Accessibility and Job Boards Cathy Corrigan DePaul University, School of CTI 243 South Wabash, Chicago, IL USA ABSTRACT Beginning in 1990 with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, most companies were prohibited from discriminating against disabled applicants in their recruitment and hiring process. When the law was passed the internet had yet to become mainstream, but since then, internet recruiting has become one of the top recruiting methods in the corporate world, with many companies now utilizing job posting and application websites to recruit candidates. This study evaluates five popular job boards for accessibility by vision-impaired and mobility-impaired users. The job search page of each site was evaluated using the Functional Accessibility Evaluator, which analyzes HTML per specific rules designed to enhance accessibility for vision-impaired users. The forms on these job search pages were also evaluated for keyboard accessibility for mobility-impaired users. The results of this study highlight important accessibility barriers in each of the sites, and suggest that more work needs to be done to make these sites accessible to disabled job applicants. KEY WORDS Accessibility, job boards, ADA, employment, disabled INTRODUCTION One of the many ways the internet revolution has changed our lives is the impact it has had on how employers find employees and job seekers find jobs. Although companies continue to recruit by word of mouth, employee referrals and newspaper ads, the internet has become a major player in employee recruitment. A 2005 study by Cornell University found that the internet was one of the leading recruitment methods of private companies [1]. Large corporations typically post available jobs on their own private websites, but they also often use popular job boards like Careerbuilder and Monster as well. Many companies have diversity policies in which they state that they will not discriminate against disabled applicants in the hiring process based on their disability. Posting jobs on sites administered by third parties, such as Monster and Careerbuilder, could arguably be considered a critical part of the hiring process for such companies, and so the accessibility of these and other online recruitment and application sites that companies commonly utilize should be of concern. Disabled applicants are very much like other applicants when it comes to internet use in a job search. The 2005 Cornell study found that although there were differences between disabled and non-disabled persons when it came to using the internet, disabled people use the internet for job hunting at the same rate as their non-disabled counterparts [1]. There is little evidence to date, however, that job posting sites are fully accessible to the disabled. The same 2005 Cornell study evaluated 10 job boards and 31 corporate job sites, and found that just a few of the job boards and the corporate sites were accessible[1]. 2. THE ADA Passed into law in 1990, The Americans with Disabilities Act stipulates that companies can not discriminate against disabled candidates in the recruitment process, that applicants can not be discriminated against in the job application process, and that employers make “reasonable accommodations” when a candidate applies for a job [5]. In addition, the US Department of Justice determined that Title III of the ADA, which applies to the private sector, stipulates that businesses conduct “effective communication” with the public whether it be on the internet or through other means, a stipulation that also highlights the importance of access to information for the “consumer” of the communications of the business [6]. The ADA and the subsequent interpretations of its requirements seem to provide a legal foundation for ensuring that online job posting and application websites be made accessible to disabled applicants, however there have been no cases filed to date against any employer by a disabled job applicant or applicants under the ADA in regards to website accessibility. Only a few cases have been brought to court by disabled website users under the ADA in general. So far courts have not ruled in favor of the disabled, although the tide may be turning. The first case brought on behalf of disabled internet users under the ADA was the National Federation of the Blind vs AOL in 1999. The class action suit argued that AOLs services were inaccessible to vision-impaired users, as certain sections of the site were not useable by persons who relied on screen readers to access the site [7]. The case was resolved with a settlement where the NFB agreed to drop the suit if AOL made modifications to its site to make it accessible to vision-impaired users. Three years later, in the 2002 case Gumson vs Southwest Airlines, the court ruled that Southwest did not have to make its website accessible to vision-impaired users. [8]. The most recent lawsuit filed under the ADA was brought against Target Corporation. The NFB sued Target, claiming its online shopping functions were inaccessible to vision-impaired users. In 2006, the court decided not to dismiss the case. The case continues on the premise that websites are places of public accommodation, and thus subject to the provisions of the ADA [9]. Given the stipulations of the ADA when it comes to the job application process, the intention of the law to prohibit discrimination in the employment process, and the possibility that the courts are starting to rule in favor of website accessibility for disabled persons, job board businesses whose purpose is to assist companies in finding employees and job applicants in finding jobs should be concerned with the accessibility of their job posting and application websites. 3. SITE EVALUATION This paper looks at the accessibility of the job search pages of five popular job boards – Careerbuilder, Monster, Snagajob, Hotjobs, and JobCentral. Where possible, the “advanced” search pages of each site were examined. Each page was evaluated for accessibility by vision-impaired and mobility-impaired users. The pages tested were jobsearch.monster.com jobs.careerbuilder.com hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-search-advanced www.snagajob.com/job-seeker/jobs/search-results.aspx www.jobcentral.com The job search pages of each board were analyzed using the Functional Accessibility Evaluator from the University of Illinois, to determine how well the pages conform to the CITES/DRES HTML Best Practices, a “statement of techniques for implementation of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines” [11]. The sites were then tested to determine if the forms and controls on the site were usable to a mobility-impaired user who has to rely on keyboard access for navigating the site. The pages were evaluated in terms of how well they met the following criteria for form design and accessibility outlined by Horton in Access by Design: Design simple and clear forms Design forms for keyboard accessibility Apply logical sequence to form elements Don’t auto-populate form fields with text. [13]. The tests conducted for the purpose of this report were not designed to be a comprehensive evaluation, but instead a targeted view of each site’s accessibility. Hopefully the results summarized here will give the reader some general information about how accessible a site might be, based on the design of one critical function on one page in each site. 4. TEST RESULTS A summarization of the results of the testing of the five job boards’ job search pages using the FAE is presented in Figure 1. %Pass N a v i g a ti o n & Orientation Document Title Navigation Bars Section Headings Form Controls Doc Linearization Data Tables Frames Access Keys Text Equivalents Images Embedded Objects Scripting D e v i c e Independence Styling Text Styling C o n t e n t Positioning Images H T M L Standards W 3 C Specifications %Warn %Fail % N/A 40 0 75 20 20 40 0 0 20 0 0 0 50 0 0 20 0 0 0 40 0 0 60 0 20 80 40 0 0 0 40 0 20 0 50 5 0 20 60 100 100 0 100 80 70 40 30 0 20 10 30 20 60 0 20 0 40 20 40 0 Figure 1. 5. DISCUSSION Analysis of the results from the FAE evaluation shows that the majority of the HTML problems found on the five sites were in the categories of Document Title, Form Controls and Image Styling. For each category, the pages were evaluated per one specific HTML rule or rules that, if implemented, would make the page accessible to visually impaired users who rely on screen-reading technology. The rules for the Document Title, Form Controls and Image Styling categories and the sites which failed these rules are presented in Figure 2. HTML Rules Document Title The page should contain exactly one title element. The text content of each h1 element should match all or part of the title content Form Controls Each form control should be associated with a label element, either through encapsulation or id reference Image (Styling) Each img element should have alt text Avoid using img elements for stylistic purposes such as separator bars or list bullets; use CSS instead Site which failed rule Monster Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs, JobCentral, Snagajob Monster, Careerbuilder, JobCentral, Snagajob Monster, Careerbuilder, JobCentral, Snagajob Monster, Careerbuilder Figure 2. Only one page failed the first criteria for Document Title, regarding title tags. A manual examination of jobsearch.monster.com revealed that there was a second set of empty title tags on the page, a mistake that was most likely overlooked in development. All five job search pages, however, failed the second standard for Document Title regarding the use of

tags. The rule states that the text in the

tags should match all or part of the text in the