2013-10-08-insights on employment 1 - hadley...

2013-10-08-Insights on Employment 1

Seminars@Hadley

Insights on Employment: Part One

Presented by David DeNotaris – National Council of State Agencies for the Blind

Moderated by Larry Muffet

October 8, 2013

Larry MuffetWelcome to seminars at Hadley my name is Larry Muffet, I’m a member of the seminars team and I also work in curricular affairs at the school. Seeing as October is national disability employment awareness month, in recognition of that, today’s seminar topic is insights on employment part one. Our presenter today is David DeNotaris. David is president of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind and he is the director of the Pennsylvania office of Vocational Rehabilitations Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services. Today David will be talking with some employment success stories and these individuals will share their insights on how they got hired and promoted, the challenges they had to

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overcome, and they will share some strategies for success. Without any further ado let me welcome David.

David DeNotarisI’d like to welcome everyone to our first installment of insights on employment and I’m so grateful to the Hadley school for the Blind for allowing us this wonderful opportunity to connect, to educate, to inform, to inspire, and to learn. My guest tonight is Scott White. Scott is the director of sponsored technology programs for the National Federation of the Blind. Many of you may be familiar with Scott’s work. Scott is responsible for NSB Newsline and I truly believe, I’ve been using NSB Newsline since 1995 and I have found it to be an exceptionally helpful tool in the experiences that I’ve enjoyed. I truly believe that it’s a wonderful tool for job seekers. We’re going to be talking about Newsline but I wanted to hear from Scott, I want to thank you for coming on tonight.

Scott WhiteThank you very much David for inviting me and thank you Hadley for having us.

David DeNotaris



So Scott can you tell me what does the director of sponsored technology do?

Scott WhiteMy primary responsibility at the National Federation of the Blind is basically the day to day operations of running Newsline. It could be working with the individual persons in the individual states that we work with, the state sponsors, the blindness agencies, the talking book agencies down to also working with the individual subscribers at times. Different teachers, going around to different parts of the country and promoting the service and talking about the features.

David DeNotarisSo you have a great computer background it sounds like, tell us about your computer background.

Scott WhiteWell I’ve been playing with computers for a long time and I’ll probably really make myself old if I tell you the first computer I had. It was back when they were first coming out with the desktop units back in the early 80s. My college degree is in business management and micro computer technology. I went to community college in Richmond, Virginia, for that. Then after I



graduated from that I went on to work. I may go ahead and start back with some of the jobs I’ve had. The first job I had was in high school, I was working at one of the local Ready Reading services there in Richmond. Basically as an announcer, studio technician was the title. I just basically worked with the volunteers and also helped make sure the programs went on at the right times and they sounded correct. Then later on I worked at a company called Access Technology which you may think had something to do with adaptive technology but it did not really until I got there and started training and selling on adaptive technology. In that particular position I worked my way up to sales manager. I’ve also sold investments, mutual funds, life insurance and things like that in the past. I worked my way around to a company that’s no longer with us anymore, Circuit City. I was an assistant and then a senior systems admin for them for ten years prior to coming to work for them,

David DeNotarisYou have a very interesting background. To back up just for a little bit, you’re totally blind, do you have any vision?

Scott White



I’ve always been legally blind. I’ve always had not 20/20 vision. During my early years during high school I was able to use some things large print and then that progressed to where I had to read braille. I could still see some when I was attending college but it was just shadows. Now it’s basically it’s hard for me to tell if a light is on in the room.

David DeNotarisThank you for sharing that. I wanted to ask you this, when you were speaking you said that you started working when you were in high school? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Scott WhiteI would’ve been about 16, the way that I found the job was actually a friend of mine who was moving on to another opportunity, they were roughly the same age. Around 16 or 17. They had the position, we both enjoyed that type of work with audio and things like that so I just went in and interviewed for the job because I knew he was moving on to another job opportunity and things just worked out from there.

David DeNotarisOnce again it’s really the network. You were plugged into a good network there, someone had some information for you. We find that it’s really a lot of



jobs are never even posted so by finding jobs through people that you know, that’s the hidden job market. Jobs that are never posted but someone says, “That job is going to become available, I know someone.” I appreciate you sharing that. So Scott it sounds like you had some vision, you continued to lose that vision and you said you went from large print to braille, that was a great transition. Can you tell me, did you ever get discouraged and if you did, tell me about that and tell me some strategies that you used to overcome the discouragement and continue to learn and work and grow?

