
Show HN: Handicareers.com – A simple job board for disabled people - therealcoffee
http://handicareers.com
======
mwcampbell
As a person with a disability myself (legally blind), I have a couple of
concerns with this idea.

First, the category of people with disabilities is quite broad. There are not
only different categories of disability, but also a broad spectrum of severity
for any given disability. Why would an employer post to a job board for people
with disabilities in general, except out of a misguided sense of charity, or
perhaps to meet some kind of quota?

And that brings me to the bigger concern: Why do people with disabilities need
a special job board just for us anyway? Surely that is a failure to fully
integrate us into mainstream society, which I think is ultimately the best
thing for everyone.

By the way, though I hate the clunkiness of terminology like "people with
disabilities", I think it's justified in this case. For me, the word
"disabled", particularly in the context of employment, has the connotation of
being unable to be productive. Some people's disabilities are severe enough
that that's true of them, but that's not all of us, not by a long shot. Maybe
I'm being over-sensitive about that, but I'm just telling you how I see it,
for what it's worth.

~~~
benhoyt
Interesting perspective on the terms (in your last paragraph). I've long
thought it's odd how this language has changed over the years. A long time ago
a disabled person might have been called "retarded" \-- that's probably the
most offensive term of all now, but the literal meaning of the word itself is
least offensive, simply meaning "slowed down". Then came "handicapped", which
isn't used much anymore, but literally just means having some kind of
restriction. Now we are much more enlightened and say "disabled" \-- it's the
least offensive term now, but if you take it literally that word is quite
horrible, meaning "not working" or "incapacitated" or "turned off" or "unable
to be used", as in "the bomb squad disabled the bomb". Why did we settle on a
word that means "not working" for someone who has a handicap?

~~~
trvlngwlbry
I read GP's last paragraph as distinguishing between the use of "disabled
people" vs. "people with disabilities," rather than between the use of
"disabled" (or words with the same root) vs. other words.

My company did some work for an organization that supported people with
disabilities in the workforce. The client stressed the importance of the
distinction between using "people with disabilities" as opposed to "disabled
people," with the former being much preferred because - due to its structure -
it puts the focus (i.e. the first word) on "people" rather than
"disabled/disability".

~~~
DanBC
...but it also says the disability lies with that person, and this is likely
to be rejected by people who prefer the social model.

When people can't read a website it's tempting to tell them to ctrl + or
install user CSS. But better is to just design the site in ways that don't
exclude large numbers of the population, let alone people with visual
impairment. It's not that person's eyesight that excludes them, it's the
designer's poor choice of font size and colour that excludes them.

There are problems with this model, but it's still mostly useful.

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escapologybb
Man, I'm quadriplegic and I had to set up my business as it was basically the
only way I could get a job. People with severe disabilities don't tend to make
the most reliable employees timekeeping wise because you just can't guarantee
that you will be at a place at a given time, I cannot in any way guarantee
that I will be fit for work at 9 AM on Monday morning, it's just the nature of
the disability. And that's the same for most people with severe disabilities.
That just won't fly with most employers. I'd be really interested where you've
found a stock of sympathetic employers willing to deal with these issues,
because I've not found many.

Also, why separate out disabled people from "normal" people, I'm genuinely
curious? I mean I appreciate the effort of you trying to find us work, but
don't you see how you are coming at it from the wrong angle. If you are going
to separate out disabled people from the rest of the job market, how about a
board where disabled people post their skills, the hours they can guarantee
per week to work and the wage they are willing to work for just like other
niche job markets? What separates out this job market from the others in the
space?

Also, by disabled do you mean blind and deaf or do you mean anybody with any
type of disability? The type of disability will have a huge impact on the type
of job. You don't have any jobs listed so I can't get a handle on who exactly
this is meant for you see.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm really not and I'm sure this effort comes
from a good place but if you haven't got a group of employers willing to
employ disabled people then you are really going to struggle. I wish you luck.

I have lots of questions, I may also have answers, hit me up if you want to
chat.

