might have been in a job for however long
and forgotten. Oh, how do I do this? How do
I go through this process? Or they might just be
starting off and never written one before and thinking, oh
my God, where do I begin? But how can someone
with vision loss create a standout resume and cover letter
that effectively showcases their skills and adaptability?
S3 (14:22):
That is so true. It is a very hard skill
to do to be able to go, oh, I need
to create this document that's going to sell me. And
how do I do that? Okay. So I just want
to start with, for people who are starting out, I
recommend when you've got a basic resume, keep adding to
it throughout your career, even if you're not using it
at the things you're doing in, add your skills in there.
(14:44):
Keep it up to date. Keep it current. So I
just want to put that right at the start. If
especially for people who are starting out partway through, start
doing it now. Keep it going. It makes it easier.
That's what I found. Another one is okay, so there's
a couple of ways you can do the best thing
you can do. You could do some research. If you're
a tech savvy and you like to get on the internet,
you like to read blogs and forums and things like that,
(15:04):
go for it. There's a wealth of information out there.
If you're not so confident, you don't really know where
to start. You can engage someone to help you out,
so if you've got an employment consultant, they might be
able to help you. I believe there are people out
there now who offer their services as resume writers and
things like that, but really consider putting in things like
(15:25):
all of your work experience, whether it's paid or not.
If you've done volunteering, put that in there. That information
absolutely counts. It showcases the skills that you are actually using.
It showcases your commitment to your potential employer. So I
would absolutely recommend putting all that information in there. If
you don't have a really, really big resume, you can
put a little bit about work experience. You've had interests,
(15:46):
you might have those sorts of things. If you do
community involvement, I would absolutely recommend that. Keep it short though.
I think these days the recommendation is something like absolutely
no longer than say, 4 or 5 pages. Don't want
to be reading a document, especially for people who are
going for computer jobs, office jobs and things like that.
It's a great way to show you know how to
(16:06):
use the computer. You can format, you can spell, you
can do all those sorts of skills and it's a
great opportunity. This document will sell you if it's relevant,
if you've decided to put information in there, if it's
appropriate to disclose your vision impairment, you can do that
in your cover letter. You could even do it in
a sneaky way through your resume. For example, if you've
done a lot of work in the blind and low
(16:28):
vision community and that's your volunteering work or your employment
and things, those sorts of things will show through in
your resume. So these are all ways that you can
showcase yourself and your brand and what it is that
you're going to be offering to the employer. So I'm
not sure if that helps, but.
S1 (16:44):
It certainly does. No, absolutely. I think that's not that
question out of the park, but how can somebody confidently
approach interviews once they've sent in that resume and cover
letter and somebody's gotten back to them and said, hey,
you know, this is fantastic, we'd love to catch up
with you to discuss things further. What's the best way
(17:05):
for them to approach that and ensure their accessibility needs
are also met in the workplace.
S3 (17:12):
That's another great question though, Sam. So there's a couple
of things that I would really encourage the job seeker
to consider here. First of all, congratulations. You know, somebody's
seen your worth on your resume and they want to
come meet you. So which is that's an amazing thing.
Now the next step, I would say for me personally,
it's preparation. I want to consider the interview itself. So
(17:33):
where am I going? Who will I be meeting? What
kind of environment? How am I going to get there?
Do I need to let them know I'm going to
need assistance in any way? Do they need to accommodate? So,
for example, some testing while I'm there, maybe a typing
speed test or something like that. These are things to
consider to think ahead for your interview. Now, you're probably
(17:54):
going to know a lot of this already because you've
applied for the job. So you should hopefully know your
employer and things like that. So you probably have a
reasonably good idea of this prior. But once you've kind
of nailed down, yes, I'm going to be having that interview.
You want to consider how are you going to get there?
You know, you want to make sure you're turning up.
You're still looking professional. You're still dressed appropriately. You're not
ready faced in three hours late, that sort of thing.
(18:15):
So you really want to put some preparation into that
and really consider how can you make this a stress
free experience for you? So, for example, you know, you
might be choosing to go to work every day in
a public transport. That's great if it's appropriate for you
to go to the interview that way, that's great. You
might want to consider getting a lift there because it's
a pretty stressful thing. So think ahead. Really try and
(18:37):
plan what the environment might be like for you. How
are you going to cope best with it? I personally
know I get incredibly nervous when there's an interview, so
I while I might normally catch public transport to work
for an interview, I will actually get a lift so
that when I arrive I'm as calm as possible. So
just consider little things like that.
