20 Blind Graduates, let loose on lake... looking for a job...

On Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th August 2007, Blind in Business will be holding its sixth annual Education to Employment diversity event for visually impaired graduates and undergraduates at the SHL management Centre in Long Ditton. Joining them will be 21 top graduate recruiters, looking to improve their diversity practices.

As well as all the usual job coaching and recruitment seminars, our graduates will be let loose on Heron Lake, near Long Ditton with the British Blind Waterskiing Association. The aim of this is to build confidence; naturally it takes a great deal of courage for a totally blind person to be whisked at speed around a lake!

Also available will be Life Coaching, from Blind in Business' very own life coaches, Dan Mitchell, and Sarah Lang. It's important to recognise that overcoming the barriers of disability is often physical and psychological.

Among the graduate recruiters joining us will be managers from HSBC, and HR staff from TFL, Herbert Smith, Cadbury Schweppes and Clifford Chance along with many more. They will be trained to understand the diversity of visual impairment, and ways to overcome everyday barriers. They will also be conducting mock interviews with this years graduates; a mutually beneficial exercise.

In the past this event has been a resounding success. Often it has led to jobs, and always has led to increased employer awareness of, and confidence in dealing with, visual impairment. This is critical, as 75% of all visually impaired people of working age in the UK are unemployed. This is way below the rates for all other disabilities in the UK

A candidate from Education to Employment 2005 - James Ridley - now working at The Aidis Trust - enthused that 'the waterskiing was awesome and the mock assessment centre tests gave me a really good insight into what many employers would like from their applicants. In short it was great preparation for my job hunt.'

The director of Blind in Business, Michael Kenny, had this to say about the importance of events such as this:

'Fear rules visually impaired graduates when they look for work. They wonder if they will be successful, or whether they will be discriminated against because of their disability. Fear and uncertainty also lurks in the minds of most employers without experience of visual impairment. This event quells that fear by bringing employer and visually impaired graduate together, so they see that they are not so strange, or scary - that employers are committed to diversity, and that disabled graduates make up significant parts of the graduate talent pool'.