Scott White Well, just like anyone you’re going to have natural periods of getting discouraged as you attempt any new skill and trying to move on with things like that in different phases of your life. I was just able to work with learning the braille. Really as far as any type of challenges there, probably the most challenged that is fortunately not great but better now for the school environment is access to textbooks. At the time I went to school that was the most challenging thing for me.

David DeNotarisI wanted to talk to you about you working in Circuit City. That was a fast paced company. Did you



encounter any challenges when you went to Circuit City? Did you have any obstacles that you had to overcome or challenges that you faced in a large corporation like that?



Scott WhiteThe first challenge was getting my foot in the door. It was a multi interview, you had two or three interviews to get through so I did that. When I went there at that time you didn’t have some of the technology that you can take with you now to make any computer talk so basically what I did was took my laptop, demonstrated to them that I could use a computer and one thing that I did to really help me get that job was I did different things for the state and so forth and I did these are a very minimal wage or I either did some volunteer work. That was very important because it was programming and I could actually put that on my resume and that was very impressive. I think it’s impressive to any employer when you have volunteer activity like that on your resume and show experience. I think it was doubly important to them that I had already demonstrated being a volunteer, I didn’t get any money for it, it gave me valuable work experience and experience with overcoming challenges. At Circuit City the challenges were numerous in dealing with the computer technology and figuring out ways to make it work. I moved up to the senior position level there in my job classification and I had several different nicknames that I got. It’s sort of when you’re in a job and you’re doing well, things are going great and everybody likes you, you sort of get nicknames. I got mine with everybody



else. There were a number of challenges there to try to get the computer system to necessarily do what I wanted it to do. Sometimes I had to spend extra time to go ahead and get manuals on certain things and get them scanned during the evening I would do that so I could go ahead and read up on the operating system and things I would be working on. It did take a little bit more diligence to go ahead and spend a little bit more time and put more effort into it but it certainly paid off.

David DeNotarisSome people might not have stuck it out. Did you have something that was driving you? Did you ever think, “This isn’t worth it?” Did you ever encounter any of that?

Scott WhiteI guess part of it is, yes of course you would feel that way, but it’s not in my personality to give up like that. Certain parts of challenges, in trying to figure out a computer program and all its different parts and so forth that’s an obstacle to overcome in itself. In trying to get the computer to do that it’s just another set of obstacles that I had to figure out. For example there was information that people could obtain from a visual program. You could obtain the same information by using the command line interface but nobody used



the command line interface. A lot of times people found they’d come to me and say, “Oh you can do this better and faster?” Looking and being able to use the graphical interface, that was true at one time. I became just like one of the other folks working there and it was a repository, and a lot of people would come to me and ask questions.

David DeNotarisScott you got the job done. I meet a lot of people and talk to a lot of employers and I’ve done job development and job coaching and run job clubs, it really comes down to this. Employers really have two questions that they really need answered when you’re on an interview but legally can’t ask. Those two questions are one, how are you going to get here? An employer is sitting there thinking, “How is this guy or girl with the white cane going to get here on time?” How are they going to get here and then two, once you get here how are you going to do the work? Those are two questions they need answered but they legally can’t ask. As people who are blind if we don’t on a job interview clearly articulate, “I can take #26 bus or I’m going to carpool or I’m going to do this, I took the #26 bus it let me off at the corner of Broad and Market at 7:28 AM and I was able to walk up the street, it took me 18 minutes to walk here so clearly



I’m here before 8:00 AM.” “Oh okay, wow. You can take the bus.”

Or #2, once you get here how are you going to do the work, being able to articulate that I use a variety of assistive technology. I use Jaws, I use a program called Jaws which is a screen reader program, I use this software program that allows me to enlarge a screen, I use this software program that allows me to convert documents. “Oh that’s very interesting.” I had an employer say to me one day, “Dave I’m sorry I’d love to hire some of your folks but I just can’t afford to have someone sit next to a blind person and read them the computer all day.” I said, “Luckily for us you don’t have to do that.” I opened up my laptop and showed her my screen reader and Excel and she was like, “I had no idea!” I think a lot of times informational interviews are great ways to inform ourselves of what type of jobs are in the company an what’s going on but also to inform employers about the potential of individuals with disabilities as well as the potential of assistive technology. During your introduction you said you travel all over the country and talk to different libraries and funders of the program, can you please tell us as a blind person how do you travel? Airports? Trains? What do you do?