S1 (18:56):
And on that accessibility point, before we wrap up, there's
something important to note. There might be a bit of
a concern in people's mind about, oh, if I tell
people I have X and Y disability, they might think,
oh no, that'll be too expensive or we can't afford
to accommodate them. And nothing could be further from the truth.
(19:18):
I mean, we both know that there's quite a few
programs available out there and different little ways that people
can conduct a workplace assessment and make sure that the
workplace is accessible and that's subsidized and that's no cost
to the employer. And that's another important aspect for people
(19:38):
to be aware of. So they can go into the
interview and say, hey, this isn't going to cost you anything,
but this is what I need. I need a screen reader,
I need magnification, I need bits and pieces like that.
So I guess that's another important aspect for people to
be aware of, so they can go in with that
(19:59):
confidence to let their employer know, because some employers don't
know about that. They might just think, oh wow, that's fantastic.
That's really good. That's taken a bit of a lot
off our minds and it's made things easier for everybody.
So that's you know it's a win win.
S3 (20:15):
Yeah, absolutely. And I've totally used that to my advantage
when I've gone in for a job. For example, if
I go in and I think, oh, you know, I
have been in some professional industries so very meritus based
roles based on performance and things like that, and I
know that I'm up for it. So I've totally used
that to my advantage and been like, I can get.
For example, in my case I use Screen Reader. So,
you know, yes, you guys have to provide me with
(20:36):
a laptop. That's just part of what everybody needs to work.
I use jaws so I can access jaws through job access.
It's not going to cost you anything. You guys just
need to load that onto the computer. And you know,
I'm one for using humor in my self-advocacy. I find
that for, you know, in a lot of cases, I
find that people can take it a little better. So
I'm just like, well, I'll race you then, you know?
(20:57):
But we'll have a little bit of competition to see
who can get through that document first, you know? So yeah,
I'm quite proud of my speech sort of thing. So,
you know, I'll make a bit of a laugh, but
it's absolutely something you can use to your advantage, and
it can help to give you a little confidence boost
as well. Going in there and going, go, oh no, no, no,
this is not going to cost you anything. We can
do this through job access. We can do this through
disability employment services. You know, all these things. That's those
(21:19):
services are absolutely out there. And and you're right, a
lot of employers don't know especially smaller to medium sized employers.
They're just not aware. So you know we can help
ourselves and we can help the rest of the community
by letting people know.
S1 (21:31):
A huge thank you to Kimberly for joining us today.
What a fantastic session. I know, I certainly learned a lot.
So we hope you two have walked away with a
few new strategies to help you land your dream job.
This podcast is accessible on all major podcast platforms, so
remember to like, subscribe and share it with your friends.
(21:53):
Simply search for Vision Australia's The Career Path to find
this episode and the rest of the series. Kim, thank
you so much for your time today. It was just
so good to catch up with you and chat all
about the job search and employment process.
S3 (22:10):
Thanks for having me Sam. It was a pleasure.
Hi and welcome to season two of the Vision Australia podcast,
The Career Path. Today we're exploring some tips and tricks
to help you land your dream career. We'll cover different scenarios,
debunk common myths, and help you approach the hiring process
with confidence. I'm Sam Culley, your host and Vision Australia
(00:28):
Radio's community assistant for national programs. I'm thrilled to be
part of this series where we'll be helping people in
the blind and low vision community feel confident, capable, and
ready to crush it in their careers. This episode will
be recorded, so feel free to hit pause, take a breather,
(00:48):
and come back to it whenever works for you. You
can find all the episodes by searching Vision Australia's The
Career Path on your go to podcast platform. Today I'm
excited to be joined by Quality Living graduate Kimberley Kneen. Welcome, Kimberly.
S2 (01:06):
Hi, Sam. How are you?
S1 (01:08):
Not bad at all. Now, Kimberly, just to start off with,
what does a job search process involve and what unique
challenges or opportunities exist for people living with vision loss?
S3 (01:22):
So for most people, the job search is going to
be pretty much the same process as it is for
just about anybody who's looking for work. So decide what
you want to do. Get the qualifications or training that
you need. That sort of thing is all exactly the same.
I think though, some of the unique aspects of that
for blind and low vision job seekers is it's kind
of possibly more of a possibility to engage with our
(01:45):
disability community, sort of, you know, there's a lot of
people like to sort of work within the community to
support each other, and that's definitely something that I think
is often encouraged, because that lived experience is really it's helpful.
