Dan Biddle lost two legs and an eye as a result of the 7 July 2005 transport bombings in London. But he also lost his place in the workforce. When he applied for jobs, the former construction site engineer received positive initial responses from the recruitment consultants he contacted.

Everything about me was exactly the same but one thing – and they cast me aside

DAN BIDDLE, DOUBLE AMPUTEE AS A RESULT OF THE 7/7 BOMBINGS IN LONDON IN 2005

However, as soon as recruiters learned about his disability, Biddle found he was out of the running. “Everything about me was exactly the same but one thing and they cast me aside,” Biddle told an audience of recruiters, employers and others on 13 September at a BT-sponsored event aimed at highlighting recruitment issues for disabled candidates. Recruitment agencies in particular came in for criticism.

Biddle now heads up the inclusive solutions practice for accessibility solutions firm Contacta but isn’t alone among disabled candidates who believe that a disability is likely to discourage recruiters from pressing their case with employers.

Headline statistics revealed last week from a survey of 45 recruiters and 210 disabled candidates showed that 74.1% of the candidates believe that telling recruitment agencies about their disability would mean they were less likely to be offered a job.

Nearly 52% said they had never been offered support through reasonable adjustment in a recruitment process. When asked what barriers they had encountered in getting a job through a recruitment agency, they said:

• “off-putting job descriptions and advertisements”, over 70%
• “lack of disability awareness of staff”, 75%
• “negative assumptions of staff”, over 70%.

The government is nearing the 17 October end of a public consultation into specialist disability employment services. The consultation followed a review into specialist disability employment services by RADAR chief executive Liz Sayce recommended changes to government policy to support disabled people to work in any role in any sector rather than in segregated employment.

To that end, BT, e.on and government agencies such as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) are leveraging their buying power with recruiters to suggest to them that a commitment to introducing disabled people into the candidate stream will pay off in competitive advantage. They are recommending also that recruiters use the Clearkit, or similar tool, to scrutinise and improve their current recruitment processes and practices.