Scott White



Most of my travel is on an airplane. For example, coming up in a couple of weeks I have to make another trip to one of the states. The airport, where the destination is in the state is probably about two hours away. There is no really good transportation in between the cities and the state, between major cities. A lot of states are getting that way now with bus transportation, et cetera. What I’m having to do is I’m going to be taking an airplane to one of the major cities and then hired a local driver that I had references on that I can use who will drive me to the city I need to go to. You just have to learn to be creative and problem solve. As far as getting around with a particular airport, getting around being in a strange environment like when you go to the hotel or anything else, the #1 challenge is in your head. Of course you need good skills, everybody needs to go through a training center and get good skills. Part of that is building your confidence and a lot of that is in your head because it’s a lot, just go ahead and give it a try. If you hear a person around and you need to ask a question like which way is this or that, there is no shame in that. Just ask and keep on going. That’s the idea with that. Basically you just do the best you can. I haven’t had a problem yet, I haven’t missed an airplane yet. I do allow myself time, extra time, in case I need it. If I ever were to need to explore the areas or get lost, getting lost sometimes is part of



learning about your environment as well. I just allow myself extra time, that’s the main factor.

David DeNotarisScott thank you, we’ve spent some time learning about you and some of the experiences that you’ve had that have helped shape the person you are today. I’d like to talk about Newsline for a little bit. I ask you this, can Newsline serve as a tool for job seekers? If so how?

Scott WhiteMost definitely. I’d describe Newsline as an audio information service. The main focus tonight is on employment but also NFB Newsline provides, right now we have 370 publications on the system. We’ve got newspapers, magazines, TV listings, the one thing of interest this evening is going to be job listings. There are hundreds of thousands of job listings and you as a blind person can navigate all these job listings independently. There is nobody having to read you the job ads or anything like that. We used the website Career Builder and you go through and it’s all done on your touchtone telephone. It starts with your zip code then it’s going to ask you what type of category you’re looking in, maybe something in



banking? Something in information technology? Something in finance? There are about 55 or 60 categories. Once you pick that then it’s going to go ahead and ask you such things like your educational level, do you have a high school diploma, do you have two years of college, four years of college? Then it’s going to ask you other questions like the salary range you’re looking for. You can make it a very detailed search or you can just say give me all the jobs in a certain category in the zip code you enter.

David DeNotarisVery good. Would we be able to sample or hear how people could look for a job?

Scott WhiteWhat I’ll have to do is put the microphone up close to the speaker, we can go ahead and shortly give that a try. Let me go ahead and dial into NFB Newsline. We’re going to go pretty quickly here we’re stopped at the main menu now so I’m going to press the 9 key, that will take me into job listings. Okay, it’s asking me for my zip code so I’m going to put that in. I’m going to search a different search distance, I press 2. Now I’m going to put in my miles. Okay I’m going to continue here. Here’s all the categories I was talking about. Okay, I’m going to go ahead and press 16.



I’m going to go through these other options. This is how you specify the salary range. You can also specify a job phrase in there, you can enter this on the phone. I passed that. Okay, now what I’ve done is created a job profile. That’s the profile setup so I’m going to press 1. View jobs, I’m going to press 2. Okay so now what it’s doing is it’s going through and it’s going to take it a few minutes to go ahead and search and get the jobs. Okay. It found 312 jobs. Okay now what it’s going to do is it’s going through the job description and it’s going to read that and it’s going to read the description of the job, it’s going to read the salary of the job, a lot of different information about the company perhaps, a lot of different information about the job. The way that I apply for that is I go ahead and do a #9. That will email me the job and then once I get the email, the email will have a link that I can go and click on and press enter on and then it will take me to a form where I can attach my resume and fill out whatever information the employer is requesting.

David DeNotarisThat is very cool. So you can go in and do a search by your location or you could put in I guess any zip code if you were thinking about moving to another state you could put in your zip code, you could go through all the different job categories, you can then



say how far you’re willing to travel from that and then it brings up a list of job categories then you select a job category then it brings up a list of jobs that match your profile and then you can have that emailed to you or emailed to your vocational rehabilitation counselor?

Scott WhiteYes that’s the way it works. One important thing to cover is on Newsline with any of the content but with our job listings here as well you don’t have to listen to the entire announcement. If you just hear a couple sentences of that job and you know it’s not for you then you press the 3 button and move on to the next one. Then you’re pressing 3, going through the different job listings and you find one that you really want. Well you can do the #9 and go ahead and have it sent to you but let’s say that you just want to save it on the system for later review, you can go ahead and save that as well. It’s a great thing because as soon as a job appears on Career Builder we have access to that, we pull directly from the website at the moment that you request the information. So as a job comes on the system on Career Builder it’s available on Newsline. When one expires and goes off of Career Builder it’s not available to you anymore.