It's very it can be really useful for people to
help support each other within the community. But one of
the other things as well is that you can actually
engage with a disability employment consultant. So somebody who actually
(02:07):
has experience with helping people who are blind and low vision,
which is a really helpful service because I found when
I went mainstream through an employment service, it was really tricky.
They really struggled to know how to support me in
the kinds of jobs to support me to go for.
But when I went through disability employment consultant who actually
knew what it was like or had experience with people
with low vision or blindness, it was a much smoother process.
(02:29):
It was a lot more fulfilling. So that's one aspect
that is actually more it's a positive aspect, I would say.
That's been my experience. It's also one of the other
things as well, is whether or not you choose to
disclose your low vision beforehand, whether you need to, whether
you want to. That's something I know is quite unique
for a lot of job seekers who do experience low
vision or blindness. So that's one aspect I think is
(02:51):
quite unique for us in this community as well.
S1 (02:55):
Yeah, I'd definitely agree with that perspective about the different
disability employment services. And they do have that extra bit
of understanding and some of them do have lived experience
of disabilities, especially those of the job seekers they're working with.
And that just does give them that extra understanding and
(03:17):
really helps them point people in the right direction a
bit better than otherwise. But let's some have a bit
of a chat about shifting mindsets while people are in
the job seeking process, and they're getting a bit down
and a bit, got on a few rejections and it
is an uphill battle sometimes. But how can adopting a
(03:39):
growth mindset help someone pursue job opportunities and feel successful
and fulfilled in their career?
S3 (03:47):
That's a really interesting one. And I think a big
thing about this is, is remembering that you're not alone
in not knowing everything. For me, when I realized that
I didn't know everything, but neither did anybody else, that
made a really big impact on me, and I was
able to shift my mindset a little bit to kind
of go, right, well, it's okay to learn on the job.
It's okay not to know absolutely everything. When you're going
(04:09):
into the job. It's okay not to be an absolute expert.
Most of us actually aren't an expert, especially sort of
early in the career, midway in the career. It's not
something that I think a lot of people realise that
we do allow it to hold ourselves back to go.
And do I know enough do am I ready to
do this? And I think that's important to kind of go, right. Well,
(04:29):
not everybody knows and it's good. It's a good thing
to learn on the job. And if anything, you can
mold yourself to the career or the job that you've
chosen to do. And they can also do the same
for you. They can mould you to be the best
worker for them as well, if that's something you're willing
to do. So I think shifting mindsets is it can
be quite a positive experience. It doesn't have to be
quite as negative as some people think.
S1 (04:50):
And how can jobseekers with vision loss overcome the fear
of not being hired? And what steps can they take
to showcase their strengths to potential employers?
S3 (05:01):
That's a good one. So if we break that down
into a couple of different things. So to start with,
by showcasing your skills to employers like think outside of
the traditional box. So traditionally we sort of say what
we would get a job and then we get to
no experience and we kind of go from there. You know,
there's other options. You can volunteer, you can do internships
and graduate programs depending on what careers you want to
(05:24):
go into. These things are out there to give you
some experience. You could try something like a mentoring program.
Those sorts of things I think can be helpful to
kind of really showcase the fact that you're actually quite
capable of doing the job. And this is the other
thing as well, is I'm talking from my own experience.
Confidence grows when you see yourself making some small successes,
(05:45):
and then you can build on those. So doing a
little bit of work experience and volunteering, finding a way
to actually do that thing that you want to be
able to showcase that you can do, gives you that
confidence in seeing yourself actually doing that, which will then help,
I think, to shift your mindset to say, well, no, no,
I can do this. And so really, I've just got
(06:05):
to find that person who says, yeah, I'll give you
a go because I can see that you can do that.
So I think just doing it, thinking outside the box
and finding a way to do it, even if it's
not in the traditional way, goes a long way towards
shifting your own mindset of, yeah, I can do this,
and I can show people that I can do this.
S1 (06:23):
Certainly. And a lot of that is around, you know,
people who are just starting off in their careers. They're
trying to get a bit of that foothold and forge
a bit of a path and decide what sort of
path they want to go down and pick that path
and follow it and all that sort of thing. But
how can vision loss open up new career opportunities, and
(06:45):
what tools and accommodations make jobs across different industries accessible?
S3 (06:51):
Okay, so there is a range of tools and technology
and things like that out there these days. It really
make jobs more accessible depending on what you're doing. So
things like screen readers have revolutionized how we can access
computers over the years. Somebody who can't see the computer,
it's no longer an issue. You can use something like
screen readers, jaws, Nvda. All of those sorts of things
(07:13):
can be loaded on so you can access computers just
like sighted colleagues can. There's a whole range of things.
