How a Deaf Person Found a Job: A Happy Story

I was out of the workforce for close to five months, and I did not have to do a job search in eight years after being employed at a deaf school as a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher. Of course, I started looking for employment like most people do; I used massive job search engine sites and became quickly inundated with thousands of job listings that popped up on my computer screen from site to site. The search results came back with way too many job listings all over the country, it is likely because I was willing to relocate to another state. My frustration grew as I went through the listings using specific keywords and saw way too many job postings that aren’t relevant to my profession. I even tried to blast my resume through multiple staffing agencies across the country that are advertising for deaf and hard of hearing teachers. When my search attempts were not working, I agreed to check out DeafJobWizard.com on advice from my close friend, and I found several job vacancies listed on that particular job board for a deaf education teacher. I was impressed by how easy to look through the job postings on this website and gave it the old college try. I applied for two high school teaching job positions that are several states away from me. After a couple of days, I was contacted by both employers asking for interviews. I was thrilled! I agreed to interview in American Sign Language via videophone in the same week with both employers. I believe that the interviews went quite well for me although the employers’ interview styles and questions are quite different from each other. Nonetheless, my experience with both interviews was positive. Not only they were interviewing me; I was also interviewing them. I asked both employers with many specific questions about the job position, location, school, and its colleagues and students. I was primarily interested in how this place of employment’s work culture may be a good fit for me as a deaf person. As my work references checked out, I got job offers from both employers three weeks later! I decided to accept the job offer with the school that I felt that is the best match for me. After accepting the job offer, I spent in the next two weeks packing up my possessions and driving several hundred miles to my new home state and, of course, to my new job! What is the moral of this story? There are jobs out there for deaf teachers like me. You should use creative and proven ways to find a job such as using a specialized deaf job board. The deaf job boards or sites can be your best bet over the larger ones. This is how happy stories are told!