Is Your Posting Pushing People Away? 

Tips for creating opportunities 

By Emma Allen, Director of Operations at the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota. 

If you missed our live webinar: Is Your Posting Pushing People Away? presented by Emma Allen, the full recording is now available.

Background:

I began my career as a reasonably healthy, able-bodied person.I acquired disabilities mid-career, which shifted my perspective on work. Navigating job searches with disabilities fundamentally changed what I look for in a posting.

Speaking from my own experience, I make a lot of personal trade-offs to work full time both as a result of my disabilities and because our society's work culture.Over the course of my career,  I opted out of many opportunities because of the wording in a job description or on an organizational website.These experiences now guide my work as a manager and as a leader frequently involved in recruiting and hiring.

Tips:

•  Assume applicants will have all kinds of minds and bodies and lifestyles: Design your hiring process with this assumption and keep this mindset at the forefront of every stage.

• Talk about benefits and culture, not the prestige and history of your Institution. While prestige and history are nice, health insurance and the possibility of accommodations are often paramount for job seekers. Remember that boilerplate Equal Opportunity language often falls flat; instead, show how your culture supports its people.

• Be Radically Transparent: Clearly define the practicalities of the role, including:

• Specific hours and days required.

• The exact work location and potential for flexibility.

• Physical and sensory characteristics of the work environment.

• Full details on compensation and benefits.

• A clear outline of the hiring process and evaluation criteria.

• Focus on Potential over Pedigree: To attract a broader range of talent to our sector, look for behavioral competencies rather than just easily trainable experience (such as specific software).

• Refine Physical Requirements: If HR says you must list physical requirements, focus on what needs to be accomplished, not how it is done. Only include essential duties, exclude occasional tasks that could easily be handled by another team member. 

Resources

• The University of Minnesota has a wealth of resources on Behavioral Competencies 

• Neurodivergent Rebel - Lyric Rivera blogs, podcasts and writes about their experience in the workplace with an intersectional identity. 

• Morra Aarons-Mele -Author, speaker and  host of the Anxious Achiever, Morra researches and reports on the intersections of work and mental health.