Unless you're interested in applying your statistics knowledge to the military industrial complex or AI market, I'd probably recommend diversifying a bit. My honest $0.02.
Six months later and I am still without a job.
How have those of you with disabilities overcome the difficulties in this market?
I'm totally lost and don't know how to proceed.
I've rewritten my resume and do get interviews
There were 4 instances where I went through the entire process and they ended up hiring another one of the candidates
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abraham-mathew-21221b29/
Unless you're interested in applying your statistics knowledge to the military industrial complex or AI market, I'd probably recommend diversifying a bit. My honest $0.02.
All this is to say, GenAI is booming but there's competing factors going on for businesses to hire.
Also a different take, look for contract jobs. As with (1) above, my company isn't hiring FT but they're open to contractors.
I wish you luck.
This is exactly the same approach anyone else should take. Good luck.
You know this I’m sure. But most people don’t know that CP affects different people differently. I have left hemiparesis CP that really only affects my left hand and very slightly my left foot - i walk with a slight limp. But properly conditioned, I’ve run a 10 minute mile up to a 10k.
I’ve been working professionally since 1996 across 10 jobs from everything from startups, to boring enterprise jobs to BigTech and full time for consulting companies. My last three jobs have been remote as have been the interviews. No one had the slightest clue about my having CP since going remote.
Why do you think it’s your CP and not just the market sucking for everyone right now?
Why do you have that you are “physically disabled” on you LinkedIn profile? Don’t do that. You are giving people a reason to discriminate against you unlawfully.
Second point: if you are just blindly submitting your resume to job sites/ATS’s you have already lost. I’m very credentialed in my field and I heard crickets from fire bombing my resume in 2023 and last year when I was looking for a job back to back. But that was my plan C while I was going through the interview processes based on my network and a targeted outreach where I had the exact set of skills and specialized experience that were looking for and responding to inbound recruiters.
But if your skillset is generic, you have to lean on your network, every open req gets hundreds of applications within a couple of days - LinkedIn shows you.
I don't the interviews are going bad... it's just super competitive so companies have so many options on who to hire
I think once IRS section 174 is overturned the market will get better.
Same thing as a person with a social-emotional disability - get screwed. I'm being pushed out of an early career role even though I'm overqualified and producing similar numbers as my peers. I'll end up working at Walmart. Good luck.
What I’m saying here is that (a) your time in the market isn’t absurd for this current economy, and (b) it’s also not provably due to your disability so don’t go blaming that without proof or you’ll talk yourself into giving up. Shits HARD right now man just keep trying and focus hard on networking and referrals. It seems the only way to get a job right now
If you have the skills, please do your best to keep applying them at a new job
It's really important not to let this wear you down and defeat you. You're worth it
There has to be a hand-in-glove fit to the team for these roles to be effective, which means interviews often get delayed because someone key can't be there... then later, another key person is out, and the cycle turns into a crisis and finally interviews happen and the role gets filled.
But, as you know, AI has seriously cut into your niche and hiring has been very minimal for over a year in data-related roles. Non-data people can do so much more with the help of an AI that can read CSV output from common data sources that I'm seeing people get more benefit from directly being able to work with the sources themselves and ask questions rather than get a report made from the BI team.
I would consider widening your search into other domains, adding AI to your workflow and make it front-and-center.
I clicked on your LinkedIn profile and you are wearing the most casual outfit I have ever seen on a LinkedIn profile, so I would consider finding or taking a photograph that looks like a typical job seeker. I would then remove any recent activity from my profile: without logging in, your first post is about difficulties you are facing and the third is a "hot take" that some companies would not appreciate. I'd cut all personal information that wouldn't get me hired.
Lastly, I'd make a more memorable and higher resolution main graphic. Right now, if this is an example of the quality of your work output, it is very blurry on my 15" laptop and doesn't give a great impression in that regard. None of this is a complaint or attack - I heard your desire for input and am sharing my feedback as a person who has been in hiring roles for 2 decades.
Yes, it is this and not likely related to your abilities or disabilities so much as the natural flow and quality of the interview.
Having interviewed a lot of people, some candidates really make an awesome impression and stand out. If we don't have one of those stand-out, hire-them-now candidates, we don't hire. So I would work on being the person they can't wait to send an offer to -- in addition to skillset, this most often comes down to charm, a sense of "getting it" or clicking with the overall role/company, reading the room, and excellent natural back-and-forth, which is super hard over video calls.
The key here is numbers. In a tough market, you probably need 10 interviews to get hired. Figure out what got you those first few interviews and lean in and make many more happen. You'll find the people you click with and your experience of going to multiple interviews will give you great practice in the meantime.
You can also try pivoting to something adjacent like data engineering and I've read a few people had luck by focusing a lot of time/energy on companies they like as opposed to specific positions/roles, but I'm not sure how well that would work because I've never tried it.
Please don’t tell me you are one of the “allies” making sure we engage in “right speak”.
Network did not get me enough interviews. I think this was fatal. Resume blasting is useless but I only kept doing it to not feel the despair of "doing nothing" each day, that was the only purpose. Menial jobs in-person just tell me to apply online
I got rejected from Walmart and related jobs (stocking/janitorial/cashier) even hiding/dumbing down all my tech experience. And it's been going on for months
Paid too much for therapy and insurance.
