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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

1) Yes, you are vastly underpaid. (Unless it's 3 years with FrontPage Pro!)

2) Apply for big companies / public sector. They have massive HR departments who will send you an equal opportunities form. Disclose your disability and ask for support during the interview. That should help them prepare for you - they will also have the budget to support you if you do get the job and require extra help.

3) Build a portfolio. If your CV and Portfolio are good, then your interview is basically "can we work with this person." If people are sufficiently impressed with your work, it won't matter whether you stammer, have dreadful BO, and have a hobby of murdering kittens on the weekend.

4) Speak to your GP and see if you can get help. Speech therapy isn't perfect, but it can help.

Good luck!

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4) Speak to your GP and see if you can get help. Speech therapy isn't perfect, but it can help

+1. I used to have a colleague with a pretty bad stammer. He attended speech therapy sessions during the time that we worked together and there was a huge improvement. While his speech never became 100% normal, the stammer was greatly reduced and by the end of it, he was even able to give presentations to a room full of engineers and managers. The confidence he gained form the exercises he learnt in therapy (such as taking a deep breath and exhaling into a difficult word) and from the support he received from other attendees have helped him immensely.

Speech therapy is definitely worth trying.

Thanks for your help. I hadn't thought about applying for bigger companies and disclosing, that should help and put me more at ease.

I have a personal website and github account which should show what I can do too.

Targeting the public sector is great advice - http://www.jobs.ac.uk/ is dedicated to jobs at UK universities, hopefully that helps in your search.

If you take freelance jobs from oDesk/PeoplePerHour et cetera, you might be able to perform all communication via email/IM. This isn't ideal, but could work as a backup plan if you want to try your hand at freelancing in the meantime.

Dreadful BO OR murdering kittens would seriously be a deal breaker. If I can't stand sitting near you or looking at you we're gonna have a bad time.

Steve Jobs apparently had horrid BO (not sure about his affinity for cat murder).

And pretty much never interviewed anywhere.

he also didn't spend much time as an employee, most of his life he was a founder

Yes, but he did successfully interview and was gainfully employed for a period. The point of my comment is that obstacles can be overcome and employees shouldn't be filtered for only arbitrary reasons.

Definitely speak to your GP and explain that it is having an effect on your career. You can talk to a speech therapist that may be able to help.

A lot of people are put off by "therapy" but it is worth going to an initial meeting with the therapist and finding out what the plan would be. If you decide that ongoing meetings is not for you then they may be able to give you a few exercises to do at home.

edit: http://www.stammering.org/adults_info.html

Here is some information. You do not necessarily need to speak first to a GP

May I ask you to kindly explain what "GP" means? I think I've been outside of the realm of English English for too long...

A General Practitioner, your primary care doctor. Don't think thats "English English" I call my doc here in the U.S. that too.

I think "General Practitioner".

+1 for speech therapy. I was a kindergardener with a terrible stutter. Over the summer my parents sent me to speech therapy, and I learned some tactics for helping with my stutter.

I still feel my stutter rising up when I talk (this is 20 years out of Kindergarden) but I'm able to check myself.

I was going through old report cards that my parents saved a few years ago. In the "Questions for the Teacher" section of my 1st grade report card, my dad asked the teacher if she had seen improvement with my stutter.

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