The Wall Street Journal <\/p>\n
(Career Journal section) 7\/24\/08 <\/p>\n
at: http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB121666205789570827.html<\/p>\n
Support Grows for Disabled Job Seekers <\/p>\n
By SUZANNE ROBITAILLE <\/p>\n
Lucy Shi, a job seeker who has a genetic condition that causes short
\nstature, says she’s happy to be singled out as a disability candidate
\nas she hunts for a position in New York. <\/p>\n
A graduate of New York University, Ms. Shi, 25, recently interviewed
\nwith several Wall Street firms at a recruiting event geared toward
\npeople with disabilities who aim to develop professional business
\ncareers. “It’s hard to have a disability that’s so visible, and it’s
\njust nice to be able to talk to recruiters without competing with the
\nrest of the world,” says Ms. Shi, who believes many interviewers view
\nher as a child because of her height. <\/p>\n
There are 22 million working-age Americans with disabilities who have
\ncome of age under the Americans With Disabilities Act — passed 16
\nyears ago this month — which helps to prevent job discrimination
\nagainst qualified disabled individuals. But only 38% of the nation’s
\nworking-age disabled have a job, compared with 78% of able-bodied
\npeople. <\/p>\n
Over the past few years, companies have begun taking bigger steps to
\nbring more of the disabled into the professional work force. The
\nlatest effort is partly due to the efforts of Rich Donovan, a former
\nMerrill Lynch trader who has cerebral palsy, a disability that limits
\nhis speech and movement. <\/p>\n
Mr. Donovan recalls the resistance he met from many recruiters who
\nweren’t sure he was nimble enough to perform the physical aspects of a
\nbusy trader’s job. Even his mentors at Columbia University’s business
\nschool tried to talk him out of it, saying he’d make a “fine risk
\nmanager.” He was hired at Merrill and quickly hatched a plan to get
\nmore disabled people hired at the firm. <\/p>\n
Mr. Donovan’s idea was based on the premise that corporate America
\nshould recruit and give qualified people with disabilities the same
\nsort of opportunities that his firm — and most big companies —
\nalready had in place for minorities and women. <\/p>\n
Merrill agreed to give it a try, and in 2006 Mr. Donovan founded
\nLimeConnect, with the company as its first partner. Today, the
\norganization matches disabled college-level and professional
\ncandidates through private recruiting efforts led by its four major
\npartners: Merrill, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo and Google. Last fall, Lime
\nhelped its partners source more than 300 disabled internship
\ncandidates from two dozen universities, including Harvard, M.I.T.,
\nPrinceton and Georgetown. In May, Lime invited 60 candidates for job
\ninterviews in New York; at least a dozen have been invited back for
\nfurther interviews. <\/p>\n
It isn’t just a goodwill gesture, say Lime’s partner companies.
\n“There’s a business case for hiring people with disabilities. This is
\na market we need to, and want to, tap into as much as we can,” says
\nRon Parker, chief diversity and inclusion officer at PepsiCo. <\/p>\n
Corporations are casting a wider net for good reasons. With the labor
\npool shrinking, U.S. employers will face a shortage of 20 million
\nworkers by 2020 as baby boomers retire. What’s more, one out of every
\n10 consumers is a person with a disability, representing $200 billion
\nin annual buying power, according to the National Organization on
\nDisability in Washington. <\/p>\n
“We want to be an organization that reflects the globally diverse
\naudience that our search engine and tools serve,” says Jordan Bookey,
\nGoogle’s global-diversity and inclusion programs manager, who used
\nLime to find applicants for its new diversity summer internship
\nprogram. <\/p>\n
Building a disability candidate pipeline isn’t easy, as many
\ncompanies still lack a centralized talent pool from which to draw.
\nStill, companies can join corporate partnerships, such as Lime, or
\nbecome members of one of several nonprofit organizations geared toward
\nlinking disabled professionals with corporations. <\/p>\n
One group, the National Business & Disability Council,
\n(http:\/\/www.business-disability.com\/index.aspx) <\/p>\n
runs a diversity-internship program called Emerging Leaders. The
\nprogram was founded by consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and
\nnow has more than 30 corporate members, including AIG, KPMG, Liz
\nClaiborne and Procter & Gamble. It has placed 75 students in summer
\ninternships since 2005. <\/p>\n
Booz Allen’s efforts to hire people with disabilities began at the
\ntop: Its chairman and CEO, Ralph Shrader, has a son with disabilities.
\n“Finding a job — and gaining the significant benefits that come with
\nemployment — is difficult, but when the right opportunity comes
\ntogether, the rewards for the employee and the company are
\nextraordinary,” Dr. Shrader says. <\/p>\n
The group also hosts an annual invitation-only Wall Street job fair
\nfor candidates seeking jobs at financial-services firms, including
\nLehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs. Last fall, Merrill also hosted a
\nWall Street consortium with business and government leaders to explore
\nstrategies for recruiting and retaining people with disabilities. <\/p>\n
“We’re making an intellectual-capital decision,” says Elizabeth
\nWamai, head of global campus recruiting at Merrill. “To continue to
\nwin in this business, we need the creative eclectic approaches that
\ndifferent people bring.” <\/p>\n
Companies like KPMG say they also work to attract candidates by
\nchanging their workplace to include more professionals with
\ndisabilities. Creating an employee network for the disabled,
\nestablishing disabled-specific mentoring programs, or changing
\nbenefits to allow for time off for medical issues can make a
\ndifference. <\/p>\n
KPMG recently launched a disabilities network, and this year, Eastman
\nKodak, IBM and Pepsi all landed on DiversityInc’s Top 10 Companies for
\nPeople with Disabilities list in part because they run employee
\nnetworks geared toward disabilities. PepsiCo’s EnAble network gained
\nfame when it sponsored a Super Bowl commercial featuring two deaf
\nemployees.<\/p>\n
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The Wall Street Journal (Career Journal section) 7\/24\/08 at: http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB121666205789570827.html Support Grows for Disabled Job Seekers By SUZANNE ROBITAILLE Lucy Shi, a job seeker who has a genetic condition that causes short stature, says she’s happy to be singled out…<\/p>\n