“I can’t find people with disabilities to do my jobs.”
I have been working in disability inclusion for over 25 years, and these words are a constant refrain from companies.
It is frustrating and actually a little maddening because the sheer number of people with disabilities is staggering.
1. 15% of the global population are people with disabilities
2. 22% of the US population are people with disabilities
3. In the US alone that represents 33 Million working-age people with disabilities
I used to think this was a cop out, an excuse for companies not to take action. But what has really been going on is that the pipeline has just been too small.
There are too few organizations that source talent with disabilities. The few places that do are non-profits or state agencies serving individuals with disabilities. These organizations do great work, but the problem is the numbers of available talent from these organizations is just too small. It is estimated that only 10% of people with disabilities are registered with these systems. That means of the 33M available workers, only 3M are working with these organizations.
So, the real recruiting challenge is how to find the other 90% of people with disabilities?
LinkedIn’s recent step to have a back office personal demographic identifier for individuals with a disability is a big leap in making disability recruiting mainstream. It’s estimated that 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to source talent. But until now, there was no way to identify if a person had a disability. Recruiters had to “guess” or “make assumptions” based on the groups you belonged to, and by reviewing posts or blogs.
But now, if you identify as a person with a disability in the LinkedIn back office, companies can find you. So, if you are person with a disability, self-id on LinkedIn!
Go to your privacy settings
Click on personal demographics
Check the box on disability
Recruiters can now find you
This will NOT appear on your public page
Recruiters – you now have access to an entirely new diverse talent pool. Start searching today, and differentiate yourself by bringing candidates with disabilities forward.
Let’s continue to work together to make disability inclusion business as usual. #WhoisHiring? #DisabilityCompetitive #DisabilityInclusion