There's apps, there's technology. You can access services through organisations
such as Vision Australia for workplace assessments and things like that.
To be able to go into a workplace or if
you've had a change in your vision, your current workplace
and things to really kind of find out what accommodations
(07:35):
might be useful for you, whether it is okay. Right.
I need to move to using a magnifying system on
the computer, or I need to move to using a
screen reading system on the computer. And these things are
available to us. There's different pathways. You can if you've
engaged through a disability employment consultant, they can help you
to access a workplace assessment. They can help you to
access programs, funding programs like job access, where you can
(07:57):
get some of these tools to help you maintain a career.
If you're already in the workforce and you've had some
changes and you need some accommodations nowadays. So there is
places to go for those sorts of assistance.
S1 (08:10):
And this next point, it's about people, job seekers out
there or people who've gone through employment programs and those
sorts of things. They might have heard the phrase job
readiness or being job ready. So what does being job
ready really look like? And how can someone overcome that
common mindset of I need to develop more skills before
(08:33):
I try? I'm not quite ready. I don't know if
I want to jump into this sort of thing. I'm
not quite sure what sort of tools would be best
to overcome that.
S3 (08:43):
Yeah, that's a great one, Sam, because I think job ready.
Nobody really knows, do they? It's so subjective.
S1 (08:51):
It is certainly.
S3 (08:52):
Yeah. I know for myself, every time I've gone for
a new job or a career change or something like that,
it's like, oh, can I do this? Am I ready
to do this? I think there's a couple of things.
Knowing what you want to do, hopefully you've done the
research into what qualifications or trainings you might actually have.
So hopefully you've got those already. But I mean, once
you've done those, it's about having self-confidence. And I know
(09:12):
that can be really tricky for people, especially people who
are kind of used to being told no, to sit
there and go, well, I want to advocate for myself
and say that I can do this, and I know
I can do this, and I've done this training and
I've done, you know, whatever it is that you've actually
needed to do. Job ready is such a subjective thing
because I think everybody, whether they have a vision impairment
(09:32):
or not, at some point, a lot of people feel
something along the lines of imposter syndrome. Can I be
doing this? Should I be doing this? I'm sure somebody
else could be doing this better. But the whole point
of the growth mindset that we were previously talking about,
I believe, is that if you go in with confidence,
you go in with honesty and negotiate it with your manager,
your employer and say, I want to do this, let's
(09:54):
do this together. I'm confident I have this skills, these trainings.
I can do this according to your position description. I
can definitely do these things. I feel, you know, I
might not be confident. You know, I'd love to be supported,
continue with my professional development, those sorts of things. But
I definitely I believe very, very strongly that employers and
employees can grow together because as I said, you know,
(10:17):
job ready is so subjective. I think if you want
that job, then you're job ready, provided you've obviously got
the training that's required. You wouldn't want to be doing
electrical work if you don't have your electrical license. So,
you know.
S1 (10:29):
Those.
S3 (10:29):
Sorts of things.
S1 (10:30):
Within reason. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it's interesting. You say
job ready subjective and people might feel job ready. They'll
jump into a certain job, they'll do it for a
little while and think, oh, this isn't quite for me.
This isn't what I was hoping it would be. This
isn't really what it was cracked up to be, but
(10:52):
now I have a bunch of transferable skills that I
can use to pivot to another area of the workforce,
and that's where matching jobs to skills really comes in.
And having those transferable skills and different things that they
can do so. How can people adapt both their current
(11:13):
and pre vision loss skills to the workplace and identify
new opportunities to use their strengths?
S3 (11:21):
That's a good one. And it's a really good point
Sam that you've brought up that so many of our
skills pre and post vision loss are transferable. And to
be fair with you, Sam, it's something that when I
went back into the workforce after losing my sight, I
hadn't actually considered this. I really hadn't given any thought
(11:41):
to the skills that I had prior to losing my vision,
and how that I still have those skills, and maybe
a few of them. I needed to find different ways
to implement them. For example, I knew how to use
a computer, but I could no longer read the screen.
So I had to learn a screen reading program so
that I could go back to using the computer. Once
I knew how to use that screen reading program, it
(12:01):
was super easy for me to relearn modern computers. It
had been about ten years for me, so it's really
important to kind of get creative with recognizing what you've
done before and how you can use those same skills,
post vision loss and going back into the workforce. It's
amazing when you really sit down and think about it,
how many of our skills are actually transferable? I did
(12:24):
a really interesting experiment when I went back into the workforce,
and I kind of to meet my colleagues, I went
around and I asked them, what's the thing that you
love the most? What's the thing that you don't love?
