Dean Craig is the Branch Manager for Personnel Source’s Salem Office. Annually, up to 2000 people secure a period of employment through their office.  On August 12, Dean participated in the Live Resume recruiting exchange, hosted by the Salem Chapter of the Oregon Business Leadership Network. We contacted Dean and asked him to give us his perspectives on that experience.

OBLN: Dean, how was the Live Resume event structured?

Dean Craig: I have been to many different models of live resume events. The OBLN did a good job. The format was very well laid out.

The employers who attended were given a booklet of resumes that included those of everybody who presented themselves, plus a few additional ones. All of the employer representatives were seated in an intimate auditorium-type setting. One after another, the job seekers stood in front of us and spoke about themselves in an employment context. They explained their work experiences, why they were job-seeking, the kind of positions they were looking for, where they hoped to go in their careers, and what they hoped to get out of the live resume event.

After the presentations, there was time to meet with people individually. I was able to hold brief interviews with four or five individuals.

OBLN: How would you describe the quality of the applicants that attended?

Dean Craig: The quality of candidates was really quite high. There was a good selection of applicants with a wide range of qualifications and experience. Most were interested in clerical positions. A year ago I could have hired every single one of them by the end of that day, but unfortunately things are not as busy for us as they were then. Nevertheless, there were some very good candidates that I was tickled to have exposure to - and some that I will hopefully yet be able to hire.

OBLN: It sounds like you found your participation to be worthwhile?

Dean Craig: Particularly as the first time out of the chute, it was a very well thought-out event. I thought the organizers did a really nice job. The entire event took about two hours. It began at 7:30 AM and I was back at my office by about 10:00 AM. It took me away from the office for a relatively brief time and proved to be a valuable use of my time.

Dean Craig: Over the years, I have hired hundreds of people with one kind of disability or another. I have experienced both positive and negative opportunities in hiring people with varying degrees of disabilities. (The negative experiences haven’t been with the employees but the support workers who too often added a level of bureaucracy and interruption to the workplace.) These have included people who use wheelchairs, people who were deaf, people who were blind, people with learning disabilities, etc.

That is the key to employing people with disabilities: not focusing so much on what they can’t do, but on what they can do – and then accommodating where they might have some minor deficiencies.

OBLN: Have accommodations ever proven to be a problem for you?

Dean Craig: Actually, I have never had to make any significant accommodations. Those who required accommodations have always brought them with them. For example, one woman that we hired was deaf and she was a wonderful employee. She brought an interpreter with her when she needed one and when she didn’t need one, she read lips. She used sign language with coworkers who knew it. She was great.

Another woman had a neurological condition where she regularly had small seizures that would leave her briefly paralyzed – she just couldn’t move or speak for a short time. She worked out great! Her disability would have been a problem on a job that required using the telephone a lot, but she was wonderful at doing her job of payroll and filing.

OBLN: In considering working through a staffing agency like Personnel Source, is there anything job seekers with disabilities should think about?

Dean Craig: First of all job seekers need to know that working for us does not cost them anything. It is our employer/clients that pay for our services.

I think staffing agencies like ours are a wonderful partner for enabling the employment of people with disabilities. We offer an extra buffer between the employee and employer. When we hire somebody to work for one of our clients, we are the actual employer of record and, technically, they are our employee. If that employee experiences some difficulty, whether it is an issue of accommodation or a personality conflict, we are there for them. It is in our interest to have things work out. We want them to be successful and we are on their team.

We don’t come in heavy-handed. We will meet quietly with the employee to identify their concerns – what difficulties they are experiencing, what the opportunities are to repair them, and what they would like to see happen. Subsequent to that, we meet with the employer and try to bring about the needed changes. We work on the model that we are not successful unless our employees and our employers are both successful.

The Live Resume event was an initiative of the Salem Chapter of the Oregon Business Leadership Network (OBLN). It was a collaboration between the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (OVRS) and the OBLN to provide a job networking opportunity between employers with job openings and selected job seekers with disabilities. 

Live Resume is a real and personal event for me and it is exciting to be able to be in a position to help others who are walking in the same shoes I once did. I thought I was never going to work again. I have an education and a great work history, and after acquiring a disability,  I thought I would never use any of my experience again. Someone once told me that I was a lot of talent to let walk out the door. And, I know that is true for a lot of others who have disabilities.

Live Resume is unique because it is more intimate setting. There was this feeling in the room that everyone in the audience was really pulling for the job seeker and wanting them to do well. Public speaking is not everyone’s favorite thing to do. But each one of them did a really great job. To sum it up – it was empowering!

My primary role was developing the flyer and getting the word out to employers. Because the OBLN chapter in Salem is still establishing itself, I have been attending a number of functions sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce – getting to know local-area employers and building a connection with them. Our flyer was emailed to all of those contacts. As a result of those efforts, fourteen employers attended the Live Resume event in August.

After the event, the feedback from the employers was very positive, e.g. “Organized and well-focused. Convenient location. Friendly, outgoing staff and job seekers.”; “Very well-prepared candidates.”; “Lively and energetic presentations.” Feedback from the job-seekers was similarly positive, e.g. “I felt at ease with all of the welcoming people.”; ”It was a very good way to meet new employers and network with them.”

Since the event was met with such enthusiasm, we plan to hold similar events quarterly. The next one is scheduled for Thursday, November 13.
 

  See the (PDF) flyer for the November 13 Live Resume event in Salem.

There are many job seekers on the caseloads of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors that are qualified, motivated, reliable and dependable and out looking for work every day. We welcomed the idea of creating a small and more intimate networking opportunity for them with employers. For the businesses, it helps them to meet their diversity recruitment goals.

Lynda VanDoran, from the Oregon Commission for the Blind, and I worked with our counselors to identify job-ready folks who would benefit from the opportunity. We selected eight job seekers to participate. In addition to attending, five of them also volunteered to make a verbal presentation about themselves to the employers.

This opportunity to interact directly with employers gave our job seekers greater confidence in their job search efforts. Many business cards were exchanged. Several recruiters encouraged people to apply to their companies and offered to give the job seekers pointers in the application process. When I followed up with the job seekers, I found that at least one of them has interviewed with one of the employers and is awaiting a call. Two of them had already secured jobs.

Career GatewayTM, a product of COSD, is proud to be the primary tool for employers to reach out to college students with disabilities in the Northwest as part of the Career Fair at the USBLN Conference.  To maximize the benefit to you, as an employer, post your job openings on Career GatewayTM