David DeNotarisAlright, so that’s job listings. I think it’s also a really good idea Scott to mention on NFB Newsline just reading your local business section every day or reading the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the Economist. The information is there, I’m a firm believer that access equals success and that we have more access to more information than we ever did. Information is power and being able to…I know I was reading an article about a restaurant opening up in the area and I knew someone was looking for a job and I happened to mention, “Hey I heard that this restaurant was opening up,” “Really? No I didn’t hear that when is it opening up, I had no idea!” I told them and they called, they got an interview and they’re working at that restaurant. Information is power. We can access information from major publications like the Wall Street Journal, like major magazines like the Economist. Reading your local newspaper, I’m a firm believer that readers are leaders and the more you learn the more you earn. Being able to access information like this is just tremendous Scott. We’re very grateful to the NFB Newsline team for continuing to develop this tool that not only helps people learn about information in their area but helps them find jobs. Larry, is it possible for us to take any questions? If anyone has any?



Larry MuffetAbsolutely I was going to suggest that very thing. What we can do is Albert has a question from the text box and I’ll relay that on and then we can turn loose the microphone and basically people can jump in if they’ve got questions and we’ve got time. Albert asks the question what phone number do you call for the NFB Newsline?

Scott WhiteThe phone number that you would need to call to get more information about NFB Newsline and also get the details on how you could sign up would be 866-504-7300. If you’re able to use the web you can go and fill in the application right now. It’s nfbnewsline.org.

Larry MuffetI put the telephone number in the text box also. Let’s see if some people have some questions out there. I’m going to turn loose the microphone here and if people want to jump in you can use your control button and it raises your hand and puts you in a queue. It’s first come first served. Do we have some questions out there for Scott?

David DeNotaris



Is Chris Westburg on the line?

Larry MuffetYes he is.

Chris Westburg Yes David I’m here. I was in and out there for a while my computer was acting up but I think I’m here now.

Larry MuffetTyler, if you’re going to ask you need to just jump on and go ahead and ask.

HarryThis is Harry, I found it very interesting that the gentleman has a lot of knowledge and he has a lot of expertise to share with you and other workers on the jobs. I think that’s a real asset and I found that helpful on my previous employment.

ArmandoI just wanted to relay to Scott thank you for the great work they’re doing with the Newsline. I use it every day and every year. It’s a great tool and instrument we have available to us. Thank you.



Larry Muffet Any other questions for Scott? We have a great resource here, we should take advantage of him.

UnknownI’ve in here in Pennsylvania and we have to be really thankful for the advances in assistive technology since the old Talking Book record players. The only thing is that these quite often the assistive technology costs a lot of money to begin with and then the upgrading and continues with more money. The first thing of course is the assistive technology before the job but I became aware there’s a meeting here at 1800 West St. every couple of weeks, the vocational rehab and someone has a website, eyesfree.org. There are a number of free assistive technology sections and non-visual access and VBA screen reader that is quite functional, just for example. I think that’s a big bonus. It’s good to get the job but you have to have the assistive technology first and that costs money, you have to have the job to pay for the assistive technology and it’s a vicious circle in some places. Thank you.

Larry MuffetI think we’ve got time for one more question.

Unknown



I’m from Maine and I have a question about the Newsline service. I noticed when you were calling it sounded like it was calling a phone number but I also heard what sounded like Jaws or the Eloquence synthesizer which would mean you’re on a computer. Is this something you call from a computer or are you just using things like Skype?

Scott WhiteAt this time I was using Magic Jack to call in, you’re right this requires a normal, standard, touchtone phone, that was the device I had that could produce the sound loud enough that I could put it on the microphone. You can use your cellphone or any regular phone to call into Newsline.

Larry MuffetWhy don’t we go ahead and work with Chris now and take questions at the end for Scott and Chris?

