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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

When you greet your interviewer, hand them this card:

  |=================================|
  |                                 |
  | Hi, I'm John Doe and I'm happy  |
  | to meet you.                    |
  |                                 |
  | I have a stammer, but we should |
  | not let that interfere with our |
  | conversation.                   | 
  |                                 |
  | I'm an excellent web developer  |
  | and I love what I do. My speech |
  | impediment does not affect my   |
  | work.                           |
  |                                 |
  | What can I do for you?          |
  |                                 |
  |=================================|

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As someone responsible for interviewing technical candidates, I love this.

It might be a bit of a hyperbole to suggest that a stammer is an advantage in an interview, but you could view it as an opportunity. The entire purpose of an interview is to get a sense of the skill level of the interviewee. You want to know how they respond to problems. Are they able to arrive at solutions?

Your stammer is an opportunity to show that you know how to work your way through a challenge. And don't fool yourself in to thinking that using any of the solutions suggested here diminishes the accomplishment of working through your challenge. Knowing where to seek help, then taking the appropriate action based on that advice is a skill. You'd be amazed how many people do not know how to effectively seek outside help.

If I were interviewing someone with a stammer and they handed me this card, it would put a huge smile on my face. It would shift my disposition in a positive direction, which would definitely impact the interview. How could it not?

How about having this discussion in the preliminary emails? Take the card too, but let them know in advance so it is less of a surprise at interview time.

I'm not sure this is a good idea. From first communications HR may remember him as the programmer with a stammer, and will have some time to give the condition undeserved attention. Yet there's even no guarantee that the interviewer will be aware of that conversation (especially with larger companies, AFAICT).

Sure, that's a valid point. I suppose the best time to do it would be while arranging the in-person/phone interview.

The interviewers will (hopefully!) be told what time the interview is, so this information could be forwarded at the same time.

And if the HR team can't ensure the interviewers have this extremely relevant piece of information? That's probably a signal about how effectively that company handles communication.

They're likely to remember him as the programmer with a stammer anyway, aren't they? At least this way they remember him as the programmer with a stammer who was brave and addressed it up front.

Or he may come out as insecure about his impediment, fearing it may affect their decision to hire him.

I have two friends who stutter, and it never occurred to me that their condition could be worth mentioning[0]. Maybe it isn't as bad as OP's, though.

[0] Unless one goes for an acting career, of course. On a serious note—I know it's easier to say, but maybe it would help OP stammer less if he didn't perceive it as something of importance in his professional area.

He does fear it will affect their decision to hire him.

All I can say, I had an interaction today that reinforced my view. Was at a friend's house and her boyfriend announced at the beginning of lunch, "Please just know I have severe hearing problems, so if I don't respond or continue a conversation we're not actually having, it's not you or me being rude, please just correct me." I really appreciated him being honest and upfront and it enables me to better cater the conversation to suit his needs as we spoke. I recognize that a studder is different in that the interviewer doesn't have to adjust his way of speaking but rather his listening, but I still think there's a benefit from the heads up. Maybe just say so instead of giving a card, then.

Notice that the person in your example made the announce immediately before the event, when it would directly influence the communication. Letting HR know beforehand that you stutter (and you can't be sure that your interviewer will be notified of that, too) is different IMO. So your example reinforced my point of view as well. =)

I think we actually agree--I'd also say he should let them know right before the communication event.

Not gonna work for initial phone interviews....

This sounds simple, but the key is to avoid phone interviews. I'm terrible on the phone as well, and when I was looking for my last job I thought about this a lot. Looking back, I had received a job offer about 90% of the time when I had a face to face interview, but for phone interviews it was more like 10%. With that in mind, I focused on getting in person interviews the last time and found that even if someone asks for a phone interview, often you can ask/convince them to do a in-person. This might mean you have to travel on your own (or maybe they'll pay for it), but by knowing your previous rate of success you can focus on getting the job you want.

Is there such a thing as an interview over IM?

I'm deaf, and almost every company I've interviewed at which was going to perform a phone interview was willing to either a) skip the phone interview; or b) perform the interview over IM instead. (Even IBM was flexible enough to set up an IM interview over IRC on one occasion, and GTalk with a couple of their engineers on another.) Don't be afraid of asking to interview using over IM rather than over the phone.

Well, I think that refusing you(and OP) and interview because of situation might create some HR issue?

I've done this twice for candidates with speech impediments. It works well.

90% of the time you'd have to go through a phone interview. A recruiter from the company or someone will first like to speak to you. I never had an in-person job interview without someone speaking to me on phone. Unfortunately, the situation is kinda hard sell. You should look for a company/team that values your tech skills, team player, writing skills, more than your ability to communicate verbally. A company that is more human. You should try to get recommendations from people who can attest your skills. I would love to hire you, if only I could.

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