And what's the thing that you thought you were going
to do when you left school? And it was really
interesting how very, very different every role was. Every person was.
And do you know what, Sam? Absolutely. Nobody was in
(12:46):
the role that they thought they had set out for
themselves as a career path, but they had, in actual fact,
used all of those skills and transferred them to other
roles and other career paths. So it was really interesting
to realize just how transferable our skills can be. And
I actually encourage you, if you can't think of them yourself,
it's really it can be hard to think about it
for ourselves and kind of think, oh, I'm good at
(13:07):
this or I'm good at that. Especially here in Australia.
We don't really like to pump ourselves up too much.
But ask your friends. Ask someone you trust. Ask the
people around you. What do they know as your strengths?
What do they know as skills that you are really
capable in, and kind of brainstorm other ways that those
same skills can be used. And I found that to
be quite helpful for me to realize, hey, I do
(13:29):
have the skills. And that gave me some confidence. Then
I started to use them and then it sort of
snowballed from there.
S1 (13:35):
Well, Kim, that's where the next topic comes in, where,
you know, you have to sell yourself and put yourself
out there and say, hey, I'm good at X, Y,
and Z. Here's why you should hire me. And it's
a huge topic. It's creating a job application, an effective
job application. And people may not have done that for years.
(13:58):
They might have been in a job for however long
and forgotten. Oh, how do I do this? How do
I go through this process? Or they might just be
starting off and never written one before and thinking, oh
my God, where do I begin? But how can someone
with vision loss create a standout resume and cover letter
that effectively showcases their skills and adaptability?
S3 (14:22):
That is so true. It is a very hard skill
to do to be able to go, oh, I need
to create this document that's going to sell me. And
how do I do that? Okay. So I just want
to start with, for people who are starting out, I
recommend when you've got a basic resume, keep adding to
it throughout your career, even if you're not using it
at the things you're doing in, add your skills in there.
(14:44):
Keep it up to date. Keep it current. So I
just want to put that right at the start. If
especially for people who are starting out partway through, start
doing it now. Keep it going. It makes it easier.
That's what I found. Another one is okay, so there's
a couple of ways you can do the best thing
you can do. You could do some research. If you're
a tech savvy and you like to get on the internet,
you like to read blogs and forums and things like that,
(15:04):
go for it. There's a wealth of information out there.
If you're not so confident, you don't really know where
to start. You can engage someone to help you out,
so if you've got an employment consultant, they might be
able to help you. I believe there are people out
there now who offer their services as resume writers and
things like that, but really consider putting in things like
(15:25):
all of your work experience, whether it's paid or not.
If you've done volunteering, put that in there. That information
absolutely counts. It showcases the skills that you are actually using.
It showcases your commitment to your potential employer. So I
would absolutely recommend putting all that information in there. If
you don't have a really, really big resume, you can
put a little bit about work experience. You've had interests,
(15:46):
you might have those sorts of things. If you do
community involvement, I would absolutely recommend that. Keep it short though.
I think these days the recommendation is something like absolutely
no longer than say, 4 or 5 pages. Don't want
to be reading a document, especially for people who are
going for computer jobs, office jobs and things like that.
It's a great way to show you know how to
(16:06):
use the computer. You can format, you can spell, you
can do all those sorts of skills and it's a
great opportunity. This document will sell you if it's relevant,
if you've decided to put information in there, if it's
appropriate to disclose your vision impairment, you can do that
in your cover letter. You could even do it in
a sneaky way through your resume. For example, if you've
done a lot of work in the blind and low
(16:28):
vision community and that's your volunteering work or your employment
and things, those sorts of things will show through in
your resume. So these are all ways that you can
showcase yourself and your brand and what it is that
you're going to be offering to the employer. So I'm
not sure if that helps, but.
S1 (16:44):
It certainly does. No, absolutely. I think that's not that
question out of the park, but how can somebody confidently
approach interviews once they've sent in that resume and cover
letter and somebody's gotten back to them and said, hey,
you know, this is fantastic, we'd love to catch up
with you to discuss things further. What's the best way
(17:05):
for them to approach that and ensure their accessibility needs
are also met in the workplace.
