Job search with a disability: what to say, what to ask for, and where to look

By the Reach team · Updated October 05, 2026

About one in four American adults lives with a disability, and most of them who want to work are looking at the same postings as everyone else, with a few extra questions on top: do I say anything, when, and to whom; what am I entitled to ask for; and which employers mean it when they say they are inclusive. This guide answers those questions plainly for the United States and the United Kingdom, then shows how to set up Reach so that it finds and filters jobs the way you want. It is written by the Reach team, so where we describe our own product we have named its limits.

You do not have to disclose, and the law is on your side

In the US, disclosure is your choice. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) covers employers with 15 or more staff. Before a job offer, an employer may not ask whether you have a disability, how severe it is, or require a medical exam. They may ask whether you can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation, and that question is the one most application forms actually carry. You can answer yes without saying anything about why.

The voluntary self-identification form is separate. Federal contractors must offer the "Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability" form (form CC-305) to every applicant. It goes to a compliance file, not to the hiring manager, and "I do not want to answer" is a complete answer. It does not trigger an accommodation and it does not count as a request for one.

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 does the same work. Employers may not ask health or disability questions before offering you the job, except to decide whether you need adjustments for the recruitment process itself, to check you can carry out a function intrinsic to the role, or for monitoring that is kept apart from the decision. Employers signed up to the Disability Confident scheme at the Employer or Leader level commit to offering an interview to disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria, which is the Guaranteed Interview Scheme you will see on some postings.

Disclosure can still be the right move. You need to disclose to request an accommodation, and some people find that naming it early removes a question hanging over the interview. The useful test is practical: will saying it now get you something you need, such as a captioned video interview, extra time on an assessment, or a wheelchair-accessible site visit? If yes, say it, and say what you need in the same sentence. If not, it can wait until there is an offer, or forever.

Asking for accommodations at each stage

Application. If the form itself is the barrier (an untagged PDF, a timed assessment, a captcha you cannot complete), write to the recruiting contact and ask for an alternative. Under the ADA the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation for the application process too, not only for the job. Keep the request short and specific: "I use a screen reader and the assessment at step 3 is not accessible. Could I complete it by phone or in an accessible format?"

Interview. Ask for what you need as soon as the interview is scheduled: a sign language interpreter, questions in advance, a longer slot, a quiet room, a written follow-up instead of a live task. Employers that already offer these in the posting are worth noticing; it is one of the signals Reach looks for.

Offer and job. After an offer, the employer may ask medical questions and require an exam, but only if it does so for everyone in that role. Accommodation requests after the offer go through an interactive process, and an employer may decline a specific request only if it causes undue hardship, in which case they must look for an alternative. Keep every request in writing.

Who pays. In the US, the employer pays for reasonable accommodations; the Job Accommodation Network (askjan.org) reports that most cost nothing or a few hundred dollars. In the UK, Access to Work is a government grant that can fund equipment, support workers, travel and interpreters, and you can apply before you start a job.

Schedule A: the federal shortcut most people have never heard of

Schedule A is a US federal hiring authority that lets agencies hire a person with a disability without the usual competitive process, as long as they meet the qualification standards for the job. It covers intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities and psychiatric disabilities, and the documentation is a short letter from a licensed medical professional, a licensed vocational rehabilitation specialist, or a federal or state agency that issues disability benefits. The letter states that you have a disability that qualifies; it does not have to name it.

Two things make Schedule A worth your attention. First, some USAJOBS postings are open only to Schedule A applicants and never appear in a public search, so most job seekers never see them. Second, on postings open to several hiring paths, applying under Schedule A moves you out of the competitive pool entirely. You still need to qualify, you still submit a federal-style resume, and the agency can still choose someone else, but the field is smaller.

Get the letter before you need it, and attach it to every federal application where the posting lists "Individuals with disabilities" as a hiring path. Reach has a public page of federal jobs open to Schedule A applicants, refreshed daily.

Telling an inclusive employer from one that says it is

Every large US posting carries the same two sentences about equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation, because federal contractors are required to print them. They tell you nothing. The signals that actually separate employers are rarer and more specific:

A named program. Autism at Work, a neurodiversity hiring program, the Neurodiversity @ Work Employer Roundtable, a Disability Confident Leader badge in the UK. These exist because someone inside the company built a process, trained interviewers and changed the assessment.
Specific process adjustments in the posting. Interview questions shared in advance, extra time on assessments, alternative interview formats offered to everyone. A company that writes this down has done it before.
A public score. The Disability:IN Disability Equality Index rates large employers each year; a score of 80 or above earns "Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion" and companies announce it when they get it.
Where the job is listed. Employers who post on disability-focused boards such as AbilityLinks pay to reach you on purpose.

None of this guarantees a good manager. It does mean the company has a path for your request that does not start with a surprised recruiter.

Setting up Reach for your search

Reach finds postings across job boards and employer career sites, scores them against a persona (one career track with its own resume and preferences), writes a tailored resume and cover letter for the strong matches, and can submit the applications. Three settings matter here, all on the persona editor under Accessibility preferences, next to the government work filters.

Disability-inclusive employers. Leave it on No preference and nothing changes. Set it to Prefer and the scoring model is told, for each posting, whether an inclusive hiring signal was found, and treats a found signal as a plus and an absent one as neutral; matching rows show a short badge saying which signal it was. Set it to Only and postings without a signal are held back; the job pool preview on the same page shows you how many that removes, so you can see the trade-off before you save. We would start on Prefer: the signals are real but sparse, and Only will cut most of the market.

Schedule A eligible. Tick it if you have, or can get, a Schedule A letter. Reach then sweeps USAJOBS for the postings that are open only to that hiring path and keeps them in your matches. If you leave it unticked, Reach skips Schedule A-only postings, because you could not apply to them anyway.

Screening answers. After you create a persona, Reach asks a short questionnaire so that it can answer the standard application questions in your words. The voluntary self-identification question is in there, and the default is "Prefer not to answer". Reach uses your answer on forms that ask, and never guesses.

These preferences are used only to find and filter matches. They are not written into your resumes, cover letters or application answers, they do not appear on the public pages you can share from your matches list, and they are described in our privacy policy.

Where Reach stops and you take over

Accommodation requests are yours to make. Reach does not add a disability or an accommodation request to any document or form; a request that comes from you, in your words, with a named contact, works better and keeps control where it belongs.

Assessments and interviews are not automated. Reach submits applications. When an employer sends an assessment or an interview invitation, that lands in your inbox and the Interviews tab, and the interview prep notes Reach writes include the company's pay data and recent news, not a script.

The signal is a floor, not a verdict. An employer with no signal may be excellent and one with a program may have a bad team. Use the filter to tilt the search, then judge the people you meet.

The portal itself. Reach is built to WCAG 2.1 AA: everything works from the keyboard, dialogs keep focus, there is a high contrast mode under Settings, and the accessibility statement lists the known gaps. If something is in your way, write to [email protected] and tell us the page.

Useful public pages

Outside Reach: the Job Accommodation Network (askjan.org) for accommodation ideas by condition and job, the EEOC's guidance on pre-employment disability questions, OPM's Schedule A page for the letter requirements, and in the UK, the Access to Work scheme and the Disability Confident employer register on gov.uk.

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