Visually challenged,blind jobseeker’s in India need to eliminate their mental handicaps first.
“I run a successful company today because of the choices I made, not because of what I could not do.”
Lima Sehgal
“Employers focus on performance on a job. So if you cannot drive an airplane choose another career. I cannot drive a car, but I am not crying because I cannot get a job as a driver. I run a company because of the choices I made, not because of what I could not do.”
Job hunting in India is primarily about fighting competition. Every job seeker faces this problem. But for the visually challenged it is a perceived as a greater than others.
In reality it is true.
Why?
I put my question to Jayalakshmi, who works for a reputed Blind school in Delhi, who handles multifarious job functions, and she said – “I can’t speak for other disabilities, but the fundamental problem visually challenged people face while job hunting is that they believe that somebody else should find it for them. I learnt it the hard way – my sighted friends would read out the vacancies from the newspaper for me and skip the good ones they themselves were trying for. And frankly going out, meeting placement firms and companies a daunting prospect, but few realize that nobody else can do your job hunting, on your behalf.”
Lower standards and expectations-
Mindsets about our selves can be a major handicap.
Pooja who is blind from birth, is a young optimistic youth, she says, “I think it is because of the way the world reacts to us. My loving family celebrated the event of my first bus journey alone, whereas my brother has been doing it without a fuss. Such reactions undermine your perception of your self worth. My parents are happy that my brother is doing MBBS, would they be proud if he worked as a receptionist? But they would consider it a great thing if I did.”
Unrealistic job market perceptions-
This is not only confined to people with disabilities but a whole lot of other jobseekers.
Nothing gives a more unrealistic perspective than statistics. If you are a great believer in numbers than the job market will teach you hard realities that will make you wise, but it is certainly a very hard way to learn.
So if percentages concerning the reservations, parliamentary new policies, the 50, 000 new jobs specially created especially with a match with your type, government jobs, sympathetic multinationals etc, sound impressive- Ask -Will it result in a job for Me?
May be- may be –Not
Statistics becomes all crap if it does not help you to get a job
Every day I go on the internet to find jobs – but I only get information on jobs. Learn that there is a lot of difference between getting information on jobs and actually getting one.
So if the great advertisement says that you are blind but you can get a job with a government company, if you qualify, there may be a chance that you may not qualify. Maybe another person gets the job, maybe a blind person better qualified, or someone else …
Please do not become a victim of statistics.
What about ambition?
Being disabled in any way is almost entirely about being told that ambition is about compromise. In reality this is not so. Ambition is not about only a mental quality. Success definitely is not only about a stunningly impressive personality trait but an outcome of several contributing factors; sometimes even vague ones like the other guy not turning up for an interview because his mother had influenza or that no other deserving candidate applied for the post.
We tend to judge only by the end result. But successful people have their learning processes too – their emotional upheavals, defeats and insecurities.
Jatin sums it up nicely, “Everybody with any kind of handicap cannot emerge successfully like a Helen Keller or even a Stephan Hawking. Some of us are just ordinary people. We would be quite happy to just be successful bread winners for our families.”
Ambition starts as a desire to do- even if it is differently. The fact that there are so many popular stories about rags and riches stories and fairy tales, about people having ambitions in spite of whatever their handicaps- deafness, blindness, poverty, deprived socio economic backgrounds or whatever, implies that success requires something special inside. In reality this is not true. Most of us can be successful if we try to be. But people who are surrounded by vibes that say that they are handicapped have to brainwash themselves that they are not.
Lack of confidence is normal in some degree for everybody, but as a person with blindness the opportunity to experiment, test limits and grow, gets curtailed because we live in an environment where we are helped by others who also may have lower expectations from us.
When the mindsets and distorted perceptions get removed what happens?
Well on a personal note I would like to say,”Jobs, careers, job- success and earning a livelihood is not rocket science. One only has to figure how to go about it.
Same as everybody else!
Courtesy: Jobnet Directory of Placement Firms & Companies.
Copyright @ Lima Sehgal 2011
Posted under Jobhunting Tips for visually challenged, blind
This post was written by admin on May 28, 2011