S3 (17:12):
That's another great question though, Sam. So there's a couple
of things that I would really encourage the job seeker
to consider here. First of all, congratulations. You know, somebody's
seen your worth on your resume and they want to
come meet you. So which is that's an amazing thing.
Now the next step, I would say for me personally,
it's preparation. I want to consider the interview itself. So
(17:33):
where am I going? Who will I be meeting? What
kind of environment? How am I going to get there?
Do I need to let them know I'm going to
need assistance in any way? Do they need to accommodate? So,
for example, some testing while I'm there, maybe a typing
speed test or something like that. These are things to
consider to think ahead for your interview. Now, you're probably
(17:54):
going to know a lot of this already because you've
applied for the job. So you should hopefully know your
employer and things like that. So you probably have a
reasonably good idea of this prior. But once you've kind
of nailed down, yes, I'm going to be having that interview.
You want to consider how are you going to get there?
You know, you want to make sure you're turning up.
You're still looking professional. You're still dressed appropriately. You're not
ready faced in three hours late, that sort of thing.
(18:15):
So you really want to put some preparation into that
and really consider how can you make this a stress
free experience for you? So, for example, you know, you
might be choosing to go to work every day in
a public transport. That's great if it's appropriate for you
to go to the interview that way, that's great. You
might want to consider getting a lift there because it's
a pretty stressful thing. So think ahead. Really try and
(18:37):
plan what the environment might be like for you. How
are you going to cope best with it? I personally
know I get incredibly nervous when there's an interview, so
I while I might normally catch public transport to work
for an interview, I will actually get a lift so
that when I arrive I'm as calm as possible. So
just consider little things like that.
S1 (18:56):
And on that accessibility point, before we wrap up, there's
something important to note. There might be a bit of
a concern in people's mind about, oh, if I tell
people I have X and Y disability, they might think,
oh no, that'll be too expensive or we can't afford
to accommodate them. And nothing could be further from the truth.
(19:18):
I mean, we both know that there's quite a few
programs available out there and different little ways that people
can conduct a workplace assessment and make sure that the
workplace is accessible and that's subsidized and that's no cost
to the employer. And that's another important aspect for people
(19:38):
to be aware of. So they can go into the
interview and say, hey, this isn't going to cost you anything,
but this is what I need. I need a screen reader,
I need magnification, I need bits and pieces like that.
So I guess that's another important aspect for people to
be aware of, so they can go in with that
(19:59):
confidence to let their employer know, because some employers don't
know about that. They might just think, oh wow, that's fantastic.
That's really good. That's taken a bit of a lot
off our minds and it's made things easier for everybody.
So that's you know it's a win win.
S3 (20:15):
Yeah, absolutely. And I've totally used that to my advantage
when I've gone in for a job. For example, if
I go in and I think, oh, you know, I
have been in some professional industries so very meritus based
roles based on performance and things like that, and I
know that I'm up for it. So I've totally used
that to my advantage and been like, I can get.
For example, in my case I use Screen Reader. So,
you know, yes, you guys have to provide me with
(20:36):
a laptop. That's just part of what everybody needs to work.
I use jaws so I can access jaws through job access.
It's not going to cost you anything. You guys just
need to load that onto the computer. And you know,
I'm one for using humor in my self-advocacy. I find
that for, you know, in a lot of cases, I
find that people can take it a little better. So
I'm just like, well, I'll race you then, you know?
(20:57):
But we'll have a little bit of competition to see
who can get through that document first, you know? So yeah,
I'm quite proud of my speech sort of thing. So,
you know, I'll make a bit of a laugh, but
it's absolutely something you can use to your advantage, and
it can help to give you a little confidence boost
as well. Going in there and going, go, oh no, no, no,
this is not going to cost you anything. We can
do this through job access. We can do this through
disability employment services. You know, all these things. That's those
(21:19):
services are absolutely out there. And and you're right, a
lot of employers don't know especially smaller to medium sized employers.
They're just not aware. So you know we can help
ourselves and we can help the rest of the community
by letting people know.
S1 (21:31):
A huge thank you to Kimberly for joining us today.
What a fantastic session. I know, I certainly learned a lot.
So we hope you two have walked away with a
few new strategies to help you land your dream job.
This podcast is accessible on all major podcast platforms, so
remember to like, subscribe and share it with your friends.
(21:53):
Simply search for Vision Australia's The Career Path to find
this episode and the rest of the series. Kim, thank
you so much for your time today. It was just
so good to catch up with you and chat all
about the job search and employment process.
S3 (22:10):
Thanks for having me Sam. It was a pleasure.
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