Advice for Disabled Students Looking for Work

Finding work as a student isn’t always easy. Finding work as a disabled student can be even harder. Disabled students experience many blocks and hurdles to employment that non-disabled students may never even think about. 

However, this doesn’t mean that it is an impossible task and there are lots of ways in which the task itself can be made easier and more manageable for disabled students. 

In this blog, we are going to describe exactly that. We are going to look at how disabled students may best approach looking for work and tell you exactly where to find the best opportunities too. 

Let’s get started with our top 7 list of tips and tricks.

Get Your CV in Order

When you are applying for a job, often the first thing that an employer sees is your CV and cover letter. Nailing your CV is a great way to ensure that you get an interview for the job that you want. 

You are under no obligation to disclose your disability in a CV, however, you may choose to so that a potential employer knows how to best accommodate and support you going forward. Depending on your disability, you may need support and reasonable adjustments in order to have an interview, and so disclosing your disability in your CV or cover letter means that the employer involved will be more prepared in order to do this. 

Create a CV that is filled with honesty, positivity, and personal development. Show off your strengths and what you have learned over the years, both inside and outside of work experience. You can even show you have overcome the challenges your disability has presented you with and how you are a resilient person. You can discuss your disability as a strength rather than a weakness. 

For more, check out our CV template. 

Get Some Work Experience 

If you are struggling to find things to fill your interview answers and CV as a disabled student, you can try and get some work experience before you get a paid job. 

There are lots of ways in which you can get job experience, shadowing someone, doing work-from-home work experience, starting your own side hustle, and much more. All of these experiences will allow you to learn some new skills and have some more background to talk about when it comes to applying for a new job.

This is also a great way for you to figure out what support you do need in a work environment with your disability. It is a good time to have a reasonable adjustment trial and error. 

Read more of our advice on work experience right here.

Ask for an Accessible Interview 

As a disabled person, you are entitled to workplace support under the Equality Act of 2010. This support begins as early as job interviews and application processes. 

If you feel comfortable disclosing your disability to an employer during your application, you will be in the position to ask for an accessible job interview. How this will look depends on your own individual disability and personal circumstances, and there are lots of ways that this could look. 

For example, for an accessible interview to take place, an employer could offer:

• A remote work interview
• A work trial
• A more accessible room for the interview to take place
• A shorter interview time
• Longer time allowances for questions to be answered/tests to be taken
• Extra equipment for any computer-based part of the interview
• Interpreters in the interview room

As far as reasonable adjustments go, anything that reduces the disabled candidate’s disadvantage in the interview is a good choice.

Ask Plenty of Questions in Interviews

When you are in the interview room, make sure you ask all the questions you need to. If you want to know more about how a company treats disabled people and disabled students, ask. If you want to know how you will organise the reasonable adjustments you need for work, ask that too.

Even though you are just starting out in your career, there is no reason why you can’t ask about everything you need during an interview. It will help you determine whether this is the right job and employer for you and it will show confidence to the interviewer as well. 

Knowing what you deserve and asking for it is not a bad attribute to demonstrate in a job interview. 

Find a Disability Confident Employer

If you want to have an accessible application and interview process, followed by an accessible and disability-friendly job, you will need to find a Disability Confident employer. 

The Disability Confident scheme is a government scheme that helps employers learn how to recruit and employ disabled people in an appropriate and accessible way. The scheme encourages employers to make a more proactive effort to include disabled people and to decrease the disability employment gap. 

If you apply for a job with a Disability Confident employer, it is far more likely that you will get the environment that you need and want. Rather than wasting your time having inaccessible and unpleasant interviews anywhere else, going directly for someone Disability Confident allows you to get what you want much quicker. 

Read Reviews of Your Potential Employer Online

As well as looking out for a Disability Confident badge, it is a good idea as a disabled student to check out reviews of your potential employer online. It is good to know how they treat other students and other disabled people who have come before you. 

What opportunities for development are there? Are students paid well? Are full-time opportunities available after graduating? Find out as much as you can from reviews and comments that are posted online by people in similar situations as you. This will give you a good idea of whether this is the employer you want to work for or not. 

Use a Disability-Friendly Job Board 

Finally, one of our very best pieces of advice for disabled students looking for work is to use a disability-friendly job board.

When you are looking for new opportunities as a student, it is guaranteed that you are looking through quite a huge net. You will be open to more opportunities than regular job seekers and you will have quite a big pool of interest. 

However, being a disabled student also means that are quite particular about the things that you want and need in a job. You need to find something you are interested in but you also need to find a safe and accessible environment with an employer who will provide the support you need. 

Using a high-quality disability-friendly job board is the best way to find an opportunity that meets both of these criteria. And you can find just the resource right here on Careers with Disabilities. 

You can use our live disability-friendly job board and directory of company profiles to find your new job today. 

And if you need any more help, you can ask our team a question directly. 

Good luck out there!