David DeNotarisI want to thank Scott and everyone for the great questions. I have the pleasure of introducing Christ Westbrook. Chris is from Pennsylvania and the way I came across Chris, I live in Pennsylvania also, I was on a conference call with the Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services. We have six district offices throughout



Pennsylvania, Altoona, Eerie, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Wilkes-Barre. We’re within the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Department of Labor and Industry. We help people who are blind go to school and get training and go to work. We were on a conference call and we were talking about disability and October disability employment awareness month and how all our offices will be doing something in recognition of disability employment awareness month. Part of our job as the state agency and I believe part of our job as individuals who are blind is to constantly be educating the public on the potential individual’s vision loss and other disabilities. When I was on a conference call I said, “I want to interview some people, I want to interview some people who are blind. I want to be able to encourage other people. I want to talk to other people who are blind and working. I know a lot of them are just amazing people and I’d love to share what I know and what I’ve learned in the field for 20 years and also being able to help other people share their experiences.” I love acronyms and one of them I love is HOPE, we help other people excel but the only way we can help other people excel is by hearing other people’s experiences. My hope and my wish, my prayer is that this Insights on Employment can be a tool, a mechanism, a vehicle to encourage and inspire other individuals to put a handle on things so



you could take it out there where you go, live, work, and play and share with others to say, “You know, I heard this guy and he’s doing this kind of job, I heard this girl and she’s doing that kind of job.” I love the simple but very powerful message, if he can do it I can too. If she can do it I can too. I love that message. When I was on this conference call I said, “I want to interview some of the individuals who we know who are in Pennsylvania who are doing cool things, who are doing interesting jobs, doing jobs that other people say they’re interested in doing.” Someone said, “I have the perfect person for you, you have to talk to Chris Westbrook.” So Chris I’m so glad that you could make the time and join us tonight. Can you please just tell us a little bit about yourself and the job you do?

Christ WestbrookThank you very much for inviting me to speak to everybody here. I am 29, I am a web developer for an advertising agency here in Montoursville Pennsylvania which is near Williamsport Pennsylvania which is home of the Little League World Series every year. I live in Williamsport so I know all about that, we get tons of traffic for three or four weeks. I’m totally blind, I also have a pretty significant hearing loss, I wear hearing aids in both ears. I have to use a quad cane at the moment



because I had a herniated disk and that messed up one side of my body so I use a quad cane to get around. About my education I went to college for two years at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport after I graduated high school then I transferred to Juniata College in Huntington, graduated from there. I came back home, I’m originally from the Carlisle area which is near Harrisburg if anybody’s familiar with the Pennsylvania area. And then I got my job through a friend of mine up here in Williamsport who went to college with me, had a job at this place I’m working at now, he’s kind of got my foot in the door and I had to interview and got the job and that was seven years ago, I’m still here. That’s my story.

David DeNotarisWow, it’s such an amazing story, I know you’ve had to overcome some amazing obstacles. It would’ve been really easy for you with vision loss and hearing loss to say, “It’s too scary. It’s too complicated. It’s too much. I’m just going to stay home” but you didn’t do that. What drove you? What drives you?

Christ WestbrookI had a family that had high expectations of me, I was expected to go to college and succeed. They were supportive of me of course, it wasn’t mean, I’ve



always been told I was going to be successful and I’ve always wanted that for myself. I didn’t want to just sit at home and be on disability. There’s nothing wrong with being on disability if you need to be if you’re not employed. When I got back from college I didn’t have a job and I was so frustrated because I was just sitting at the house looking for work but I wasn’t having a lot of luck at first. I know a lot of other blind people avoided it a lot longer than I did to get my job. It’s fortunate I got my job when I did. I didn’t want to sit around and not do anything for the rest of my life, I wanted to use the education I had. I’ve just always been driven in that way, I’ve always wanted to do something with my life.

David DeNotarisTell me about the job you do now and some projects you’re working on, what’s a typical day?

Christ WestbrookI come in, look if there are any emails I’ve gotten since I left work the previous day. Some people stay later than I do so sometimes they send me requests to take care of or if I have any outstanding requests I need to take care of. We have an intranet which is an internal network we have and we have a website for our internal people with the company and we have



different features for it. Our clients have to order, the people that work with our teams have to work with order creative for our creative department to do so we can place in the newspapers and different things like that. Buying media space in newspapers and radio, electronic and all that kind of stuff. I have an intranet I pretty much built from scratch obviously with the help of my managers telling me what they wanted. I maintain that if they want me to, if things need to be added to it or if something isn’t working right I look into what isn’t working and sometimes I have to fix things that people do wrong if they can’t fix them sometimes I have to get in there are fix data. I do a couple of different things. I do a number of different things throughout the day, I never quite know what I’m going to do in the morning. It’s always kind of a, somebody might need a report sent to the client by the end of the day and I might get it at 2:00 PM. It can get a little crazy but I manage. I’ve been there seven years so I must be doing something right.

David DeNotarisWhat kind of technology do you use?

