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Psychiatry
Have a Mental Illness and Looking for a Good Workplace? Three Things You Need To Do
Job hunting with a psychiatric disability can be less anxiety provoking. Really!
Posted November 11, 2011
I just finished an engagement with Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities. It's an invaluable event for college graduates or almost graduated who have some sort of disability, to meet with employers from Fortune 500 companies looking specifically to recruit individuals with a disability.
I performed my show about employment and the invisible disability of bipolar disorder, ‘Funny, You Don't Look Crazy'. In the ‘q and a' a woman asked: "I have a psychiatric disability, and my current workplace is very supportive, but I want to find a different, more challenging job. I'm afraid to move on. What if the next workplace won't be as understanding? What do you suggest?"
Her statement brings to light extremely important points. Unemployment stats for those of us with mental illness is disproportionately high - appallingly so (rates range from 20% - 80% depending on the severity and type of disorder1,2) But people with mental illness CAN work, WANT to work and ARE working3. This flies in the face of many prevailing myths about the ability of individuals with psychiatric disorders.
What's more essential to note is that these shocking stats for unemployment aren't because people with mental illness don't want to or can't work4, it points to the low expectations of returning to work treatment programs have, the attitudes of mental health experts, current vocational rehabilitation practices that obviously aren't working (sorry, pun not intended) and the heavy stigma we face when looking for work.
So what can we do, as job seekers, when taking the brave step of looking for work?
Three things:
1. Do your research. What's the reputation, the ‘press' (good and bad) about the company's corporate culture? Don't just look at the mission statement and values on their website. See if they put their money where their mouth is. What community events and not-for-profits do they sponsor? What kind of programs and publicity have they gotten when it comes to employee wellness and innovation in workplace? Certainly if they don't mention employee well-being at all then that's a red flag for you. If they have employees programs or in-house events around mental health (like depression screening day), do community work with mental health organizations or organizations that relate in any way to mental health (projects of affordable housing, eradicating homelessness), keep them on your hot list.
Have any of their senior level executives spoken out about their own mental health struggles or their families? (Think Lloyd Craig past CEO of Coast Capital Savings5). If you discover the company you are looking at has mental health and illness on the radar, then they may be more progressive and a good fit for you. What recruiting events do they participate in? COSD had the likes of CISCO, Microsoft, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson & NBCUniversal to name just a few.
2.Remember you have experience successfully managing your illness.
If you are ready to look for a job or have been working for any period of time, then your disorders have been fairly stabilized (or at least they should be). And it also means you have developed an arsenal of wellness tools that work for you. This doesn't mean you don't ever have symptoms, but that you know what to do when you have them.
We often forget how far we've come, how adept we have gotten at preventing unmanageable episodes or if they do occur, how skilled we are at making adjustments so we can still meet our obligations.
3.What will a supportive workplace look and feel like?
This will be different for everyone. Will it be a ‘gut feeling' you get when enter the office or job site? Your first impression of the person doing the hiring process? Will be it be as concrete as seeing posters about mental health on their walls? Will it be by seeing how stressed or not stressed the current employees appear? Will it be the language that is used? The level of formality? There's no right or wrong answer. Okay maybe if you overhear a staff person make a bad joke about his co-worker not taking his meds, then I wouldn't have high hopes for this particular place. But it's important to know what you are looking for, so when it presents itself you can go after it with all you've got.
No workplace will be perfect of course. But you can find supportive workplaces, supportive managers and environments that value you for your talents and respect your needs. The COSD student summit I just presented at proves that. There were over 11 major corporations all extremely eager to meet and recruit people with both visible and invisible disabilities. Finding the right job and the right workplace won't be easy. But it is possible. It just will take time, ingenuity and perseverance.
© 2011 Victoria Maxwell (www.victoriamaxwell.com)
1.Stuart, Heather; Mental Illness and Employment Discrimination; Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2006;19(5):522-526. © 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
2. Canadian Mental Health Association; ; © 2011
3. Glynn, Shirley, Marder, S., Cohen A., Hamilton, A., Saks, E., Hollan, D., Brekke, J., UCLA, VA Desert Pacific Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center, USC; How do Some People with Schizophrenia Thrive?; presentation, APA, San Diego, 2010
4. Stuart, Heather; IBID
5. Coast Capital Savings, Press Release, © June 2005
