Story by Naz Erdem, AQA Practice Leader

It was great to see the official launch of The Field employment website recently. The new website is the initiative of Australian of the Year, and seven-time Australian Open champion Dylan Alcott, and has the backing of Prime Minister Albanese and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten. Dylan has made expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities one of his priorities. The great thing for jobseekers with a disability is that it allows them to connect with inclusive employers including Coles, Bendigo Bank, Tennis Australia, and many more.

It gives employers the opportunity to be proactive in creating inclusive workplaces and recruitment processes for people with disabilities to have more choice and control over their careers.

The online platform is designed to connect people with disabilities to potential employers and highlight their skills, experience and qualifications. Their aim is impressive, hoping to attract 100,000 job seekers and 45,000 businesses across Australia.

Employment equality for people with disability has not changed in over 28 years. Despite the widely documented skills shortage in Australia, over 500,000 working-age people with disability are currently actively looking for work.

The Field will provide jobseekers with disability an opportunity to showcase their strengths and abilities online to registered hiring managers across corporate, small and medium enterprises, and government sectors who are ready to tap into an under-utilised talent pool.

Employment issues has been a passion for Dylan for many years. In fact, in the October 2019 issue of NewsLink, Dylan spoke about his “Remove the Barrier” campaign. 

Dylan said “One of the hardest things to overcome is actually the barriers that you can’t see. Those invisible barriers and things like unconscious bias and discrimination”.

“You can’t see unconscious bias but I promise you, as someone who’s faced it, you can feel it”.

Unconscious bias, as Dylan puts it, is a lack of expectation, negative perception and an assumption that people with a disability are broken, less capable and unemployable because of their disability.

“It’s not fair, but more importantly, it’s not true,” he said.

The Field is a game changer.  Job seekers no longer need to hide their disability when applying for a job because they know the employers they are reaching out to are already aware. If you are a job seeker, we encourage you to register on the website and create your profile, it’s quite easy. Resumes can be uploaded through video, audio, or text, depending on your preference.