Chris WestbrookWell I use Jaws for Windows. I use NBDA, I use whatever I can. I use the braille display at times. I have a Focus 70 which needs to get repaired at the



moment but I have a smaller display I can carry around with me that I use with my phone or with a computer sometimes if I need to look at something, code and stuff that I really need to look at the detail of. I use a number of different things, whatever I can to get the job done. Today I had to use my boss’ at the moment because when I went to log on to my machine the caps lock was turned on and I was entering my password and it wasn’t liking that too much. I had to go over to my boss and say, “Can you look at my machine really quick, it’s not letting me log in.” He came over and was like, “Oh yeah your caps lock is on.” I have to do whatever it takes.

David DeNotarisWe have to do whatever it takes. I truly believe when we’re nice to other people other people are willing to help. I like the phrase leap and the net will appear. I truly believe that when we’re kind and friendly to other people other people will want to help us but if we come across as upset or angry, frustrated, bitter, negative, critical, complaining, blaming, then those traits and qualities, they don’t attract people. They actually almost repel people. When we have a pleasing personality and some really powerful words are please and thank you, I found, have really helped me a lot. Being able to say, “Can you please help me look at this?” Scott said it and now you’re saying it,



we cannot be afraid to ask for help. How about transportation? Tell us how you handle the transportation. It’s a barrier to employment and what are some of the strategies you’ve employed to overcome the challenge?

Chris WestbrookIt’s always been somewhat of an issue. Williamsport and especially Montoursville are fairly rural. Williamsport is somewhat of a major city but Montoursville is definitely not. It’s pretty rural. Right now I have a coworker that takes me to and from and I pay her a little for gas and that kind of thing. I have used Para transit in the past, it hasn’t always been ideal because their schedules don’t always match mine. That’s why I stopped using them because it’s not as reliable as they could be. My company, when I first got there my friend that got me the job took me to and from and that worked out for a while and then he moved on and I try to get a coworker to take me if I can. If that doesn’t work then I have to go, I’ve taken a cab to work before. I don’t do it very often, I’ve only done it once or twice because it’s about $15 each way so I try not to make a habit of that. On occasion I’ve had to do it. I’ve done all kinds of different things. The thing that has worked best for me is getting a coworker to take me to and from but I’ve done all kinds of things.



David DeNotarisDo you use social media?

Chris WestbrookI do, I use it more personally than for business. I have Facebook, twitter, I don’t use twitter a lot. I use Facebook more to keep in touch with my friends and some of my coworkers, and my church. I’m pretty involved in my church also. I use it not so much for business but if I were wanting to do consulting work I would probably use it more for that. I think that can be pretty important.

David DeNotarisI’d like to ask you this, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started looking for a job? What advice do you have for the participants or maybe someone who is listening to this as a podcast? What advice do you have for job seekers?

Chris WestbrookI think it’s what we talked about earlier, networking is really important and who you know. Asking for help too is something I kind of go with at times, not only professionally but personally. I probably could have figured out my computer if I fiddled around with it for a



while but I realized it was a lot easier to walk over to my boss’ office next door and say, “Can you come over and take five minutes and look at this really quick?” If he wouldn’t have been there I would’ve had to come up with plan B. I’m not sure what that would have been but asking for help is not a weakness it’s actually a strength to know when to ask. Different people need different levels of help. For me, David talked about getting lost and that’s part of traveling. Scott talked about it. That’s certainly true and before I was using the quad cane I would have done that. Now I’m getting around with the quad cane I don’t really want to be on my feet for a huge length of time because I do get a little tired if I’m walking around too much so I probably would be more inclined to request a guide or something like that than somebody like Scott would because he has more ability physically than I do. Different people need different levels of help but asking for help and making sure you have that and not doing it in a mean or confrontational way.

I remember one time when I first started there I was working on a project and it involved a lot of numbers and a lot of spreadsheets and I really wasn’t sure what I was doing. I went to my boss and said, “If I’m going to do this right I think I’m going to need somebody to read this to me because it’s a lot of data at one time and I’m not doing so well with doing it with



the computer.” His response to that was to put me on another project. At first I thought, “Oh boy, I don’t know if this is going to work or not.” It turned out that project I was working on originally never did get completed. The project I was working on was starting to build the intranet which I’m still working on seven years later. Trust your bosses, come to them with your needs but don’t be surprised if they take you on a totally different direction. They know the business better than you do. Try to build up a network, not only personally but professionally, but not only professionally but personally as well. Make sure you’re not isolating yourself because then you get kind of depressed and stuff too.

David DeNotarisYou said you’re involved in your church, that has to do a few things for you I imagine. That would be a great source of strength but it also has to be a great network for you correct?

