Jerome's Case Presents Some Interesting

Jerome's case presents some interesting challenges. Jerome is an impressive, highly capable individual who is likely to face difficulty as a result of biases. He may face difficulty because he is African-American, because he is a veteran and because he has a prosthetic leg. I felt right away that one of the most important things was to prepare Jerome to overcome all of these challenges.

I decided he would be used to race bias, and in some ways mentally prepared to take on the challenge of the disability bias, but wanted to make sure he was also prepared for any bias against veterans that may occur. That said, I also knew I had to worry about the disability bias because although I could see that Jerome was ready to deal with it, I also knew that he had not dealt with it yet.

So it was important for me to go over the types of responses he might get from employers. During the initial interview, I found it easy to strike up a rapport with Jerome. He is an affable individual and I knew that if I was able to put him at ease at the outset of the interview, things would go smoothly.

I could see that he is good with people and I made sure to let him know that -- he will need to have a few good icebreakers in his repertoire in order to overcome some of the prejudices he might face. One thing I did not want to do with Jerome was to focus on prejudices and biases. I did not want Jerome to focus on those, nor did I want the employers to focus on those things either.

Most of my time working with Jerome was therefore focused on his capabilities. I was able to have some basic testing done to see where Jerome might fit into the job market. I was able to get a list of evaluation sites from a colleague that were particularly amenable to ex-military. I felt that if I could remove one or more potential prejudices that would help to focus on Jerome's capabilities and get him into a place with a good fit.

I wanted to find a company with a range of positions and nothing too physical. I believe Jerome capable of standing all day, but beyond that might push his leg too far. For the evaluation agency, I wanted to focus as much as mental competencies as physical ones. I developed questions that focused on education, training and past experiences. I wanted the agencies to delve into Jerome's skill set and his attitude towards work, rather than worry about his leg.

He has a good education and I felt that this should be the focus. I wanted to get him into either a counseling career or human resources, maybe marketing -- something where psychology can come in handy. For myself, I did start to feel some biases when working with Jerome. I know that I guided him and our partners away from overly physical jobs -- although to be fair he is 38 years old, which is more a time to stop doing physical labor rather than to start it.

As well, his education suits him for non-physical work. But I definitely carried that bias to.