career opportunities

Tech Tools to Help People With Disabilities Advance Their Careers

March 25, 2021 By Katherine Burik

The Interview Doctor wants to make sure everyone has the tools to reach the careers they aspire to.

We seldom have guest writers at The Interview Doctor, Inc., but this article was so compelling, that we made an exception. Patrick Young, with Able USA, shared these wonderful tips to help people with disabilities advance their careers. Thank you, Patrick!

For centuries, people with disabilities have been held back in the workplace, either through direct discrimination or simply due to a lack of suitable accommodation. Although this issue is far from solved, we are closer than ever to a truly equitable workplace. Thanks to booming technological advancements, there are more opportunities for people with disabilities than ever before.

Here’s a look at how you can use technology to make your career dreams come true:

Create a Home-Based Business

Because we’re so connected through the internet, it’s never been more possible to create your own home-based business. This can be an absolutely invaluable tool for people who would like to become entrepreneurs but aren’t able to work outside of the home. If your own four walls are the place you’re safest and most comfortable, then that’s the best place to make your business ownership dreams a reality.

If you’re starting a home-based business, however, you can’t rely on foot traffic to catch people’s attention. You’ll have to invest in a great marketing plan in order to get your business off the ground. If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to marketing, you can find plenty of e-commerce marketing experts for hire online. Hiring someone in a freelance capacity can give you the help you need to come up with a solid, effective plan for getting clients and customers.

Search for Remote Work

Not interested in starting a business? You can still find plenty of work to do from the safety and comfort of your own home. Remote opportunities have been on the rise for years, and the pandemic has opened companies’ eyes to the benefits of this hiring option. More businesses than ever are opening up remote roles, aware that this gives them access to great candidates they may have never seen otherwise.

At the same time, however, remote work is still a highly competitive job market. Although the pandemic has made more businesses open to remote employees, it has also increased demand on the job searcher side. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your resume, cover letter, and other hiring materials are as great as possible. Getting a resume reviewer to look these materials over before you submit can give you a serious edge on the job market.

Explore Assistive Technologies

Finally, take some time to explore the assistive technologies that are out there. If you were only recently diagnosed, you might not yet know all the tools out there designed to meet your needs. Working with your doctor or an occupational therapist is a great way to get informed. This is also a great time to check in with your disability community. Other people who have the same disability or symptoms can give you valuable insight when it comes to how a certain tool works and what it’s best for. Look into joining communities online to get firsthand insight and learn how to best use assistive technologies in your personal and professional lives.

For example, screen readers can help people with visual impairments, as well as those with visual processing disorders or dyslexia. Time management tools can be absolutely invaluable for people with executive dysfunction. These are just a few examples of the types of assistive technologies that are out there – explore the options to figure out what works best for you.

Although we still have a long way to go when it comes to creating a truly equitable workforce, technology has made more and more opportunities accessible for people with disabilities. Whether you hope to pave your own path or find the right fit with an existing company, we hope these tips help you secure the future you deserve!

Want help with the job hunt? Check out our coaching services.

Find Joy at Work!

We are allowed to be happy!

When you live your daily life in conflict with the principles you hold dear, then you will be frustrated and unhappy. Build your career on the solid foundation of principles that are important to you.

This book, Live your Principles, shares with you the steps to recognize what is important to you and take steps to align your work and personal lives. Knowing this is one of the Secrets to a Solid Career Foundation!

Click here to purchase your copy now for $9.

Job Search Tip: Have you thought about consulting?

March 11, 2021 By Katherine Burik

Did you know that it takes the same skills to find a job as it does to uncover consulting positions – networking, meeting people, asking good questions, etc.

This could open up opportunities that you would never have known about if you were just submitting a resume.

Put yourself in a position where you can help others.

What kind of problems do organizations struggle with that you could potentially help?

What is the value that you can bring to an organization and can solve for them?

This serves as the basis for the consulting work that you can do while still job searching.

Listen to the video as Katherine explains how you can use your skills, contacts and experience to consult for organizations during your job search.

Interested in expanding your job search? Discover a proven path to finding your ideal job or career with the lessons in this free training, 5 Tips to a Successful Job Search.

Click below to view the video.

Are you looking to be more Strategic with your Career Plans?

To find the career that suits you?

To land that Dream Job that makes you Happy to go to work every day?

Our Book, “The 5 Steps to a Right Career Path,” will help you. This book gives you the guidance to choose the career path that you want and that will be one that fits you best! Just because you have a job today does not mean it is the right one. Explore ways to find that career path for you!

Buy your copy now for $9.

Some careers are never coming back

January 28, 2021 By Katherine Burik

The covid-19 pandemic brought terrible disruption to every corner of daily life.

Unheard of loss of life. Threat of illness just from leaving the house. Schools closed. Communities disrupted. Support systems cut. Jobs in limbo.

Life changed mid-March 2020 with covid-19… a pandemic.

We can get our children back to school in some fashion. We can wear masks and work from home. We will mourn our losses. But, closer to home, what about those jobs that will never come back? What will you do if you spent your life in a career that might never come back?

Over 22 million jobs disappeared at the start of the pandemic, according to NBC News. Some changes were inevitable. Technology, automation, and outsourcing have steadily eaten away at some jobs.

