This is a guided exercise which includes facts, quotes from real employers, and prompts for you to answer at your own discretion. Remember, asking for accommodations / disclosing is entirely up to you. Never feel forced to share if you are uncomfortable.

Hannah Olson, founder and CEO of Chronically Capable, shared her insights on the misconceptions and challenges people living with chronic illness or disability face while job-hunting, and how they can navigate their search during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let's face it. When your body has unpredictable and demanding needs — it makes even the smallest task feel like a major burden. What can you do? You can develop your capacity to take care of your unwell body while still taking care of your work.

Acing a job interview has as much to do with the way you prepare as it does your poise and confidence in the interview chair.

Rather than thinking about managing your chronic illness and your job in terms of “balance,” it may be better to focus on finding the accommodations and care options that help you thrive. Chronic illness shouldn’t force you to abandon your goals, but it may force you to advocate for yourself in new ways.

I don’t know about you, but I felt lost or too exhausted to search for resources that could’ve helped me at work. There were also so many things that I just didn’t know. Especially when it came to what services were available to me.

Only you can decide whether and how much to tell your employer about your psychiatric disability. Telling your employer about your diagnosis is the only way to protect your legal right to any accommodations you might need to get or keep a job.

One of the things I hear most often is, “But you don’t look sick!” I truly don’t — I have no wheelchair, no visible medical equipment, no physical markers. It makes it difficult for people to believe that I am sick and need accommodations.

Though one in four adults experience disability in the US, the employment rate of people with disabilities is only 29%. This staggering statistic begs the question: Why is such a large swath of the population currently excluded from the workforce?