What Color Is Your Parachute? (15 page)

Most of us think that when we go job-hunting, we have some special handicap (hidden or obvious) that is going to keep us from getting a job. We think:

• I have a physical handicap
  or
  

• I have a mental handicap
  or
  

• I never graduated from high school
  or
  

• I never graduated from college
  or
  

• I am just graduating
  or
  

• I just graduated a year ago
  or
  

• I graduated way too long ago
  or
  

• I am too beautiful
  or
  

• I am too handsome
  or
  

• I am too ugly
  or
  

• I am too fat
  or
  

• I am too thin
  or
  

• I am too old
  or
  

• I am too young
  or
  

• I have only had one employer in life
  or
  

• I have hopped from job to job too often
  or
  

• I am too near retirement
  or
  

• I am too wet behind the ears
  or
  

• I have a prison record
  or
  

• I have a psychiatric history
  or
  

• I have not had enough education
  or
  

• I have too much education and am overqualified
  or
  

• I am Hispanic
  or
  

• I am Black
  or
  

• I am Asian
  or
  

• I speak heavily accented English
  or
  

• I am too much of a specialist
  or
  

• I am too much of a generalist
  or
  

• I am ex-clergy
  or
  

• I am ex-military
  or
  

• I am too assertive
  or
  

• I am too shy
  or
  

• I have only worked for volunteer organizations
  or
  

• I have only worked for small organizations
  or
  

• I have only worked for a large organization
  or
  

• I have only worked for the government
  or
  

• I come from a very different culture or background
  or
  

• I come from another industry
  or
  

• I come from another planet.
  

(In other words, there are approximately three weeks in any of our lives, when we are employable!
Just kidding!
)

If you have a handicap that you think will keep employers from hiring you, take heart! No matter what handicap you have, or think you have, it cannot possibly keep you from getting hired. It will only keep you from getting hired
at some places.

There is a
mantra
you should keep repeating to yourself again and again, as you go job-hunting:

You never know what may occur to them the next day, of some way in which they can help you. A thank-you note jogs their memory.

Now, the biggest handicap any of us can have is our
attitude
toward our handicap. So, I would like you to think through, with me, what it means to say, “I have a handicap.”

First of all, it speaks to the prejudice of some employers. For example, “I’m fat” doesn’t necessarily keep you from doing anything. So if an employer won’t hire you because of that, it’s technically not a handicap that we’re talking about; it’s a
prejudice.

A real handicap means there are some things that you can’t do. So, let’s talk about
that
. Let’s begin with however many skills there are, in the world. Nobody knows the number, so let’s make one up. Let’s
say there are
4,341 skills
in the world. How many of those 4,341 do you think the average person has? Nobody knows the answer, so let’s make one up. Let’s say the average person has
1,341
skills. That’s a lot. That’s 1,341 things the average person
can
do. Now, my question to you: is this average person handicapped?

The answer, of course, is
Yes:
4,341 minus 1,341 leaves 3,000 things the average person
can’t
do. The average person—no, make that:
everybody
—is handicapped. Everybody.

So if, when you go job-hunting, you think you are
handicapped,
then I would agree. But so is everyone. So what? What’s so special about your handicap, compared with others’? The answer is
Nothing.
Unless—
unless—
you are obsessed with the fact that you are handicapped, and so disheartened by what you
can’t
do, that you have forgotten all the things you
can
do. Unless you’re thinking of all the reasons why employers might not hire you, instead of all the reasons why employers would. Unless you’re going about your job-hunt feeling like
a job beggar
, rather than as
a resource person.
¹

Here’s a useful exercise for all of us Handicapped Job-Hunters or Career-Changers: take a large piece of paper and divide it into two columns, viz,

Click
here
to view a PDF version of Things I Can’t Do and Things I Can Do.

Then, look at the (
transferable/functional
) skills list on the next page, and copy as many as you choose onto these lists, putting each skill in the proper column, depending on whether you
can
do this skill, or
cannot.
(
Or not yet, anyway.
) Use additional sheets, as needed.

Click
here
to view a PDF version of A List of 246 Skills as Verbs.

When you are done with these two lists, pick out the five top things that you
can
do, and
love
to do; and think of some illustrations and examples of how you demonstrated that, in the past.

What about the things you
can’t
do? If your particular handicap or disability has a name, look it up on the Internet. If your issue is mobility, or lack thereof, the ADA may be of help to you. See a companion book to this one:
Job-Hunting for the So-Called Handicapped, or People Who Have Disabilities,
by Dale Susan Brown, and me, which explains all this at length.