Career Readiness Help: 16 Strategies for Job Finders with Cerebral Palsy

By Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF, Disability Employment Expert
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Here is the career readiness help you can provide your young job finder with cerebral palsy (CP). Career Book 5 is available as an eBook and as a paperback.

Career Book 5: Confidence booster

Here's why you need to read this book of job finder strategies. It shows how leveraging disability worked for me in the mainstream job market -- even though I walked and talked with difficulty due to CP. In this quick read (about 40 minutes), you get:

  • Expert advice
  • Potential pathways
  • Mainstream orientation

Now is the time to help your new job finder with CP tap disability's edge in today's job market -- and, in the process, gain self-confidence.

The career readiness help your provide now will give your youngster a boost in building a meaningful career.

Strategies for mentoring your new job finder

During the 1980s, I didn’t have an opportunity to tell my mom about what I had learned about developing a career as an individual with CP.

These are tested strategies which now, decades later, may help you provide career readiness help for your own youngster.

Growing in Self-confidence

Strategy 1 - Recognize the Importance of Motivation
Strategy 2 - Concentrate on Four Basic Skills
Strategy 3 - Build a Personal Brand
Strategy 4 - Consider a Functional Resume
Strategy 5 - Develop a “Good Answer” for Job Interviews
Strategy 6 - Prepare for Tricky Job Interview Questions
Strategy 7 - Make the Most of These Three Career Builders
Strategy 8 - Network within Targeted Companies
Strategy 9 - Use this Personal Development Template
Strategy 10 - Follow these Guidelines for Selecting a Boss

Discovering Disability’s Competitive Edge

Strategy 11 - Articulate a Personal Leadership Philosophy
Strategy 12 - Become Savvy about Workplace Inclusion
Strategy 13 - Acquire Social Intelligence
Strategy 14 - Frame Disability from a Positive Perspective
Strategy 15 - Concentrate on Productivity
Strategy 16 - Learn How to Approach Salary, Benefit Negotiations

Series of Career Books: Get all 5

Each of these five books takes about 40 minutes to read.

Each illustrates and summarizes the essential career development strategies to follow for your youngster’s age group – all based on the road map recommended by National Career Development Guidelines (NCDG) and my experience as a Global Career Development Facilitator and as a person with cerebral palsy and mainstream work experience.

See all five Career Books.

Excerpt from strategy 8

... LinkedIn is an excellent tool for doing company research, building a network of contacts and receiving early announcements of online jobs.

I’m always surprised about how many new college graduates are not actively involved on LinkedIn, where open jobs on not always formally posted but, instead are part of the online jobs market that relies on word of mouth. Being actively involved on LinkedIn can definitely build your son or daughter’s self-confidence when it comes to finding the right job.

Most of the jobs mentioned on LinkedIn are “go-to-work” type positions. But, if your young job seeker is really looking for online jobs, involving work that can be done from home, LinkedIn is also the place to start because the professionals who congregate on LinkedIn generally offer work-from-home opportunities that are legitimate and are not scams.

To tap into LinkedIn, your new job seeker first needs to use the key words he or she developed as part of personal branding to create a LinkedIn profile. That profile should include fresh stories which illustrate your son or daughter’s skills and which are not duplicated on his or her personal website or resume.

Then, at that point, I’d recommend gradually building LinkedIn connections -- connections with people who are really interested in your job seeker and are appropriate for the focus of his or her job search because they are potentially a posting source of online jobs ...

Rebecca Wilberg's LinkedIn entry recommending my eBooks

Download Career Book 5 as an eBook  or as a paperback

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Go to Cerebral Palsy Career Builders

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Originally written and illustrated by Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF, owner of Hasse Communication Counseling, LLC, who, as a person with cerebral palsy, served for 10 years as a vice president in a Fortune 500 company during his 29-year career in corporate communication. He’s an Accredited Business Communicator, certified as a Global Career Development Facilitator and author of 14 Amazon books about disability awareness and disability employment issues.