~~~
extra88
> Also, why separate out disabled people from "normal" people, I'm genuinely
> curious?

Since, as you recognize, many employers are unprepared to even think about how
a particular disability is not a barrier to a particular job or about
accommodations that would enable someone to perform the job, there could be
value to people with disabilities for a site where employers identify
themselves as having thought about it. Many, if not most, jobs appear in more
than one place so this can be another one.

Still, I'm more inclined to prefer a job board for everyone that has options
like Craigslist's "ok to highlight this job opening for persons with
disabilities" checkbox [0].

[0]
[https://www.craigslist.org/about/disabilities](https://www.craigslist.org/about/disabilities)

~~~
escapologybb
You're right, there could be value in a board like this.

I really do like the craigslist idea of marking a checkbox if you're willing
to employ disabled people, that means that I as a quadriplegic don't need to
learn a new interface or go to new website, I can just go to the same place as
everyone else and just search by that criteria. That's a great idea.

~~~
employee8000
Not checking that checkbox and admitting you're not willing to hire disabled
people would likely expose you to a ton of lawsuits.

~~~
extra88
No, leaving the checkbox unchecked does not mean you're opposed to hiring
people with disabilities. The job posting is still equally available to people
with and without disabilities.

~~~
employee8000
Then what is the point of the checkbox?

~~~
extra88
The link I provided to Craigslist explains it and my other comment also talks
about what the checkbox does and doesn't do currently.

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gtirloni
For your niche, you should run your website through a few of these checkers
and make sure it passes with flying colors:

[https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/](https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/)

~~~
djKianoosh
Also you might try this during development:
[http://khan.github.io/tota11y/](http://khan.github.io/tota11y/)

we've started to use it on the main theme for CBP apps:
[https://github.com/US-CBP/cbp-theme](https://github.com/US-CBP/cbp-theme) and
it helps catch a bunch of basic issues while developing.

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ekarulf
Cool!

I would suggest changing the branding to "a simple job board for people with
disabilities." For many people the disability is a part of who they are - it's
not how they self identify.

See some of the existing non-profits in this space like
[http://www.bestbuddies.org](http://www.bestbuddies.org)

~~~
sixstringtheory
On the point of "disabled people" vs "people with disabilities" I have this
conversation a lot with my wife, who is an Occupational Therapist and who
first introduced me to the idea of people-first language. I think there's
merit in the idea, but I'm not sure it's a settled issue. She's also fluent in
American Sign Language and studied Deaf culture as an anthro undergrad, and
they are one of several examples of groups who diametrically oppose people-
first language: Deafness is a defining and inseparable part of who they are
_as a person_. I would love to hear the opinions of other people on this board
who live with Autism, blindness, para- or quadri-plegia, or other forms of
disabilities on the matter, as I don't see myself as being able to have an
authoritative opinion, as someone who does not live with disability.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-
first_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-first_language)

~~~
k__
A few decades ago people would personify the word disability in Germany.

"Ein Behinderter hat dort geparkt" -> "A disabled was parking there"

But this changed drastically in my lifetime. We often just say "he is
disabled" and mostly to people who are mentally challenged. For physical
disabilities we often use the specific word directly.

If someone can't see or walk, we simply say it, we don't say he is disabled,
it's already implied by his condition.

~~~
escapologybb
So has my one single factoid about the German language being wrong all these
years? Well don't I feel silly?!

------
DanBC
One of the forms mentions London, thus some UK advice.

"handicareers" seems like a play on the handicapped word. You might need to
know that word is strongly rejected by large numbers of the UK population.
This is possibly going to attract strongly negative attention.

You might want to link employers and potential employees to advice about
Access to Work, and to best current practice about reasonable adjustments, and
to advice about the Equality Act.

~~~
escapologybb
This exactly. This was my first clue that this person probably wasn't from the
UK.