Admin jobs like secretary, typist, receptionist, or switchboard operator have been disappearing for years, replaced by automation and personal computers as people do their own typing and admin work.
Well-paying factory jobs like machine operators, finishers, and press operators in industries ranging from aircraft manufacturing to plastics to nuclear have been replaced by automation and outsourcing. This trend continues.
Previously strong, well-paying postal service careers are projected to decline by almost 18% by 2029, replaced by automation and consolidation. Look for a 20% decline in floral designers! The impact is everywhere.

Restaurant and hospitality work will eventually come back. But how should you respond if you are in one of those jobs that are NOT coming back? What does the future hold for those people? Are you one of those people?

An individual life is not a straight path but a series of twists and turns as we respond to what life throws at us. I imagine life like one big game of Wipeout! I love that show. One part of the Wipeout course requires the contestant to travel across a narrow path along a wall, avoiding punching hands popping out of the wall trying to push the contestant off the path. Failure to respond lands the contestant in a puddle of mud.

Doesn’t 2020 feel just like that? A bunch of punching hands trying to push you off course into a messy mud bath? Job loss during a pandemic feels like a muddy, messy punch in the gut. We have no choice but to wash ourselves off, climb back on the course, and find a new path. We review, revise, reimagine, and reformat our lives within the new parameters.

“Re”… A strong concept meaning “back” or “again”. According to Membean, “re-“ intensifies any word to which it attaches itself.

2020 was a challenge – not a year I want to repeat. But it was a year that requires review, with all the intensity the “re-“ prefix requires.

In 2021, we here at The Interview Doctor, will employ the “re-“ concept in our blogs, videos, and social presence to encourage you in your ongoing efforts to review, rebuild, refresh, redefine, reinvent, and perhaps even retreat. We might go some places you do not imagine, but that is part of the fun, right?

To get prepared, click here for instant access to The Interview Doctor’s Job Search Quiz to see how ready you are to get started reimagining your life!!

How to Set Up your LinkedIn Profile

Your LinkedIn profile is home base when it comes to a job search.

It is a wonderful way to demonstrate what you can do and who you are and it can “work” for you even when you are not online. Having a LinkedIn profile is the first step to networking online to find a job. Check out the Interview Doctor’s mini-course, How to Set Up your LinkedIn Profile.

It includes 8 video lessons and a workbook to walk you step-by-step.”

Click here to get started today and uplevel your LinkedIn presence!

Job Search Tip: Why is my job search stalled?

September 12, 2020 By Katherine Burik

Have you ever tried looking for a job and all of a sudden you feel like it’s stalled?

To keep the process moving, you have to follow through on all of the steps. You need to go through a process daily or weekly to achieve the goal that you want … finding a job.

Learn the steps to take to keep your job search moving forward and closer to your goal of an ideal job.

Learn what you are missing in your job search marketing plan and start making progress in your job search with this FREE quiz.

Say thank you to our foremothers on August 26 – Women’s Equality Day

August 24, 2020 By Katherine Burik

2020 has been a difficult year.

Every day we have another reminder that life is not perfect in the USA. Racial injustice. Inequality. Illness. Quarantine. Frustration. Anger. Explosive conflict.

Those with power do not like to share. Progress only comes from conflict.

Some of my earliest memories were my mom and dad whispering in my ear how I can do anything I want to do – be anything I want to be. I believed them. I never thought twice about going to college for advanced degrees. I became a professional in a man’s field, a railroad labor relations officer, one of a few women in the room. I assumed I could do anything I wanted.

My mom was denied the opportunity to be a doctor in the 1940’s because she got married. Her work options were to be a nurse or a teacher. She chose teaching. Despite her encouragement, never in her wildest imagination did she think I could be a business leader, much less have the success I achieved. She was terribly proud of me!

I am a white woman who took what she wanted. All my successes are built on the backs of women who went before me. I saw no limitations because the generations of women before me fought hard to make my choices possible.

The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits discrimination in voting rights based on sex giving American women the right to vote. The amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, and certified on August 26, 1920, 100 years ago!

The fight was real and took years. The first women’s suffrage campaigns began in 1869 after the civil war, after the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 guaranteeing citizenship to all male persons born or naturalized in the US. The 15th Amendment passed in 1870 prevented states from denying the right to vote on the grounds of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” but this only applied to men, not women.

Just like racial and social justice fights happening today, the fight for women’s suffrage was real, bloody, and violent. White men in power did not want to share. The arguments against women’s suffrage read like the arguments against social justice today. They argued that women did not need special treatment because everything was fine the way it was. Sound like arguments we hear today about social justice and Black Lives Matter?

It took years of protests, marches and, yes, violence, to achieve the right to vote on August 26, 1920.

Today we say thank you and celebrate the women (and men) who fought so hard to get us the right to vote. These fights led to broad-based modern day acceptance of concepts of economic and political equality, and social reform. We are thankful, but we cannot be complacent.

Let’s demonstrate our appreciation for these brave leaders by taking action. We can go to the polls ourselves to exercise our right to vote. Let’s all vote so our foremothers know the fight was worth it!