Deaf consumer Joe has been working on improving his interviewing skills. With the help of DOR, Joe hopes to make a positive first impression as he looks for employment.

Joe: I worked many years at many different odd jobs. The longest job I had was working at Pepperidge Farm. I did that for 20 years. I really enjoyed that job driving and going to all the different stores, the big stores and delivering things. The one negative was that I get stuck in traffic driving. That was the one thing that I felt was a negative and then I decided to leave. I retired for a while. My wife said, “At your age it's going to be hard for you to find a job.” So I decided that I wanted to find some part-time work. So I asked the Department of Rehabilitation for help and so I came here.

Things are really different than they were before. I've had to update everything. I've had to ask them how to do this. They ask about attitude and behavior and you have to learn how to have those interview skills. I have a whole list of things. It's really been helping me get ready for interviews. It's really important for that. I had sloppy clothes. Now I know how to look at the interviewer. I had a poor attitude and was kind of frustrated. I didn't have an interpreter long ago. It was kind of emotional looking for work and some of my friends had helped me. So then I was able to learn more about appropriate behavior and I thank DOR for their help and changing me and helping me with those interview skills.

Sometimes when a deaf person is interviewed they get very nervous and they need to be trained how to have appropriate clothing for a job interview that’s not too loud. You know not to dress too loudly and to be thankful. DOR has been able to teach me how to dress to impress and have all of the skills that I need to get through an interview.

The first application was a bit frustrating and with the resume I had a lot of problems because my English isn't that good. So I had to have some help from someone to tweak my English to make it much better because I had a few failures and I didn't have an interpreter or anything and had to write back and forth. It was such a struggle to communicate but I didn't give up. It was a good challenge. I got them to give me a trial for a week so that I could see what was going on and learn what I need to do and then I got hired and that gave me a chance and made me be able to get into the job. My friends encouraged me. They said, “You have to struggle but you can do this.”

I learned being calm was really important and how to handle myself. Being polite, dressing well, how to meet with the manager, having an interpreter and meeting with the HR manager, being friendly, shaking their hand. You don't act silly and you got to make that eye contact so they can see you and you don't look away. You can look at the interpreter and then look at the person. I can do that. I can do anything.