A basketball and tennis champion who is also a radio DJ has admitted he had to lie on a job application.
Dylan Alcott, who won gold at the Beijing and Rio Paralympics in two different sports, said telling the truth in the online forms was often costly.
The 27-year-old Melbourne-based athlete and motivational speaker told of why lying about his disability on an online application form had been the only way for him to get a job interview.
A basketball and tennis champion who is also a radio DJ has admitted he had to lie on a job application (Dylan Alcott pictured with his girlfriend Kate Lawrence)
‘I remember when I applied for a job when I was a youngster and the fifth thing I was asked was, “Do you have a disability?”,’ he told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night.
‘Then six more drop-down menus came up before they even knew anything about me.’
The wheelchair tennis grand slam champion said the bureaucratic nature of job application forms often overlooked whether someone like him was ‘good for the role’ or ‘could do the job’.
‘They had no idea about my style, anything about me at all really,’ he said.
Dylan Alcott, who won gold at the Beijing and Rio Paralympics in two different sports, said telling the truth in the online forms was often costly (pictured in 2016 winning the Newcombe medal)
The wheelchair tennis grand slam champion said the bureaucratic nature of job application forms often overlooked whether someone like him was ‘good for the role’ or ‘could do the job’
Alcott described turning up for a job interview only to be asked why he didn’t disclose the fact he was a wheelchair user, having clicked the ‘no’ box for the disability question.
‘I turned up and they said, “Why didn’t you tell us you were in a wheelchair?”,’ he said.
‘And I said, “If I did would you have got the interview?”.
‘And they said, “Of course you would have” and I said, “No way”.’
Alcott, a Triple-J broadcaster who also has a long-term girlfriend Kate Lawrence, said he was ‘really embarrassed’ about having a disability when he was younger (pictured at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games)
Alcott, a Triple-J broadcaster who also has a long-term girlfriend Kate Lawrence, said he was ‘really embarrassed’ about having a disability when he was younger.
‘Before I was a Paralympian and on radio, when I was growing up I really struggled about the fact that I had a disability,’ he said.
‘I struggled to be comfortable with who I was and I really wanted to try and change the way that people view people with a disability.
‘People think we are broken, less capable, unemployable, undateable, can’t have sex, don’t travel, don’t do the things that an able-bodied person does.’
The motivational speaker was born with a tumour wrapped around his spinal chord.