Chris WestbrookIt really is, it’s been a really great thing for me personally. Not so much professionally because I haven’t really looked for work in a while but it’s been personally great to have a group of people I know care about me and I care about them. I remember going to my pastor and I said, “I’d really like to help



out with the children’s ministry. I don’t really know what I can do, I don’t really know that much about it.” He said, “I don’t know much about what you can do either but we can figure something out.” That’s where my (inaudible) comes in really handy now because part of it is working with the kids on different bible work and I can bring them up on my phone with my (inaudible). So I’m using technology a lot there, but anyway, before I had to write everything out in hard copy braille and that was a bit of a chore. It’s neat that people who have more faith in you almost than you do, it’s really been neat.

David DeNotarisI appreciate you sharing that. I believe in the consonance that comes from being around positive likeminded people. I really believe a lot of it. When you’re looking for a job you could look in so many places, you could look at church and school, you could network with people at the gym. I’m a firm believer that we’re not going to meet people, don’t count on someone coming to the door and saying, “Your job is ready.” You have to be out there and the only place you find fruit on the tree is out on the limb. Sometimes you have to go out on the limb. Don’t be afraid to ask. I think that’s really when I, I love to interview and talk to people who are successful, doing things, accomplishing great things, stretching minds



and imaginations, breaking down barriers and fears and worry and doubt and rejection. The advice I hear from them is don’t be afraid to try something or start something or stop something if you’re engaging in some type of negative behavior that’s stopping you from getting a job then stop it.

My wife, we have three kids. We learned when we had our son David if something stinks you change it, if there is something getting in the way of you getting employed, if something stinks you change it. It’s so important we’re not afraid to ask for help, people want to help, they don’t necessarily know how to help all the time. Just like Chris said his minister said, “I don’t know either but let’s figure it out and think about it.” I’m a firm believer where attention goes energy flows and results show. When we get people together thinking about something, how we can do it. A few months ago I said I want to do an interview program for disability employment awareness month, maybe I’ll use an 800 number, maybe I’ll use freeconferencecall.com. Then you start thinking about something and an email pops in my inbox from Chuck Young Hadley. I said, “Chuck is a possibility, I’m going to call him up.” I called up Chuck and he said, “We have to do it, we have to encourage people. You’re right, let’s do something for October disability employment awareness month.” Be a master



networker is a great piece of advice. The most important book is our phonebook. Who is in your phonebook, your contact list? Who can you get in contact with who can help you or help a friend? Someone says, “Hey I need to talk to somebody” that’s the one thing since 1994 I read that in a book to keep a great phonebook. I’m really privileged to have people like Larry Muffet and Chris Westbrook and Scott White in my phonebook. Larry, I was wondering if maybe we could open it up for a couple of questions is anyone had any?

Larry MuffetDale has a great question here, Chris dealer.com was a website development company in Vermont for the auto industry. I found their interview process to be quite intimidating, I washed out in the third round when I was handed a paper I had difficulty reading. Is it possible to become prepared to make a good impression?

Chris WestbrookI think it is. I don’t know if you’re going to college or university, one of the things we did in college was mock interviews. I think that’s a great strategy if you can get somebody to kind of interview. There are questions companies will ask, strengths and weaknesses is one. Another one would be what’s a



failure you’ve had and how you’ve handled it? What’s the success you’ve had? I’ve been asked how I deal with stress. There are certain interview questions people will ask. Being handed a piece of paper like that, that is kind of a tough situation but I think if you just say, “I have trouble reading this, can you read this to me?” In a job situation you might be able to email it to me but obviously they can’t do that in an interview. Maybe they can if you have a laptop and they have an internet connection but a lot of companies might feel uncomfortable with that. For that particular situation might be a little bit awkward but you can definitely prepare yourself. Try to learn as much about the company that you can. Try to learn as much about interviewing as you can, if you can get someone to give you a mock interview that’s what I would suggest.

Larry MuffetAlbert has a question, what about LinkedIn as a networking tool?

Chris WestbrookI haven’t really looked at LinkedIn a lot. I have some people on it but I haven’t really…I get tons of email from them but pretty much delete them. I haven’t really looked into that too much. I know it is geared



more towards professional people so that might be something you might want to look into.

Scott WhiteReally as far as LinkedIn, I’m a member but I’m actually…I don’t do a lot of the social media stuff and LinkedIn is probably the lowest one I’ve used. If I was probably in the job market actually looking for a job I probably would be more interested in using it but at this time I don’t use it that much.

