00:00
Finding And Activating Talent For Employer Teams. The following video features individuals seated in an office conference room speaking to the camera about their experiences with the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind or MCB. They are each talking about the subject of “Finding And Activating Talent For Employer Teams” and how MCB and employers offer workplace experiences to MCB Vocational Rehabilitation or VR clients. Speakers include, in order:
Joe Buizon (MCB Employment Services)
Brendan Foley (Teacher Of Visually Impaired Students)
Tanja Milojevic (MCB Client)
Richard Curtis (Employer of MCB Clients)
Nicole Ross (Optometrist, New England College of Optometry)
Jimmy Lopez (MCB Client)
00:56
Joe Buizon: Myself and my team cover the entire state with the case managers, we have counselors in working with consumers who are visually impaired and blind and helping get employment. And how we do that as whether it be job fairs, interviews, internship, mentoring, and doing what we can to get them employed and integrated back into the community, being a productive citizen.
01:19
Brendan Foley: One of my high school kids this year, he just wanted to get a job. I contacted mass Commission, we set up a meeting between the vocation worker at the school, Mass Commission, myself, and mom and the student. And then Mass Commission just kind of took it from there and really ran with it, and they're orienting him to the…to the workplace that he's not familiar with and assisting with the hiring process and him presenting himself as a candidate and all that wonderful stuff.
01:45
Joe Buizon: What we do is work on their resumes, make sure their aesthetics are okay, even though they visually can't see it. We kind of practice on interviewing, put them on the hot seat, being active in different clubs so then they can continue to network, do maybe a paid internship that will lead to conversion.
02:04
Tanja Milojevic: It had been very clearly outlined to me that if you didn't have internship experience when you're ready for the job market, it's going to be even harder to get into the job market as a fresh student out of college. And one of the things that MCB really did was helped me with the confidence in that first interview, learning the proper soft skills, and also showing the interviewer a little bit of my process of how I would get things done. So that gave me the foundation for the future internships, future interviews that I've done for jobs.
02:43
Joe Buizon: I work with the consumer, the individuals that are looking for work; but equally, if not more important, I work with employers. I tell them about all their strengths, their abilities, their education, and then I also give them the constructive feedback of the things that they're currently working on, or some of the fears that the companies may have. And let me tell you about the systems that we have in place and have been very successful, that I know that will work and their company.
03:11
Richard Curtis: I still had a business need to satisfy. And they got it, they actually shadowed some of the workers. So they would be able to go back to MCB and say, “Listen, I sat and found out what it was like to be a fund accountant for the day.” And then they were able to bring those…those skills necessary so they could train their clients, or they train the individuals that are doing the training like the universities or looking at the Carroll Center for the Blind, Perkins School. So there's a very much a connection in the Boston area, we're very fortunate.
03:41
Nicole Ross: We have to make sure that whatever optical device or visual equipment is going to, you know, fit with their workplace and what they have to do. And oftentimes they need feedback from, you know, the vocational rehab counselor that's going to the job site to say, “Okay, this part worked. But this didn't fit and we need a different strategy for this.”
04:00
Jimmy Lopez: After my first week, I really realized that I had needed a little more extra help and some extra tools in order to really be successful. And after talking to Job Buizon about the struggles that I was going through during my first internship, you know, such as not being able to see the screen during training sessions, he provided me with a…with a video magnifier, a Ruby magnifier, for the…for the summer, that was great. It really helped me be able to read the papers much faster. He kind of just helped…helped me, you know, construct a plan on how to…on how to communicate with my coworkers who had never worked with a person with a disability prior to me.
04:32
Brendan Foley: We always have MCB as a resource to go back no matter how senior or how long the individual was with the company, because we don't want individuals to have to leave their job because they're not being supported.
04:44
Joe Buizon: A message I'd like to tell employers is, please look at the Commission for the Blind and let us know what we can do different to really serve your company and to make a difference.
04:57
To learn more about and contact the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind find them online at mass.gov. Or call 800-392-6450.