A story from Brighton shows what kind of experiences Deaf job hunters are sometimes confronted with, as a mother of an 18 year old Deaf man had to act as his interpreter during an interview for a job as a shelf-stacker.
Extract from the Brighton and Hove News:
A Brighton supermarket has been criticised for the way that it treated a deaf job applicant.
James Blake, 18, went for a shelf-stacking job with the Asda branch at Brighton Marina. He was called for an interview on Tuesday 26 July.
His mother, Alison Blake, described the interview as “the most awful experience” and is considering making a formal complaint.
Mr Blake was looking for a part-time job to fit around his studies. He is on a creative media film course. He completed a written application form for the Asda job which included a question asking him to state any disabilities.
Mrs Blake said: “James stated on the application form that he was deaf. He was then invited to an ‘Asda Magic’ session which was booked by email.
“We assumed that because they had asked about disabilities on the form they would read it to check and arrange relevant interpreters. When we arrived they had no idea James was deaf and there was no interpreter.”
Mr Blake was expected to be interviewed alongside five other applicants. When he was called in, Mrs Blake said: “The interviewer asked to have a word with me outside and said, ‘it would have been nice if you had told us your son is deaf.’
“I was stunned and said that he had informed them on his application form.”
She said the man’s response was: “Just saying. A heads up would have been nice!” He then walked back into the interview.
Read the full story here: http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2016/08/12/brighton-supermarket-criticised-over-treatment-of-deaf-job-applicant/
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Helen Spedding-Lowe
August 15, 2016
Absolutely disgraceful! The Equality Act has now been in place for many years. ASDA should be ashamed of themselves and should immediately get Deaf Awareness training for ALL their staff right up to boardroom level.
ohdear
August 15, 2016
““I was stunned and said that he had informed them on his application form.”
She said the man’s response was: “Just saying. A heads up would have been nice!” He then walked back into the interview.”
That thick bloke should be a shelf stacker…
nathan
August 17, 2016
On the contrary, I have found that when job hunting, if I mention my deafness i never get an invitation to an interview. If i omit it, all the interview offers start flying in…..I have been through so many interviews, they all dump me when they realise they are talking to a deaf person. It is quite disheartening . Lucky I am now in a job with an understanding employer….
deaflinguist
August 17, 2016
There’s clearly been a breakdown in communication somewhere, but where?
One is that the ‘Do you have a disability?’ question on application forms usually comes accompanied by a ‘If yes, do you require reasonable adjustments for interview?’-type question – that’s the whole point of asking in the first place. Was this filled out and an explicit request made for an interpreter to be present – you can’t just assume one will be provided, (as James and his mother seem to have done from how the story is presented above), you need to show what adjustments you need. It’s not enough to say ‘deaf’, you need to ask for those adjustments yourself. We need to state our needs ourselves, as does anyone with any disability. In other words, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
We would be up in arms if employers ‘assumed’ a candidate’s needs at interview and arranged a BSL interpreter for a lipreader or a lipspeaker for a BSL user without checking with the candidate.
If that question is missing then ASDA should be including it in their process but we do need to be proactive with our requests for reasonable adjustment at interview stage.
Even if an explicit request was made for an interpreter, there’s also a possible lack of communication between HR and the interview panel. The reason I think this is because many employers now strip out candidate information (age, gender, race, disability, names, schooling, etc) from the application so interviewers aren’t influenced by conscious or unconscious biases and focus only on the candidate attributes against the criteria: e.g. ‘I have had 5 years’ previous experience in a similar role.’ They should only be focusing on the candidate’s ability to do the job.
I wonder if someone stripped that out but forgot to act on the information given or notify the panel at interview stage. That’s wrong, and if that happens it suggests a weakness in the oversight of the candidate sift process which ASDA should be addressing if that is the case.
nathan
August 18, 2016
You should be able to bring along your own interpreter via ATW http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/access-work
Cathy
August 18, 2016
This story is NO surprise to me!! It is the norm! The equality act 2010 is weaker than a newborn kitten!!!
Emma
August 21, 2016
I agree. Sadly the Equality Act seems to count for nothing in real terms. I started my working career as a deaf shelf stacker in JS, before moving into the NHS, where bizarrely I have had a good career despite my deafness, even gaining an MBE – but sadly nothing changes, daily I am met by discrimination.