I now believe the market has concluded that they aren't looking for someone with my skills, too generic or something. Too intelligent for minimum wage, not skilled enough for industry. I work on certs but I figure what's the point if it isn't the difference between interview or no interview, a literal phone screen (setting aside an actual offer). It costs money and I'm following in the footsteps of an industry that offers me no path forward to survival. I have specifically been rejected on the basis of my employment gap regardless of explanation, all the shit I've attempted to make up for it. It's meaningless punishment for already being unemployable
Persistence is the key, but at some point you just gotta admit to yourself that enough is enough and no amount of screaming at a wall will change reality. I needed a win at some point, but I didn't get anything, zero. Lamenting the death of my career daily. This is not a feeling you can medicate or counsel away. Have all but accepted that homelessness is approaching for me and I'll soon have to downsize my life goals
But not seeing that profile myself, and assuming you don’t look like dogshit, the rest of the above advice definitely rings true. “Difficulties” and “hot takes” sound like the profile directs someone’s first impression of you in a sour direction. With LI it’s all about conformity and optimism.
Also, it helps, in my experience, to be incredibly up front. "This is my diagnosis. This is the prognosis. Here are my achievements." You shouldn't have to reveal anything, and certainly no one can ask, but it breaks the ice.
Assuming it doesn't affect your typing, develop a shtick in case your Cerebral Palsy comes up in an interview, maybe say something that people could consider humorous such as: "It doesn't affect my ability (analyze etc) and (type out reports etc). If Usain Bolt had to run a race using his fingers, he would have to get used to being in second place behind me (and smile showing it's okay to laugh)"
You mentioned you use a walker, would a wheelchair (just for in-person interviews) be doable? I think people are less likely to be negatively judged for using a wheelchair than a walker. Seeing a younger person in a wheelchair is far more common than seeing a younger person use a walker. Seeing something strange (uncommon) will be treated negatively subconsciously. If you can locomote faster in a wheelchair, than people will subconsciously equate that with your ability to work faster, especially if you can roll faster than other people can walk.
If you do the wheelchair thing, and you get a job working in-person, use the wheelchair for a week or two, but tell people a white-lie such as your doctor says you can transition to a walker in the next week or two, which will help strengthen your leg muscles. Always spin stuff positively. That way when your coworkers see you using a walker, they will be supportive and think positively to themselves rather than thinking how terrible that must be.
(Just be sure to have a complete backstory ready to go for things like when people ask, how long have you been in a wheelchair. Or maybe have a reason why the wheelchair was just temporary and you used a walker beforehand.)
Hmmm... Would that be considered a "hack" good enough for Y Combinator's application? It's been a few years since I looked at their application.
1. No don’t say some lame joke
2. Any company that even asks about your disability during a job is a red flag. The company is unprofessional and doesn’t know how to interview.
3. You only have so much time to impress people during an interview. Don’t waste time talking about it. Besides no company with any interview training will talk about a disability during an interview.
You admitted that you don’t know anything about cerebral palsy. Just sit this one out.
Should UCP (https://ucp.org/) change its name?
So this is the same performative “allyship” BS that I found disgusting when I worked at BigTech (I am very much a minority, FWIW).
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cp
And Easter Seal - an organization to help the disabled (including me when I was a child), uses the abbreviation “CP”
https://cpfamilynetwork.org/resources/resources-guide/easter...
And the abbreviation is used by Easter Seal - the very organization that helps people with disabilities - including me when I was a child in the 80s.
https://cpfamilynetwork.org/resources/resources-guide/easter...
OP, if you're not already, perhaps join some communities for people with Cerebral Palsy and ask them. As the comment I'm replying to makes obvious, we might be too out of touch to provide advice.
I suppose it also depends on your attitude. People can have different attitudes about the exact same affliction, and get experience different outcomes because of the difference in their attitudes.
Like, it’s clear to me that someone on an executive/salesy biz dev brand will probably present best with a professional studio headshot in a suit. That’s the look. But then someone who is being hired to say, code, that same choice may give off the wrong vibe.
Reason why I’m pointing it out is that on LI folks will over-compensate. You’ll see kids presenting themselves with magazine cover headshots that sort of thing.
So yeah, conformity matters - but it’s very context specific and nuanced. It’s worth asking the question who is looking at this and what should they think at first glance? What are the values?
OTOH I did get a sales gig a while back and I do look good in my profile. So I’m not advocating bad photos. You should simply look like someone everyone would like to work with and get along. I used a bright city-vacation photo in which I look happy because I really am happy.
But if I were to get a higher position, more responsibility, then a serious conservative professional studio photo might become more appropriate.
It matters for people like OP who are already at a disadvantage. Yes this may not matter to many who are privileged to have a great job and do great work and their employer may not care. But when you are asking to be hired by another company and they don't know how great you are, you need to be presentable in a professional setting.
Overall, we need to stop normalizing being too casual in professional setting. Yes, even as Software Engineers. If all things are equal, I will always pick someone who cares about looking professional for work than not.
Easy to say when you may be employed and have a good job. Tell that to OP who is looking for every possible way to get an interview with an employer.
Appearances absolutely matter in a professional setting and even though it should not be the 1st criteria to select someone, it is important.
Then you say you didn't see the profile. Why bother typing all that without even bothering to click? Do you opine on everything you hear other people talking about without looking.
Seeking work puts people in a vulnerable spot and it can be intimidating when someone says “change this” and “change that”. “When I hire people blah blah blah”.
And I’ll take the downvotes over that - I’m not shaming or judging anyone for “bothering to type” something they think brings value into a conversation.
I recently had to endure a job search and did not have a “good job” for longer than I would like. So I’m speaking from recent experience of thinking about the appearances I give off.