David DeNotarisI use LinkedIn, I use it on my iPhone with voice over. I think it’s a powerful tool, it’s the Facebook of…it’s a professional Facebook. I think there are over 400 million users, lots of connections, people sharing articles, I think it’s just another way to be involved. There are a bunch of different groups, I’m involved with a bunch of different groups on LinkedIn, human resource groups, assistive technology groups. Just being involved in networking, people post jobs, people post articles and just being involved it’s a really powerful tool. It could be a really dangerous tool too if someone posts the wrong thing or if someone has a bad day and posts, “This person is so stupid for saying this.” It’s a really powerful tool and it’s something I think that if used can really help increase someone’s chances of being employed. I think it’s a



really powerful tool if used properly. Larry I believe Hadley has some seminars on LinkedIn, do you know?

PresenterDavid brought up the point of having a bad day and posting the wrong thing. I was listening to Herm Edwards one time, the football coach on ESPN radio and he had a thing that he said about social media, he said, “Don’t press send!” He means think before you post anything on Facebook or any public forum like that because employers can look at that. It’s public. They will look at that, some of them. Be careful of people you associate with, things you say, things you do, that’s all you.

Larry MuffetTo go back to your question, David, Hadley has done LinkedIn seminars so those seminars are available through our archives and I would encourage people to look into that. We also have a LinkedIn module through our Forsythe Center for Entrepreneurship and I certainly would encourage people to take a good look at that too because it’s a well done course that gives you a great overview and some of these pointers that Chris and Scott are talking about. I encourage people to look into both the course and some of the seminars.



SheilaI would like to start my own online business and I have a pretty decent business plan. My biggest trouble is finding financing. I was just wondering if anyone out there has any really bright ideas about financing and then the second question for you Larry would be if we’re in this seminar do we have to sign up for the second one in two weeks or will we just automatically be put in for that one?

Larry MuffetYes, you’ll need to register for the second one because we can’t automatically assume everyone is available on the second date. Yes you’ll want to register for that again. The Forsythe Center for Entrepreneurship has a training module on obtaining financing for people who are interested in starting small businesses. That’s another option I would encourage people to look into.

PresenterYou might also want to check with your university, when I was going to college we had a small business department and they would help you with things. They wouldn’t help with financing but even taking a course on getting a business plan or seeing if you could find someone to help you put together a



business plan, universities might be willing to help you.

Larry MuffetThat’s excellent advice, they’re called small business development centers. They’re associated with the SPA and that’s another resource.

David DeNotarisI wanted to say for Sheila also, check with SCORE, Senior Core of Retired Executives. You’ll find them at a lot of the SBA offices. They’re people who have retired and are volunteering, don’t be afraid to share your idea. You’re going to have to share your idea and using these resources that have been shared with you Sheila I wish you all the luck in the world.

Larry MuffetThis seminar like all of our seminars at Hadley will be archived on our website and available for your use any time around the clock. This seminar is now made available as a podcast which you can download to your computer or mobile device. If this seminar has you interested in this topic then please check out the Hadley website, the seminar archives, and Hadley’s worksite center for entrepreneurship. Remember also part two of this topic is two weeks from tonight, October 22nd at 6:00 PM central time. David, Chris,



and Scott and I all thank you for your participation. Hadley values your feedback, please let us know what you thought about today’s seminar and please give us suggestions about future topics. One way you can do that is by dropping us an email to [email protected]. Another way to share is by completing a short online on screen survey I will post as we conclude today.

David DeNotarisIt’s such a privilege for me to have this wonderful opportunity and it started with an idea. I hope that from this seminar you can have learned and were encouraged and inspired to take some action, not just to listen passively but to take some action. Whatever idea you’ve been thinking about, a small business, an opportunity, a class, course, program, training, initiative, volunteer opportunity I encourage you to act on that. When you leap the net will appear. I hope this installment of Insights on Employment was valuable to you and I hope that you join us again in a few weeks. I thank you for your time and your participation and best of luck to everyone and thank Chis and Scott and Larry and everyone at Hadley for making this possible. Have a great night everyone.

Larry Muffet


mailto:[email protected]


I want to personally thank David, Scott and Chris. This was an outstanding seminar. Sometimes when I moderate these they seem like they take an hour but this one seemed like it took ten minutes but it went well past an hour. I personally want to thank all of you who participated tonight, questions and comments added a lot to this and made it fun for me and others. Hopefully you’ll be back in two weeks to hear part two. Thank you and goodnight for now.


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