You're totally right, the word handicapped is definitely the first thing that
came to my mind when I saw the name and it wasn't a nice association. But if
they are not aiming at the UK market then there probably isn't a reason to
change it, but if operating inside the UK then I think the name might be a
real problem.

It just makes me think of "HandiCapable" which is a horrible term.

To be clear, I don't think the OP is trying to be offensive but inside the UK
I think you might this kind of feedback quite a lot.

------
orionblastar
I am mentally ill and disabled because of it. When companies have a disabled
plan it is for people in wheelchairs, the blibd, and the deaf but not the
mentally ill.

I have good days and bad days with my mental illness and sometimes lose track
of what I am doing if interrupted too much. I know I have to take
interruptions from my work for help desk assistance and other things like team
members.

My mental illness has some things in common with high functioning autism, and
bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia and is so rare that half of 1% get it,
schixoaffective disorder. Nobody seems to know how to accomodate it and nobody
wants someone with it to be a 50K or 150K a year programmer with it.

If only that job board worked, i tried searching jobs and waited over an hour
for it to stop the circle spinning.

------
kaa2102
I really LOVE this concept. I think it is much needed. I've seen studies of
entire customer service departments staffed by disabled individuals who showed
extreme patience and empathy with customers resulting in higher satisfaction.

One consideration to improve the user experience is to make sure that the
website is Section 508 Compliant (www.section508.gov) so that it is easier to
access for individuals with hearing and visual disabilities.

~~~
extra88
Section 508 is specifically for U.S. government work and rather outdated. The
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are much more useful [0] and if
you meet all the success criteria for WCAG level AA, you should also meet
Section 508 requirements (there may be one or two overly prescriptive details
in 508 that may require tweaking to get to 100%).

[0]
[https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php](https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php)

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deutronium
This sounds like a cool idea, good luck!

Am I right in thinking there's no jobs on there at the moment though, I
couldn't seem to see any.

Edit: Getting a DB error now, but could see the page before

~~~
therealcoffee
Thanks for the feedback! You are correct, the board is empty as I have
literally just launched it. :-)

Getting DB errors also now, thinking it might be a traffic issue.

~~~
benhoyt
I don't know if this was an official launch, but if you do have an official
launch I think it'd be better to seed it by reaching out to some folks first.
Even two or three postings before a launch event would have made it seem more
complete.

------
tensymbols
Looks like in Firefox page completely disappears when you turn all three right
side toggles on and there's no way to roll back.

------
mettamage
Curious question: how do you deal with people who post stuff that isn't
relevant?

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Goldenromeo
good job, but please try to fix ssh. I tried accessing the https version of
your site but it didn't work. First chrome complained it was unsafe, and later
your host returned a generic page for new sites.

~~~
extra88
I think you mean SSL or TLS, not SSH.

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jukkakoskinen
Nice idea. Can you tell a little about what got you started?

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thefaketea
I think that it's a very interesting idea!

------
homero
Love it

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milankragujevic
It's offline... And powered by WordPress...

> Error establishing a database connection

~~~
alkonaut
I think we may have disabled it.

~~~
therealcoffee
I am actually getting the same issue, intermittently. Is it just a traffic
overload issue? Anything I can do to make this more robust? I was not getting
this before sharing the site.

~~~
eli
Look into caching so that it does not need to hit the database for everything.
Been years since I used WordPress but there was something like WP Super Cache
that worked OK. Your web server (e.g. Nginix) can also be configured to cache
pages, and there are entire servers dedicated to caching like Varnish. Be
forewarned that caching and cache invalidation can be surprisingly tricky to
get perfect.

You also might just actually need a beefier server. But at the very least you
should be able to serve the homepage, which doesn't change super often, to
everyone.

Congrats on having a site popular enough that you get to learn about a whole
new world of tools and technologies!

~~~
therealcoffee
Thanks I will look into caching plugins, starting with Super Cache. Hope this
can stabilise things a bit.

If that does not work, will have to look into server options.

Thank you for your help and encouragement! :-)

